Vogue – 20 f\u00e9vrier 2018<\/p>\n
For his autumn\/winter 2018 show, the designer describes his sea-crossing journey to bring Adele Astaire, the American dancer turned English aristocrat, to life.<\/p>\n
by ELLEN BURNEY<\/p>\n
For Turkish-Canadian designer Erdem Moral\u0131o\u011flu, show season starts with an exchange with his favourite music curator, French sound artist Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Sanchez. \u201cWe always start banging heads about what the music will be quite early on in the process,\u201d Moral\u0131o\u011flu tells me at his headquarters in an old Whitechapel warehouse in London\u2019s East End. \u201cThere\u2019s always some sort of narrative and he send me things and I send him things. One ritual I find is that by listening to the music – often on the way to work – I can start to visually understand what look one might be, what look two is, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n
The soundtrack is still \u201ca work in progress\u201d when we meet, five days before his autumn\/winter 2018 show – but the tone is set in old castle stone. A collection of tweedy kilts, corduroy and jewel-encrusted gowns are inspired by \u201cthe extraordinary romance\u201d between 1920s American Broadway star Adele Astaire – sister of Fred – and Charles Cavendish, an English lord and son of the 9th Duke of Devonshire. The theme was cemented at Lismore Castle in Ireland, their marital home. \u201cI love the idea of this vaudeville, tinselly, kind of extraordinary girl who came from Hollywood then came to Ireland,\u201d says Moral\u0131o\u011flu, who visited the castle in Cork. \u201cA shine mixed with something tweedy and woolly – mixing these two kinds of worlds that really don\u2019t mix together at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 8.30 am and two coffees down, Moral\u0131o\u011flu is sitting for his portrait. Hot onn the heels of a sold-out collaboration with H&M in November, 2018 is coming on in leaps and bounds. In addition to his upcoming runway collection, Moral\u0131o\u011flu – who founded his label in 2005 and is best known for his demure and decorative gowns – is also designing a series of costumes for a Royal Ballet performance, which premieres in March. \u201cI am thrilled. I am spending so much time at the Opera House at the moment working on the ballet with [choreographer and the Royal Ballet’s Artistic Associate] Christopher Wheeldon, so that\u2019s been the most exciting thing this year, getting the wheels in motion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moral\u0131o\u011flu came to Lismore Castle by way of Chatsworth House, home to the Devonshires. \u201cI was with my friend Laura Burlington, who is married to William Cavendish, son of the Duke of Devonshire, and I actually ended up going to Ireland. She was showing me around and the perimeter of this pool that Adele Astaire had built really kind of stuck in my head – the outline of this 1920s pool that was then filled in.\u201d<\/p>\n
To begin, he looked back to Adele’s early performance days as a dancer. \u201cThese kind of drop-waist. 1920s shapes felt really interesting and modern,\u201d he says, with a nod to his splendid silver drop-waist dress embroidered in sequins. \u201cBut also these kilts and skirts that had kind of inverted box pleats in wool,\u201d he says pointing to an old photograph of a traditional Irish costume.<\/p>\n
He describes the autumn collection as feeling quite \u201cmasculine and dark.\u201d Tweeds, such as an oversized double-breasted men\u2019s coat, are combined with bright, light jacquards. \u201cThere was also that idea of the formality of a castle and what finishings you would find in there combined with something that\u2019s quite casual and almost day[wear]. Like what would happen if you took Fred Astaire\u2019s jacket or her husband\u2019s tweed coat over this kind of shiny tulle dress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moral\u0131o\u011flu turns to his mood board, pointing to black and white portraits of Adele. \u201cThe graphic polka dots seemed to be a weird recurring theme.\u201d They bounce throughout his own collection in oversized tulle overlays. Then there\u2019s a picture of a Twenties star-spangled swimsuit that Moral\u0131o\u011flu spotted at the Mus\u00e9e des Arts D\u00e9coratifs in Paris. \u201cI love the idea of the star motif mixed with these very Irish tweeds.\u201d The motif shines on a cape, skirt and dress.<\/p>\n
Back at Chatsworth, he worked with the archive and the family walked him through this \u201cwhole world\u201d, where Astaire and her future husband met when she was performing in London. Moral\u0131o\u011flu was presented with some scrapbooks made by a local family in Ireland \u201cwho were totally obsessed\u201d with the romance between Adele and Lord Cavendish. \u201cI felt that there was something so wonderful about this family that observed the couple at a distance, and almost documented what would happen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
At this point, I suggest an alternative career as a biographer. \u201cMaybe film,\u201d he muses. \u201cMaybe?\u201d But he\u2019s not serious. He returns to his current muse. \u201cIn a way I really need that kind of narrative to be the catalyst of something, and then from there things come. Whether or not the stories are legible when you see the collection in stores, I don\u2019t know, but it\u2019s that tool that I need.\u201d\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vogue – 20 f\u00e9vrier 2018 How…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fs-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredericsanchez.com\/fredericsanchez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}