London Fashion Week: 10 Best Looks From Erdem Spring 2017

The designer's dark, erotic vision for SS17 played out on an imaginary shipwrecked coast along the British Isles

By Annabelle Fernandez - published 20 Sep 2016

Monday mornings can get very tedious in London—especially with peak hour traffic. But how often do you get to wake up to hearing society darling Poppy Delevingne wax lyrical about Burning Man and Snapchat, as she catches up with BFFs—the sultry and sexy Daisy Lowe and fellow model Eva Herzigova, at the Erdem Spring/Summer 2017 show?

Played out to It Girls, the sartorial set and their ardent fans—desert festivals and social media hijinks aside—somewhere between heaven and earth was Erdem Moralioğlu’s latest otherworldly offering for the season to come.

Hearing nothing but the haunting sounds of crashing waves, the tickling of a piano’s ivories, whispers of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the occasional distant klaxon, Moralioğlu transported the attendees from the old Selfridges Hotel to an imaginary coast along the British Isles—replete with rickety timeworn boardwalks, expansive bodies of water and dog-eared beach reading material.

The show opened with a model with her face obscured by a floppy brimmed woven raffia sun hat; dressed in an elegant English jacquard and grosgrain ribbon suit; wearing matching chunky platforms. And just like that the award-winning designer lives up to his reputation again as he so cleverly marries the 17th century with the '30s, and '70s.

And no Erdem show is complete without romantic billowing chiffon numbers—done in Moralioğlu’s signature prints. As the models walked, these flouncy creations caught the wind and began to flutter and unfurl like sublime pieces of poetry in fluid motion. They all boasted an ethereal quality to them—with some draping effortlessly off shoulders while others were updated with matching undulating ruffles like the ones worn by fairies from a dream…or a desert festival.

By Adriel Chiun