Last year marked the centenary of Maria Callas's birth and Erdem Moralıoğlu has been celebrating with enthusiasm. For his pre-fall collection he imagined the public and private life of the American-born Greek diva, and for fall he dove deeper.
I wanted to juxtapose “the person and the character” and look at Callas “dressed and undressed,” which is why some of the models came out in big coats with dramatic shawl collars, fluffy slipper-like flats, and wig tape. on their heads: the opera star on the way home.
For the exhibition, he also evoked his world, sending his lavishly dressed models to Room 18 of the British Museum, where the Elgin Marbles, which once adorned the Parthenon and remain at the center of a property dispute, are on display.
Moralıoğlu said he was looking for a space that embodied Callas's “Greekness.”
It focused on 1953, the year she played the tragic, bloody Medea in a production directed by Leonard Bernstein, and the decade in which she was a full-fledged pop icon bathed in roses.
Moralıoğlu worked with a light touch, highlighting the details of Callas's daily life. He added rosettes to kitten heels and the waist of a slinky leather cocktail dress.
Those roses also came in the form of gold brooches pinned to the spectacular front coats, in the shape of a herringbone or bouclé.
She also put a glamorous spin on more practical clothing, adding a frothy marabou cape to a cotton anorak, and chunks of velvet and sparkly trim to satin pajama suits in eau de nil or blood red, for divas who need rest and relaxation.
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