Now what do you do if you have fans in the vein of Michelle Obama, Samantha Cameron and Kate (errr, Catherine) Middleton: continue to churn out numbers of seeming decorum; shake things up so as not to breed predictability, the undoing of any designer? Or, how about prim with a sly impropriety? Sounds rather clever, no? Exactly what Erdem Moralioğlu attempted for S/S’12 ‒ to mesmerizing effect.
Erdem and florals go hand in hand, so much that his items can easily be recognized by the saturated botanical prints, which even went on to influence international fashion once. Unsurprisingly, this collection, too, was built on floral prints – found on banal old wallpapers (!). His sublime talent, though, allows him to inject a “Wedgewood preciousness” to these low-brow patterns, which he did by using a cornflower blue palette with the odd lemon and cherry red thrown in.
The knee-length dresses tailored close to the body seemed conservative at first sight, when actually they were subtly teasing: off the shoulder here or held on by shoe string straps there, a bit of a cleavage or a low back, and slinky semi-transparent layering.
The sensual sheerness of nude-coloured organza and lingerie-inspired lace dresses summed up best what Erdem attempted to do with this collection, which was a subtle game of sartorial hide and seek. “For everything that was shown, something was covered,” explains the designer. His beloved floral prints had to be immersed in the sheer laces, too, a painstaking process that gave the numbers a delicate precision.
A beautiful collection, indeed, which was rather sweet and thoughtful, too, as the saturated floral prints, knee-length hemline, knife-pleated skirts, lace and sheer fabrics felt like suggestions from Erdem on how to infuse a little style, grace and romance to your spring/summer wardrobe.