Story by Editor-at-Large CAROLINA OGLIARO
At Erdem, the noise stopped.
Erdem Moralıoğlu delivered a collection of silent force, gowns embroidered like relics, tailoring cut with scalpel precision, lace stripped of sentimentality, jacquards turned architectural, volumes held in check by discipline rather than excess. Fragility became armour, intimacy swelled into monumentality, and history was reworked into the language of now.
Inspired by the idea of layered identities and imagined selves, the collection moved with the grace of memory and the precision of craft. Dresses came alive with intricate embroideries and prints that felt almost hallucinatory, as if fragments of a past life had been stitched directly into fabric.
Tailoring was the counterpoint: blazers cut with exactitude, trousers fluid but firm, corseted bodices anchoring gowns that might otherwise drift into a dream. The palette, greens touched with acid brightness, deep crimsons, softened neutrals, gave emotional rhythm to the silhouettes, avoiding costume in favor of something richer: drama with restraint.
Erdem refused to choose between romance and relevance. He has long understood that fantasy need not be an escape but rather a mirror, since style, like identity, is never fixed, but shifting, layered, and often contradictory. SS26, at its heart, was about finding strength inside that contradiction.
