Floral-Appliqués by ERDEM Cruise 2015 Collection

What pretty things Erdem Moralioglu is strewing in our paths for resort so pretty that it makes visiting him for a cup of tea at his headquarters in east London a ridiculously tantalizing way to spend an hour. Picture it: Erdem, in his minuscule showroom with rails packed with spotted gazar, flowered lace, ruffles, and bouncy flounces, his model peeking from behind a screen in the corner, ready to get dressed, and you politely fighting a ravening urge to jump up, ransack the racks, and shove your feet into his pointy, floral-appliquéd shoes right there and then.

The only downside to this sensory immersion in Erdem-ness is that it makes it a touch difficult to hear what he’s saying which is something along the lines of “The artist’s wife, the artist as muse, muse as artist,” and wanting to concentrate on the work of “the human hand.” To reinforce the arty message, he shot his resort lookbook in the drawing studio of his alma mater, the Royal College of Art in Kensington. He points out that that chintzy floral motif, appliquéd onto a tulle bodice and decorating a boxy coat, is “reappropriated, redrawn and redrawn” from a fragment of antique fabric he found in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s archives. The bold, vigorous black-and-white flower embroideries smothering an organdy shirtdress have, he instructs, been “scribbled as if with a marker pen.”

Whatever it’s all delicious and extra-piquant, because this is the kind of deliciousness that is served with the built-in practicality and sanity that is Erdem all over. His ability to indulge in the makings of frou-frou and femininity, yet not make his customers feel like untouchable china dolls, is a real talent. He knows exactly where his customers young girls to the agelessly elegant are likely to go in his light, tweedy trenches, his just-below-the-knee dresses and skirts, and the long dresses with the side pockets he always puts in.

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

 Photo Credit/Source: The House of ERDEM

More To Love ... 

'ERDEM Fall/Winter 2014/15' 

Visits to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and to the costume holdings of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum started Erdem Moralioglu thinking about imperial treasures. In Vienna, he was dazzled by a roomful of Diego Velazquez’s portraits of the “extraordinary infantas” who married into the Habsburg dynasty or more specifically, by the artist’s depictions of their armorial bodices and stiff stomachers and the illusion they presented of flattened shapes.

Tweet

Share

Empire-line Dresses by ERDEM Pre-Fall 2014

Behind the scenes at the museum . . . there’s a young man at work. Oh! It’s Erdem Moralioglu. Strangely at home in the hushed corridors of the high-security store where the Victoria and Albert Museum keeps its treasures, here’s London’s new red carpet designer of the year, shooting his pre-fall lookbook. Specimen A is a long sleeveless dress with a full skirt in a jacquard of pink roses vibrating slightly oddly against a deep burgundy background, and a very good illustration of why its designer walked off with that title at the British Fashion Awards last week.

It’s Moralioglu’s eye for the decorative yet somehow uncomplicated party dress that wins him the love, as well as what he does with flowers and occasionally off-the-wall color combinations. This season, you’ll see these things in the hint of something veering toward the mid-to-late-sixties formalwear going on a certain whiff of that moment of debutantes and dinner dances, Empire-line dresses, jewelry, and evening gloves. “Actually, I researched fabrics and colors right here in the V&A archives,” he said, smiling. “So I thought it’d be lovely to shoot the clothes in here, and luckily, the museum kindly agreed.”

The difference between the museum’s period pieces and Erdem’s fil coupe florals and metallic jacquards is in the weight. Whereas the originals look incredible, but are often stiff, heavy, and scratchy to the touch, modern weaving techniques have lightened everything up to a wearable degree of waftiness. The original spirit of that bygone party era is captured in details like the flat velvet bows implanted at the point where two shoulder straps converge in the back of a dress, and the fine edging of re-embroidered guipure lace that finishes a neckline. Still, there’s nothing laboredly “vintage” about the result. Anyone can copy an old dress, but an Erdem is an Erdem that’s the trick.

It’s a point of view he’s developing into separates, too jeweled shirts, matching tops and skirts, lace-fronted sweatshirts, even a pair of copper micro-sequin trousers: casual-dressy, you could call it. “I want to think about what a woman would wear when she gets up, when she goes to lunch, dinner, and for evening,” he said. That’s not the kind of social research you can do in a museum, mind you. Not a worry, Erdem-wise: Moralioglu’s the most affably witty, down-to-earth company at any party (and at many a trunk show) from London to L.A. Plus, like his good friend Christopher Kane, he has the secret weapon of a sister his twin, Sara always on hand as his girl reality-checker.

The upshot? Well, young girls look their age in Erdem, and older women don’t look overly done up in it. It’s a particularly happy cross-generational convergence no one else in London quite achieves. Basically, he’s London’s answer to New York’s Oscar de la Renta or Rome’s VALENTINO but independent, a fraction of the age, and already addressing the world.

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

Photos: Courtesy of ERDEM

More To Love ....  

'Ultrafeminine Floral Prints by ERDEM F/W 2013/14'

'Erdem Moralioglu mixed textures, and matte and shine, with assurance and imagination, showcasing the elaborate craft for which he is famed. The show opened with charcoal tweeds woven with fronds of ostrich and strips of patent, and formal dresses and coats densely embroidered with different scale sequins to create their own shadow effects, as well as pieces in the densely layered, cutwork velvet foliate lace that Cristóbal Balenciaga loved to use in the sixties.'

Tweet

Share

Exquisite Floral Prints by ERDEM Cruise 2014

Tweet

Sulky teenage stepdaughters left to their own devices in a Roman palazzo. That’s the romantic way of reading these pictures, to hear Erdem Moralioglu talking. Or, then again? What you’re actually observing here is a pair of models in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, demonstrating the extent of what Erdem is adding to his girly, ladylike line under the guise of “resort.” And that, would you believe, means stuff as technically un-cocktail-y as sweatshirts and trackpants, biker and bomber jackets, and leather-implanted sweaters. “I always use pre-collections to experiment,” he says. “To practice my handwriting in different ways. I wanted to extend the vocabulary of the day-things I do.”

For a young name pigeonholed as a dress designer, there are certainly a lot of pants in this collection satin pajama types, lace-smothered trackpants, fluid printed ones. There’s a black lace jumpsuit with a slouchy waist in there, too. The trick, of course, is the way he’s Erdem-ized these and every other item from an apparently alien casual aesthetic, so the black leather biker and pencil skirt are painted with flowers, and the leather-fronted sweater is studded with jeweled daisies.

The result adds more to the separates repertoire of Erdem’s growing brand, and to the strong headway he’s made into the American wardrobe in the short space of the eight years he’s been in business. As for the dressy and outright feminine, there’s the full spectrum: short printed cotton shifts for winter sun holidays, and tweedy day-dresses for urban November, bouncy matelassé full skirts with matching shell tops, and his signature flower-embroidered cocktail frocks and slim, floor-sweeping eveningwear. Yes, they all look coherent and believable on a young girl (sulky or not), when worn with the pointy, bow-implanted black-and-white loafers he’s producing with Nicholas Kirkwood. But what’s canny about Erdem’s point of view is its ability to appeal across age groups and, increasingly, beyond the limits of “special occasion.”

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

Photos: Courtesy of ERDEM (via VOGUE)

Discover wonderful ERDEM F/W '13/14 items on Andrea's LYST 

Happy Shopping! LoL, Andrea

More To Love ... 

'Ultrafeminine Floral Prints by ERDEM F/W 2013/14' 

“I’ve always been quite afraid of the color black in my work,” said Erdem Moralioglu backstage before unveiling his ravishing collection, “but I liked the idea of doing ‘uncomfortable,’ reacting against myself, and seeing how many shades of black I could get in my show!”

&

'Amazing Lace by Christopher Kane F/W 2013/14'

Share