Inspired by The Volcano Lover, Susan Sontag’s portrait of 18th century beauty Emma Hamilton, who married a volcanologist obsessed with Grecian vases and had a love affair with Lord Nelson, Erdem's spring 2021 collection tells a story. See every look now:
It reads like a mad experiment: lock up Erdem Moralioglu in his London house for four months, deny him access to the museums and libraries that oxygenate his storyteller mind, and throw in a Susan Sontag novel, then lean back and enjoy the show. “It begins with three people dancing on the lip of a volcano,” the designer said of the collection he authored and drew in quarantine.
A copy of the book served as the show notes, wrapped neatly in ivory tissue and placed on a ficus green velvet sofa in his South Audley Street store. The audience-less runway imagery was shot by a Grecian folly in Epping Forest and screened on an iPad handheld by Moralioglu himself. He had lost himself in the story of Hamilton, who lived in Naples at the cusp of the French Revolution and the seismic impacts it precipitated throughout Europe.
“There was something about this odd time that we’re living in, and the idea that there is something so much bigger than all of us that controls everything,” Moralioglu said, drawing a parallel between crises past and present. “It’s beauty in a time that’s very ugly, and the idea of creating something decadent with an underbelly of something poor.
Many of his embroidered muslin and organza dresses and 18th century floral jacquard numbers were treated with crinkling effects to evoke a sense of “poor,” which means something quite different in Moralioglu’s dainty world than it does to the rest of us. But within the folds of those fabrics, there was a feeling of resourcefulness, which illustrated the idea of beauty in a time of uncertainty.
“I get asked the same question: Are women’s tastes and wants changing now, given the situation? On the contrary, we have a customer who’s still buying special pieces. It’s the want for something you can wear in five and 10 years. As I enter my 15th year doing this, the most thrilling thing is seeing someone wearing your work from 10 years ago. I’ve always been obsessed with permanence,” Moralioglu asserted.
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