Dilara Findikoglu titled her spring collection “Cage of Innocence.” “It’s about giving freedom to my ancestors and to anyone who never had freedom. I feel like women have been kept in cages of innocence and purity, told they have to be clean and embody virginity—all that kind of stuff. But today, we step out of that cage.” She delivered on that promise. The models on her runway moved like natural forces – unleashed, untamed, extreme, and absolutely liberated.

The opening looks were white, draped over corsetry: innocent at first glance, yet carrying troubling undercurrents of tension, even pain. Limbs and faces were streaked with dirt. The models appeared in trance-like states, disturbed, dressed in fragments of collapsing lace lingerie, their faces obscured by metal jewelry sourced by Dilara in Istanbul. One carried an open handbag, its contents threatening to spill out. A woman on the verge of a breakdown? No – a woman ready to cast off societal norms and make her voice heard, loud and clear.

Findikoglu is one of the reasons London still matters.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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