Erdem’s second menswear collection included baseball caps, hoodies and bomber jackets among other pieces, tempting, that way, to be called a “streetwear propossal”. Nevertheless, Erdem Moralıoğlu, founder and designer of the brand referred to the style as an “Utilitarian romanticism”. He defended nowadays high fashion had surrounded to sporty dress codes. Meaning, fancy joggers and high quality tracksuits, for example, are the modern men’s suits. And so high fashion streetwear is really daywear.
Unlike its womenswear—a longstanding and big business— brand’s men line is still in its infancy. In other words, Erdem is currently tasting and playing with lines, cuts and materials so its new pieces are borned out of curiosity and interest, and feel like a project he’s having fun with.
For this season, he took inspiration from the work of two women: Madame d’Ora, a Viennese portrait photographer, contemporary of Picasso and Madame Yevonde, a portrait and still-life photographer/master colorist from London who worked during wartime. Both their subjects, recording techniques, and the latter’s use of color were the guidelines on this 1930s-spired collection, which borrowed from the women’s wardrobe of the time, and fused those references with house founder’s style. The result, a series of dichotomies that lead on a men’s universe of conventional contradictions: feminine vs. masculine, formal vs. informal, Old World vs. new world.
Some outstanding pieces were a boucle tweed suit, also wearable as a coat, fisherman’s jumper twin set in merino mohair waffle knit, a cotton drill suit in rust embroidered with brown and blue roses and a dandy-ish nipped-in 1930s suit with a wide, high lapel.
Lastly, there is important to mention the background where the proposal was showed. Iconic from Britain Georgian architecture becomes an additional tool to tell the brand’s origins: symmetry, brick modest facades and regular proportions as well as iron rails are the latest touches of a collection fulfilled of the house’s British style. Later on, the brand also took some pics by the coast. Take a look at them!
