London Fashion Week is underway, featuring a mix of in-person and digital shows and presentations. Below, we share highlights from brands like Erdem, Bora Aksu, and Molly Goddard.
Erdem Spring/Summer 2022 collection.
Helmed by Canadian-born British designer, Erdem Moralıoğlu, his namesake brand celebrated its 15th anniversary collection with its historic sensibilities at play in all the whimsy and imagination of this season’s muses: poet Edith Sitwell and aristocrat Ottoline Morrell. Sitwell and Morrell, whom Erdem described as, “enigmatic characters who lived on the peripheries between myth and reality,” embodied the grandness of the past with the ease of dressing in the 21st century. Erdem’s floral patterns came alive on linen—look closely and you’ll notice those pieces are all tied up with a ribbon. Wide-brimmed hats didn’t distract but elevate the richness of matching printed dresses, while menswear sets featured similar eyelet and floral prints that were bold in their inspiration, but completely wearable.
Bora Aksu Spring/Summer 2022 collection.
Bora Aksu presented a Spring Summer 2022 collection in London that had the carefree, pure energy of a young child playing dress up with a vintage haute couture closet. In the best way, Bora Aksu rejected the rules of clean, linear tailoring and instead embraced stunning, party-ready cuts and colors with a freshness that could only be achieved after time spent in a pandemic lockdown. Standout gowns were embellished with lacey roses and sleeves so voluminous, they almost take flight in gorgeously saturated feminine colors, evoking 1970s style with 18th century maximalist silhouettes. He transformed the image of the traditional school uniform with structured plaid skirts and jackets dipped in inky blues and purples finished with bright white lace tights. A mix of tropical prints and traditional florals were tacked with sparkly pins to wrap it all up. Trench coat style dresses and sets were a comfortable dusty pink, but just when we thought there wasn’t room for more, Bora Aksu surprised us. The collection was inspired by the exaggerated style of Mathilde Willink, a mid-21st century Dutch renaissance woman whose unhinged energy made her the muse of designer Fong Leng. Bora Aksu brought a Bohemian, eccentric style to usher in what seems like a new season of expression.
Molly Goddard Spring/Summer 2022, photo by Ben Broomfield.
At Molly Goddard, nice ruffled tops were worn over baggy jeans, searching for the inner 1990s kid. Patterned zippered cardigans covered striped shirts evoke a kind of meeting in the middle with parents who once disagreed on their children’s taste in clothes. Bright, bouncy baby-doll dresses and skirts in soft pinks, yellows, and whites were sized up to accommodate millennial adults seeking a sense of creative inhibition they only truly knew in their childhood. It was the layers that never really settle, the track pants worn with knitwear that got brought along just in case it gets cold. It’s the visceral nostalgia for it all felt intergenerational.
