Simone Rocha was born in Dublin on 11 September 1986, the daughter of the designer John Rocha. She attended her first fashion show as an infant and has described following her father into the field as "inevitable". Between 13 and 18 she worked in his studio. Dyslexia made school difficult, she has said, and art class was "the only place I felt really good".
She trained at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and then took her MA at Central Saint Martins under the celebrated course director Louise Wilson. Her graduate collection was shown at Tate Modern and at London Fashion Week in 2010.
Dover Street Market gave her a space after that first show, and she has remained with the store since; the Paris boutique Colette also stocked her early. In August 2015 she opened her first standalone shop on Mount Street in London, followed by stores in New York and Taiwan. She has shown every spring and autumn since 2012.
Rocha's clothes reimagine Elizabethan and Victorian silhouettes in a modern register, setting pearls, lace, patchwork and handwork against unexpected materials such as pink neoprene, and drawing on both her Irish and Chinese heritage. In 2021 she spoke about how motherhood had shaped her designs. She added menswear in 2023.
Notable projects include a 2018 Moncler Genius collection, a 2021 collaboration with H&M, Billie Eilish's look for the 2023 Met Gala and, in January 2024, a guest haute couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier.
Her Fall 2026 show, staged in February 2026 in the faded grandeur of Alexandra Palace, took Irish equine culture as its theme: Enbarr, the white horse of Irish mythology that carries riders to Tír na nÓg, the paintings of Jack B. Yeats, Mike Newell's 1992 film Into the West and Perry Ogden's photographs of Dublin's pony kids. It also introduced a substantial collaboration with Adidas Originals, woven into the main line: three-stripe track jackets waisted with lace, ruffle-front track pants and a redrawn trefoil, alongside a dress composed entirely of long ribbon rosettes, a shaggy shearling gown and crinolines fastened by hook and eye and scarlet ribbon, in a palette taken from Yeats. "I wanted this mythicism cut through with reality," she said backstage. Vogue's Luke Leitch wrote that despite "the wildness of the ride, Rocha's hand stayed firmly on the reins".
The season before, Spring 2026, had explored the awkward grandeur of the debutante, in crinoline, organza and sequins mixed with menswear, while Fall 2025 cast the actor Fiona Shaw, Alexa Chung and Bel Powley in a characterful show that revisited motifs from across her archive.
Her honours include Emerging Talent, Ready-to-Wear (2013) and the New Establishment Award (2014) at the British Fashion Awards, Harper's Bazaar Young Designer of the Year (2014), British Womenswear Designer of the Year (2016) and Independent British Brand at the Fashion Awards (2021).
She is married to the cinematographer and photographer Eoin McLoughlin, who has made films and campaigns for the label. They have two children.