The Path to Liberation. Dilara Findikoglu SS23

September 18, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

If Ti West’s “X” and “Pearl” (the A24 film productions starring Mia Goth) are contemporary slashers revamping old-school horror vocabulary for a new generation, then Dilara Findikoglu‘s hypnotizing spring-summer 2023 collection is a fresh take on Alexander McQueen and John Galliano’s 1990s dark anglomania book, from the former’s infamous interpretation of Jack The Ripper stories to the latter’s gothic Victorian sophistication. But don’t get it wrong: the designer isn’t imitating the legends. She’s becoming a London-based legend herself, telling through fashion her own, personal stories. “This collection is about my journey to physical and spiritual freedom,” Findikoglu explained. She elaborated that a return during the pandemic to her birthplace, Istanbul, had begun the process of liberation we saw expressed on the runway. During her 18 months in the city, its association with her childhood memories plus some visa problems acted as her madeleine. “Because of the visa problems I felt trapped. And that’s the feeling that I had throughout my whole childhood and teenage years. I just wanted to get out, beyond the control of lots of factors like religion, like tradition – things that I couldn’t change.”

And so began the process of conception and creation of a collection whose pieces in some cases – such as the mini-pannier dress decorated with a universe of plaited locks of hair – took six months to realize. It came in four phases, characterized by Findikoglu as “trapped child,” “chained good girl,” “the funeral of Dilara’s own past,” and lastly “rebirth.” Layers of tulle were used to trap totemic elements. Upcycled vintage Victorian silk brocades were recast into bodices to reinforce the sense of a second life unfolding. Menswear jackets were worn, pulled down from the back and held at the wrist, as nearly cast aside shackles. A corseted look wrapped in vintage Union Jacks and topped with a crown of braids articulated Findikoglu’s transport to here. Coins and bells, emblems plucked from vintage Anatolian pieces, jangled on the runway as they passed. We knew that as there was no soundtrack, just a focusing silence as the models walked in the romantically destroyed rooms of a 19th-century hotel that will soon be demolished. A train made of old tailoring tugged and scratched against the puckered parquet and kicked up dust. There was a lot of dark sexuality – a lot of skin. “To me this comes from that feeling of being trapped,” said Findikoglu. “I want to take my burdens off: I feel strangled with modesty, I hate modesty, I want to destroy it.” Ghostliness and vivacity wrestled gorgeously together in a collection that was deeply mixed-up, and something of a classic.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Hard-Folklore. Chopova Lowena SS23

September 18, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

For Chopova Lowena, spring-summer 2023 collection means first fashion show in the brand’s history. It has become a sort of tradition that the London Fashion Week goers are mass-swirling in the label’s signature multi-pleated carabiner-suspended kilts Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena’s business is growing organically, so going for a runway experience felt like the right step. The driving energy the designers unleashed on the runway, personified to the max by their gang of friends, family, collaborators, and street-cast models stomping through a loud cacophony of Bulgarian folk song, Lacrosse-match cheering, and metal music – it was fashion moment. “We had three months to fit everyone, so they all felt perfect. Right space, right sound, a great experience emotionally, a different way of walking,” Emma Chopova declared afterward. Standing next to her, Laura Lowena chimed in: “Yeah, we wanted to make sure the time was right, that we could really create the Chopova Lowena world for everyone to see. And I think that waiting was the right thing to do. Especially after such a quiet few years, it felt amazing to bring people – our community – together like this.” The impressive part was to see everything Chopova Lowena have been building up through their lookbooks and videos come to life, confirmed as a fully formed multiplicity of looks, prints, denim, tailoring, skirts over dresses, metal jewelry, tinsel knits, with mad-cozy boots, hand-drawn cartoony artwork, cotton armlets, and all. It’s all completely coherently styled and identifiable, yet simultaneously it looked as if each person was having a good time walking around in their own clothes. Men owned kilts and uniform skirts with conviction for the first time since Jean Paul Gaultier in the 1980s. Although, Lowena firmly pointed out, “we don’t really think in terms of men and women. We think of people.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Exploration. Paria Farzaneh SS23

September 18, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Paria Farzaneh has built her platform London-based through a fiercely independent exploration of her Iranian heritage. The designer has used her brand as a means to challenge the western perception of Middle Eastern culture and aesthetic, by boldly blurring the lines between the two distinctly different worlds that have informed her experience. For her spring-summer 2023 fashion show, she invited her guests to Phoenix Garden, a charitably established community space. In a pre-show spiel there was talk of this collection reflecting Iran’s apparently 1.68 percent of citizens who are nomadic. Farzaneh mixes blatant ethnographic touches, almost costume, with highly sophisticated pieces that float above cultural codes; pants and shorts cut with a side-leg pleat, for instance, were fresh and new. The shroudy, geometrically cut lacy pieces were based on curtains Farzaneh remembered in her grandma’s bathroom. “I think in the fashion industry, utmost honesty is very lacking,” said the designer. So how to walk away from the table with a win in this dishonest business? The nomads of any culture who share Farzaneh’s roving curiosity, wherever they hail from, should understand her codes.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Tiny Dancer. Harris Reed SS23

September 17, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

There’s no need to explain why this London Fashion Week won’t feel like a usual affair. The somber events of fate – the death of Queen Elizabeth – couldn’t help but have overtaken Harris Reed’s chosen position as one of the first designers to show in London. The plan was to stage his joyfully glam, celebratory queer show as a move-on, literally, from the high-drama static tableaux he’s worked on for a couple of seasons. It was a performance which was to have acted as a kind of ta-da curtain-raiser for all the fizzy anticipation people had been feeling about the first full comeback of shows since the end of the pandemic. Conscious of the very different load of responsibility that his massively sculptural looks were now going to carry on their scaffolded shoulders, Reed spoke up. During the days when there were heart-searching discussions about whether the week should be canceled altogether, he posted a respectfully-toned text pleading for the survival of the fragile ecosystem of young brands – his friends – for whom canceling could’ve spelled financial ruin, with no hope of recouping insurance on money already spent. “It has been a challenging two years… in these two years I have been absolutely blown away by how incredibly supportive the fashion community is in London. When put through massive challenges, designers, models, movement directors, casting directors, nail artists, [and] writers have supported one another, lifting one another up,” he wrote. “London is a place where community, creativity, and cultivation should always be in the forefront of what we support and nurture.” And he tagged all the names of the designers and friends he is “honored to be showing alongside.”

It was a generous, much-shared gesture, illustrating something of how Reed’s popularity as an optimistic personality-about-fashion has been a contributory factor in the massive amounts of attention, celebrity-wears, and magazine covers he’s managed to magnetize at an almost absurdly early stage of his career. So: it was on with the Debutante Ball-themed show, the hysteria generated by the appearance of Adam Lambert singing “Nessun Dorma” only slightly dialed back, given the circumstances. Earlier, in his studio, Reed related how his inspiration was a cross between Victorian crinolines and the great glittering days of drag clubs in New York. He has a bold sense of unputdownable optimism, which he attributes to his American upbringing. It shows in the scale of his ambition to make clothes which aspire to haute couture, or at least, the look of it. Fitting clothes to the body to be inspected in movement and in the round presented a technical hurdle, not quite a leap, if one was being Paris-picky. But then again, Reed’s can-do, let’s-pull-together American cheerleading has been a great asset to have around London in a time of crisis.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Through The Looking Glass. Rosie Assoulin SS23

September 17, 2022September 17, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Rosie Assoulin loves the surreal and the absurd, but never goes for gimmicks and non-sense. It’s what draws people to her designs. She can fall down the rabbit hole – quite literally this season, as her inspiration was Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll – and return with a collection of whimsical pieces that are just attainable enough for real people to want to wear them, as Sarah Spellings put it for Vogue. For spring-summer 2023, however, the biggest theme was the feeling and beauty of spring. The practical pieces were boldly colored or illustrated: a suit with green gingham shorts and a red gingham blazer; a richly illustrated brown suit adorned with flowers; bottle green shantung cargo pants, full pleated skirts, and camp-collared shirts. Dialing up the whimsy were pieces like a skirt with a buttressed waist, giving it dimension and ease at the same time. The most fun in Assoulin’s collections comes from the high-wattage capital G gowns. Through a series of ties, you can personalize the swags and layers in the gingham ball skirt to your liking. Paired with a long-sleeve crop top, it’s available for your most elaborate picnicking needs. A striking cornflower blue gown with a contrasting red belt has a keyhole neckline, a caped back, and a delicately tiered skirt reminiscent of something from the Gilded Age. In her studio, Assoulin pointed out how the tiers make seam lines that almost look like a suit in a deck of cards: an abstract spade, heart, and diamond. There’s something delightful in every fold.