February 24, 2025 |
It started with a whisper – inky black patent boots strutting the runway in measured cadence, waisted blazers drawn taut, oversized collars and over-extended white sleeves slicing through the air. Keburia’s London Fashion Week debut unfolded within the grand, unadorned halls of The Hellenic Centre, its soaring ceilings providing the perfect stage for slow-burning unravelling; but the show had just begun.
That whisper soon turned into a scream. The dolls fractured, their porcelain façades giving way to an explosion of silhouette and embellishment. Voluminous bubble hems ballooned into theatrical excess, sculptural puffed sleeves swelled beyond the body and layers of multicoloured jumpers tumbled in chaotic disarray. Berets – stacked precariously – grew into towering millinery sculptures, while beads, sequins and crystals shattered across fabrics, refracting light like the remnants of a broken chandelier.
Red houndstooth double-breasted blazers, adorned with bows upon bows, reimagined the 18th-century menswear staple through George Keburia’s feminine lens. Warped gloves, contorted into ghostly hands, clung to models in a surreal embrace – a literal figure-hugging gesture that marked the monochromatic finale with a ghostly intimacy.
It was a masterclass in decorative deconstruction – where the meticulous codes of Victorian dress were gleefully dissected and reassembled into something almost carnival-esque. Military appliqués and sharp tailoring provided moments of clarity amidst the chaos, grounding the collection’s fever-dream grandeur.
With AW25, the Georgian brand staged a spectacle both eerie and electrifying – an interrogation of elegance where broken dolls marched not in ruin, but in a triumphant, intoxicating revolution of reinvention.
Photography courtesy of Keburia.
