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The business of dressing up in lockdown, according to Erdem

Erdem Spring/Summer 2021 - Erdem
Erdem Spring/Summer 2021 - Erdem

BC (Before Coronavirus), Erdem Moralıoğlu, a star of London Fashion Week, staged his fashion shows in the National Portrait Gallery, just off Trafalgar Square in front of a packed audience that included Kristin Scott Thomas, Michelle Dockery, Helen McCrory and Ruth Wilson. This season he presented his collection in his shop in Mayfair to an audience of one – yours truly – using an iPad and some mannequins.

I wasn’t his only viewer. Throughout the day he’d given a series of one on one previews, either in person, or via Zoom to journalists in New York or Shanghai. I thought he might seem jaded or downcast, but like almost all the designers I have since talked to during this strangest of fashion months, he was relaxed and surprisingly upbeat. “Of course I had my moments of panic at the start," he says. “This shop was closed for three months. It was like watching a collapse in slow-mo."

Some clients never stopped dressing up. His beloved Mayfair boutique might have been in mothballs, but his small team visited customers at home, or offered styling advice via video. A woman in New York placed an order for a Swiss tulle, silver laminated tiered maxi skirt a few hours before I arrived. Retail may have been laid to waste, particularly in the US, where so much of his revenue comes from, but as a consequence, he’s selling more via his own website, and now has a growing bespoke business. Far from retreating into athleisure, he’s placing even more faith in the ethereal, romantic dress up clothes that made his name.

Erdem - Erdem
Erdem - Erdem

Next Spring’s collection, one of loveliest and most subtle, is inspired by Susan Sontag’s 1992 novel, The Volcano Lover, an account of the love triangle between Nelson, Emma Hamilton and her husband William and simultaneously an examination of the 1750 eruption of Vesuvius, and the political and artistic shadows it cast for decades after. The parallels with today struck a chord – as did the clothes of the late C18th. Empire lines, muslins, C18th brocades, military bows, cropped Spencer jackets all feature in this new collection, along with languid pearl jewellery, and a pearl encrusted trouser suit, each sewn on by hand.

“I can’t tell you the number of journalists who’ve asked whether I’m launching track pants,” he remarked wryly. The answer is a resounding no. That’s not to say he hasn’t relaxed the reins.

His long cotton dresses radiate a Rousseau-esque “undoneness” and could could easily be worn at home under one of his slouchy oversized cardigans, by an elegant, barefoot, sweatpants refusenik. There are also jacquard khaki parkas and for the first time, denim. Albeit in ivory. Dreamy but pragmatic. "I was working from my spare room during lockdown, so of course I thought about practicalities," he says, "but life will resume, and when it does, we’ll be here with beautiful clothes."

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