British Classics. S.S. Daley AW25

February 23, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Steven Stokey-Daley served us the great, British classics, revisited and refreshed, with good humour. Cropped trenches (Burberry could take notes). Cool pea-coats. Tailored bermudas. Full-skirts in floral prints worn with work-jackets (the look gave Frazzled English Woman energy!). And then there was Marianne Faithfull. A rendition of frilly blouse she was famously photographed wearing in the late 1960s was on the runway. A lovely chunky knit “Stay Faithfull To Marianne” was there, too. The designer was quick to make it clear he hadn’t jumped on the bandwagon of her recent passing. “Maggie Smith, Kate Bush, and Marianne Faithfull have been the three women who’ve always meant so much to me,” he said. S.S. Daley reminds us than we need London Fashion Week, even if it’s in (hopefully temporary) shambles.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

Venus In Chaos. Dilara Findikoglu AW25

February 23, 2025February 23, 2025 | Design & Culture by Ed

Dilara Findikoglu fired up London Fashion Week with her outing at Slimelight, the longest-running Goth nightclub in town. Lead by Lara Stone, a pack of ferociously badass women, clad in hyper-corsetry and second-skin chiffon body stockings stalked through the dark space, utterly entrancing the viewers. Entitled “Venus in Chaos”, the collection was “a divine feminine mutiny“, as the designer summed up in her press-notes. Botticelli-goth hair, a bustier covered with hundreds of shells, red velvet jackets (un)finished with punk-ish safety pins, unexpected cuts in the most “risky” places, tattered hems and ripped lace: all that created an extreme impression of total liberation from societal norms – and the pleasure of sexual self-possession. It’s easy to compare Dilara’s subversive work to John Galliano or Alexander McQueen’s, aesthetics-wise, but what makes her differ is her powerful female gaze that truly makes you believe these otherworldly women are here to break the patriarchal system.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

High & Low. Burberry SS25

September 19, 2024September 19, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

While Burberry‘s financial performance is under scrutiny, it seems to me that Daniel Lee has found his ground at the brand. His last collection already had that “something”; spring-summer 2025 is a further exploration of Britishness (through a London lens) meeting modernity. A spirit of late 2000’s London style was palpable, especially in the imaginative clash of high and low: maxi-skirts worn with polos, utilitarian parkas with dazzling, embellished dresses. A cropped trench jacket styled with cargo pants was another highlight, just like Maya Wigram’s faded-green denim look. The storm flap, epaulettes, shoulder vent, Napoleon collar and belt of the house-archetype trench were intelligently applied across multiple garments including open-backed dresses, a popper-peppered twinset, and abbreviated, feather-collared jackets. This was a good show with good clothes.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

The Well Of Loneliness. Erdem SS25

September 18, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

This season, Erdem delivered one of his best collections… ever. It’s just felt breathtakingly beautiful without being frou-frou. There was an aristocratic, yet romantically decaying quality about it. And between the lines, a meaningful context that didn’t make the spring-summer 2025 collection feel heavy with history as it often happens with Erdem Moralioglu’s work. The title page of Radclyffe Hall’s “The Well of Loneliness” was printed on cavas and sewn as a badge of honor to the cuff of every suit – with a monocle pinned to each of the lapels. The novel was notoriously banned by the British government in 1928 for its portrayal of a female character called Stephen and her lover Mary. “Radclyffe was born Marguerite, and went by the name of John,” said Moralioglu. “What I was most interested in was how intensely she was masculine, and how feminine Una was.” Una, Lady Troubridge, who mostly wore pretty dresses, was reflected in the flapper-ish eveningwear bedazzling with chandelier crystals and fragile cotton. Trouser suits were an ode to Radclyffe. The collection resonated with the audience, and marked another great moment of this London Fashion Week.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

Hey, did you know about my newsletter – Ed’s Dispatch? Click here to subscribe!

Cryptic. JW Anderson SS25

September 18, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

In his spring-summer 2025 collection, Jonathan Anderson dissects the meaning – and substance – of clothes. The cuts are in-your-face, the textures are exaggerated in their tactility, the shapes go from super-slim to super-big. “I think where we are today is that there needs to be a kind of narrowing of things while the world is transitioning. I think fashion needs to kind of refocus somehow, because we’re in a moment where we, the industry, have to look at ourselves.” JW Anderson takes cues from surrealism, but with a realistic grit. Yet there’s a feeling of deliberate palette cleanse, a sense of reduction. “It’s more like this idea of starting from a blank page,” he said. “Where is the next decade going, and how do we work with it?” Cryptic.