September 19, 2017 |
This season Erdem imagined the Queen in New York’s Harlem – one of those “what if?” situations prompted by the designer discovering a snap of HRH with legendary jazz musician Duke Ellington in the 1950s. Ellington would end up writing a song about her, “The Queen’s Suite” – which she replied, via letter, with the promise: “I’ll be listening.”
Erdem became fascinated by this idea of two different worlds colliding – post-show, he talked about a cross-cultural exchange that seemed important, now. So for SS18, he lifted at the young Queen to New York’s Cotton Club, known for it’s performances by important black performers and musicians – mashing-up the regal with the opulence of the Harlem Renaissance.
It meant queenly brocades, pinched tweed suiting and rich, balloon-hemmed ball gowns meeting the loucher, more undone silhouette of the 1930s. Gowns slipped slightly off the shoulder or fell away to the mid-calf into ruffles. Baggy opera gloves were dotted with crystals, pop-socks rolled down the model’s legs, cocktail gowns were worn with plastic cat’s eye sunglasses. It was a mash-up, a flight of imagination – Erdem at his very best.
Photographs by Jason Loyd Evans
