Florals are very much in the DNA of British designer Erdem Moralıoğlu. And that makes his designs a wonderful resource here at Mary Jane Denzer for the spring season and all that we associate with it — bridal showers, rehearsal dinners and weddings, particularly the still-trending barn wedding.
It’s not only the prints, however, but Erdem’s textured use of materials that makes his dresses and gowns so engaging. A linen dress is overlayed with floral organza. A cream satin is presented ruched and off-the-shoulder. A floral chiffon is offset with sleek pleats.
Erdem linen dress with floral organza overlay.
Floral dresses and gowns – draped and layered asymmetrically or presented as two pieces with a flowing skirt and a plunging bodice, at once concealing and revealing the sinuousness, and sensuousness, of the female form – were on display Feb. 17 at the British Museum in London as the Erdem fashion house presented its Autumn-Winter 2024 Collection.
But this was the yin to the Erdem show’s yang. Coats with broad, bold collars in soft colors – gray, celadon and marigold – announced the confidence that is also part of womanhood.
That confidence and floral beauty served as homage to the striking, fiery New York City-born Greek soprano Maria Callas, especially her role in “Medea,” with runway models sporting kohl-rimmed eyes and shoes festooned with feathers and roses to channel their inner diva. (The British Museum location was not without its controversy– amid marbles from the Parthenon in Athens, known as the Elgin Marbles – a source of contention between the British and Greek governments.)
But Callas – whose birth centenary fans celebrated last year – was herself a controversial singer and cultural figure, her remains repatriated to Greece in 1977 after her final years of isolation in Paris.
“I wanted to show in this space that epitomized her Greek-ness,” Moralıoğlu said at the time of the show, adding, “I was interested in the idea of someone starting off somewhere and ending up somewhere else.”
And just as “Medea,” the ancient Greek play by Euripides and the 18th-century opera by Luigi Cherubini, became metaphors for Callas as a woman scorned by shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis once he married widowed first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy – although depending on the sources, Onassis continued to see Callas ,and Kennedy was fine with that – Vogue suggests Callas has become a metaphor for the multicultural Moralıoğlu, who was born in Montreal to an English mother and Turkish father and grew up there and in Birmingham, England.
His education reflects that transatlantic upbringing. Moralıoğlu graduated from Marianopolis College in Quebec, received a Bachelor of Arts from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, interned for Vivienne Westwood and moved to London in 2000 to study fashion at the Royal Academy of Art on a Chevening Scholarship, funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was then off to New York but relocated to London to establish his own label in 2005.
In 2018, he designed the costumes for Christopher Wheeldon’s ancient Greek-flavored ballet, “Corybantic Games.” Four years later, he expanded into menswear.
Moralioglu’s expansive creativity has led to various honors – including the British Fashion Council’s Women’s Wear Designer of the Year (2014), the International Canadian Designer of the Year at the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards (2017) and a Member of the Order of the British Empire, or MBE, (2020) – as his designs continue to be embraced on both sides of the Atlantic.
Photographs courtesy Erdem.
Tags: Erdem, Erdem Moralıoğlu, Maria Callas, Elgin Marbles, Erdem’s Fall 2024 Collection, Montreal, Quebec, Birmingham, England, New York, Greece, H&M, Royal Academy of Art, Christopher Wheeldon, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, spring, barn weddings, Mary Jane Denzer