Holed up in the modernist London home of British chef Ruthie Rogers, Kristin Scott Thomas is passing a plate of pasta pomodoro to Sheila Atim. Christopher Kane and Roksanda Ilinčić are holding court in another corner (possibly digesting the Fall 2026 shows), and Keira Knightley and Ambika Mod gaze in awe at The River Café owner’s exquisitely pared-back decor designed by her late husband, Richard Rogers. The common thread? They are all there to toast their friend Erdem Moralıoğlu on his brand’s 20th birthday.
The day prior, more of Erdem’s inner circle—Glenn Close, Dame Helen Mirren, Ruth Wilson, Ben Whishaw—sat front row to watch his London Fashion Week anniversary show. They were greeted with a letter. In it, Erdem detailed the “imaginary conversation” he began two decades ago between the historical women—poet Radclyffe Hall, biologist Marianne North, the Duchess of Devonshire—who inspire him each season. “What binds them is curiosity and a resistance to neat definition,” he says of his multi-faceted muses. “They do not always agree, and that is the point.”
“Their voices bring the past into the present, from which we build our future,” the message continues. “The dialogue goes on. This is not a show about nostalgia, but about continuity.” So yes, the Fall 2026 collection looks back on the extraordinary career of a man steadfast in his commitment to helming an independent British fashion house, but it’s not a wistful walk down memory lane. “It’s really about ripping things up and merging them together to turn them into something new,” says the softly spoken Canadian creative, who can’t quite fathom that it has been 20 years. When I probe him on what he’ll remember when looking back at the Fall 2026 collection in another 20 years, he quips: “I’ll think that it’s all a bit mad, but in a really beautiful way.”
He remembers his first London Fashion Week outing back in 2006 as a steep learning curve. “Oh my gosh,” he reminisces. “First of all, I didn’t understand you had to work with a casting director, so I called every single agency myself trying to book a model. I had to learn the language of first options and second options fast.” His second (wonderful, we might add) slip-up? “I assumed it was quite a chic thing to end your show with a bride—I didn’t understand that it’s actually a very specific thing for couture. I really took it to heart.”
It’s interesting, then, that Fall 2026 doesn’t shy away from fabulous wedding wear. We saw a sneak preview of the anniversary collection on Charli XCX at the London premiere of Wuthering Heights, when the singer wore a veiled pink bridal gown that looked almost ghostly against the driving rain, and Erdem’s favourite new-season look is a “redraped and reformed” version of fall 2006’s pearlescent silk wedding dress, originally featuring a dramatic pleated skirt and a tulle shrouded headpiece sprouting feathers.
Other causes for celebration this season include two looks—one yellow, one blue—comprised of embroidery swatches and trial fabrics from the last 20 years. “To me, they’re the bookends of the collection, because we took something from the past to make something completely new,” he says. Plus, he painted his bedroom a pleasing shade of yellow at the age of five, so he’s always had a soft spot for it.
There’s plenty for his loyal cohort to covet, including the tiniest version of his signature Bloom bag to date and the “generous” zine that also greeted everyone on their seats. “I just love the idea that I’ve written a letter to everyone,” he says, now basking in the warmth of friends’ chatter and Rogers’s famous hospitality. It takes guts to weather the storm that is fashion right now, but Erdem stands tall with his community around him. A very happy birthday indeed.