Emerging from lockdown into the lushness of the English countryside—that far-off dream has become a reality, at least through the forest portal that Erdem Moralioglu has created for his pre-spring collection. “We went to a place on the outskirts of Epping Forest, which is on the edge of London,” he relates. “It’s a body of work made entirely during lockdown. I can’t say how satisfying it’s been to see it all come together, the feeling of being back doing what we do.”
The designer had managed to buy his fabrics before the March cutoff. “We did the fittings on Zoom calls, with people from my studio in their homes, one on a houseboat, sewing on pearls,” he says. Now, Moralioglu’s store in South Audley Street has also reopened, operating with all the safeguards imposed by new British regulations for “nonessential” retail.
The gritted-teeth determination to weave romance from scant resources, and in the face of adversity, has been in Moralioglu’s character since the beginning of his business in one windowless room 15 years ago. He kept it up in the time of COVID-19, and his creative escape hatch is a collection which draws on the juxtaposition of Regency dress and the 1960s. “I felt there was a synergy between those times,” he says. “They’re centuries apart, but they were both times of revolution, experimentation, and progress.”
That’s another Erdem-ism: looking into history to draw subtle parallels with the current state of the world. Would you be carrying this political messaging upon your body, should you choose to invest in his classical goddess-like caped dress, shimmering with sheer sequins? Would you be spiritually wo-manning the barricades in a corduroy suit with a dandyish ruffled shirt? Narratives and character-conjuring are essential fuel for Moralioglu’s creative energies, but, he says, “whether or not people can understand that becomes irrelevant. What’s important is the emotional attachment people form with clothes, that they have a permanence to them over five, 10, 15 years. Holding onto your clothes—maybe we’re moving towards that.”
Seasonless-ness is one of the topics of these times, and who knows how that concept will transform the way fashion operates? In the meantime, Erdem’s collection is accompanied by a kind of teaser in video form. He shot it with a tiny crew, with all the correct social distancing and sanitizing protocols necessary to do anything these days. It’s enigmatic, all this communing with nature in the leafy English undergrowth, but it also suggests that Erdem might well be one of those designers who is in the process of discovering even better, deeper—and, yes, more long-lasting—avenues to explore in bringing his characters alive onscreen than in the traditional runway format.
