"I went to town this season," said Erdem Moralioglu backstage after his show. "From the beginning, I decided to just go all the way with what I love." Throwing off mental and even commercial constraints is a brave thing to do in a darkening economic moment, but the intense flare-up of color, embroidery, and bejeweling this designer laid on may be the very thing that confirms his future.
Why so? For the first time, he marshaled a collection that was completely together, stamped with distinct and confident personality—a love of whimsy in a young but couture-ish idiom—and underpinned by attentively serviced sponsorship deals. He d talked Taroni silks into providing lushly colored lengths of double duchesse, and he d worked on lime, purple, acid yellow, and orange prints that "looked blurry, like a landscape speeding past when you re on a train." The fabrics turned into short dresses with dance skirts, covered-up cocktail suits with flat bows detailing stand-up necklines and belts, and dramatic strapless gowns—pieces made all the more outstanding with over-embroidery and padding (hand-done by Jenny King, a friend in Brighton), and scattered chunks of asymmetric gumdrop-colored Swarovski crystals.
Worked in, too, was cream lace from the French manufacturer Sophie Halette (a long-standing relationship) and raincoats representing Erdem s continuing consultancy with Mackintosh (trenchcoats with lace in two cases). It made for a dramatic show of integrated ideas that left the audience with the memorable final image of a funnel-collared gown, smothered with jeweled embroidery in the bodice, dropping to the floor in a gorgeous length of purple moiré silk. Bravo.
