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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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.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Take Me To Church. Willy Chavarria SS23

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

Willy Chavarria took us to church (the Marble Collegiate Church in New York, to be precise) for a show that mixed his signature larger-than-life silhouettes with exquisite tailoring. It opened with a beautiful song performed a cappella in Spanish by Dorian Wood about the way borders keep us separated, which could be read literally but Chavarria meant it more metaphorically. “The song is about the division in our world,” he explained backstage afterward. “If you noticed in the show, the actors were divided by ethnicity, and that was not only to represent the division that we are experiencing, but to show the solidarity within the culture. To show the strength of people when they’re unified.” First, a group of men wearing extra-long T-shirts and Dickies walked out and placed bunches of roses on the altar. The first look was a navy tailored jacket with strong, wide shoulder pads that were situated ever so slightly beyond the natural line of the body, which worked to create a great amount of tension against the extra-long lapels that extended past the top of the torso. Its intersecting lines alluded to the Chi Ro symbol, also called a Christogram. The model, who wore a collared shirt and pleated wide-leg trousers as well, carried a cross at the center of his chest with one hand.

Chavarria, who recently won the National Design Award for Fashion Design, has always favored volume and extra-large silhouettes as a way to “reclaim [the] space that has been taken” from people of color, but there was a new level of softness and sensuality woven through his collection this time around. Though it was always played against more traditionally American masculine elements like varsity logo T-shirts and football jerseys, which he turned into short, princess-sleeve tops and layered over short-sleeve button-down shirts and paired with a skirt. Men wearing robes and dresses has been normalized on menswear runways, but it was interesting to see how, in the context of a church, the silhouettes completely changed meaning and were imbued with a sensibility that hinted at both a uniform as well as tradition. “The first piece I did [for the collection] I called the altar-boy cape, and I just had it on a mannequin in my studio for a long time as the rest of the collection came about, so it’s funny that the collection became as spiritually tied as it ended up being,” said the designer. The capes were worn by both male and female models who came out in a group halfway through the show. The absolute star of the show was a group of gorgeous fine-tailored pieces, like the slightly asymmetrical double-breasted silk tuxedo jacket with a giant fabric rose on the left shoulder, worn with fluid satin trousers. The rose also appeared on red silk taffeta trousers, complete with a ball gown–esque train and paired with a black leather tank, and again on a pair of extra-wide black satin trousers and matching button-down shirt, worn open at the chest and falling off the shoulders. “I felt like this was a show about good and evil,” the designer added. “Coming from a religious background, I’ve always been a firm believer that good out-wins evil, [but] I felt like there’s almost a loss of God right now in the world.” If it’s true that God is love and beauty, then this fashion show took us a little closer to heaven.