All About Erdem

He’s the man behind many of the red carpet’s most detail-rich gowns. Now, he’s set to reach his biggest audience yet with a new H&M collaboration

- Harriet Quick

In Erdem Moralioglu’s office, shafts of light bounce off wall-to-wall shelves that support glossy art, fashion and photography books; the lenses of the designer’s trademark Oliver Peoples spectacles reflect the flicker of a Cire Trudon candle perched on his desk. “Is the scent too intense?” he asks as he welcomes ELLE into his workspace inside a converted fabric warehouse in London’s Aldgate. Walking into Moralioglu’s world is a kaleidoscopic, multi-sensory experience, everything perfectly poised yet slightly askew. This could also be said of his theatrical shows, his carefully curated London boutique and his narrative-rich clothes. It’s an offbeat elegance that has drawn a dedicated following of women at ease with their femininity and hungry for his unique brand of polished eclecticism.

This month, he follows in the footsteps of Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Rei Kawakubo as H&M’s newest designer collaboration – a collection that’s destined for 220 stores in 66 countries. The line-up of 48 pieces, which lands on November 2, comes hot on the heels of some of his most emotional work to date. His AW17-18 collection – a melange of Ottoman motifs and English florals, ravishing silk velvets and black voile gowns with swishing white petticoats – started with Moralioglu fantasising about an improbable meeting of his great-grandmothers. “One was from Birmingham and the other from Istanbul; I imagined these women together at the Women’s March, sharing their stories,” he says. “I never wanted it to feel literal – it’s a fuzzy set of memories combined with the idea of a beautiful army of women marching. The figures in the show felt almost like my family.”