February 20, 2023 |
Are you in the mood for gothic Victoriana? Erdem is. He was Inspired by the renovations to his Bloomsbury townhouse which he discovered was a house for fallen women in the 19th Century. Peeling back the layers of arsenic green wallpaper he began to think about the lives lived there, discovering that by 1892, the house had been a sanctuary for 3216 women. With them in mind, he lavished his collection with jet beads (made fashionable by a mourning Queen Victoria, who sourced them from the Yorkshire town of Whitby, of Dracula fame). He played with Victorian silhouettes from flounced hems and full skirts, to ballooning leg-o-mutton sleeves which appeared on gowns and coats. The designer gave these historical elements a 21st-century twist by presenting his swagged, lace dresses and taffeta-sleeved overcoats in neon green and orange. rave-meets-romance? That would have had the old Queen reaching for her vapours.
Photography by Jason Lloyd-Evans
