The Magda Butrym Rose, and How to Wear It

Magdalena Butrym founded her label in Warsaw in 2014, and within a few seasons a single motif had done the work that usually takes a decade of advertising. A rose, hand-formed from fabric, fixed to a shoulder. You can identify the house from across a room by it, which is a rare thing for a designer under fifteen years old.

Here is what the rose is, why it keeps returning, and how to wear one piece without it wearing you.

Where the rose comes from

Butrym was born in 1985 and built her atelier in Warsaw on slow couture methods, working with Eastern European craft traditions and vintage couture references rather than the Paris and Milan house codes her peers borrowed from. The rose belongs to that lineage. It is not printed and it is not embroidered flat. It is constructed, petal by petal, from the same cloth as the garment, then attached by hand so it holds a three-dimensional shape.

That construction is the point. A printed flower is decoration applied to a surface. A formed rose is a piece of sculpture the garment carries, which is why it reads at distance and why it survives being photographed.

How the rose appears this season

The motif has moved off the shoulder and into the structure of the clothes, which is a more interesting place for it.

• Built into tailoring. The cotton blazer with rose peplum in black and the wool blazer in grey place sculptural roses beneath the front pockets, where they flare the hem into a peplum. The flower is doing a tailoring job, not sitting on top of one.
• On eveningwear. The strapless cotton blouse with rose peplum uses the same trick on a bare shoulder.
• Embroidered into knitwear. The cotton vest with embroidered roses in cream and the turtleneck version in brown take the motif down to a quieter register, worked flat into the knit.
• Scattered as appliqué. The floral appliqué strap midi dress distributes small formed flowers across the body rather than concentrating them at one point.

How to wear one rose piece

One rule covers most of it. The rose is the loudest thing in the outfit, so let it be the only loud thing.

With the peplum blazers, that means a plain base and a straight trouser. A black knotted tank underneath keeps the front of the body clean so the peplum reads as shape rather than clutter. Skip the statement earring. The flower is already at the eye line.

With the embroidered knits, the opposite applies. Those are quiet enough to layer, and they take a shirt underneath and a coat over the top without competing.

The mistake to avoid is pairing a rose piece with another heavily worked garment. Two sculptural elements in one outfit cancel each other out and the result reads busy rather than considered.

Why it matters commercially

The rose is the reason Magda Butrym became recognisable quickly. It has been worn by Hailey Bieber, Natalie Portman, Anya Taylor-Joy and Kim Kardashian, it carried the label onto the BoF 500, and it survived a 2024 collaboration with H&M without being cheapened, which is the harder test. A motif that can appear at two price points and still mean something at the top one is doing real work.

For a buyer, that recognisability cuts both ways. A rose piece is the most photographed thing you will own from the house and the most memorable, which makes it a poor choice if you need a garment nobody notices twice.

Frequently asked questions

Read more on whether Magda Butrym is a luxury brand, browse designer jackets, and shop the full Magda Butrym collection at Coveti.