Saturday at LFW: Erdem and Richard Quinn

A wet and humid Saturday at London Fashion Week, where, ironically, in a ready-to-wear season the most distinctive collections were essentially expressions of haute couture.

Erdem: María Callas among the Elgin marbles

Medea, Maria Callas and the sense of loss suffered by both heroines were the connective tissue of Erdem Moralioglu's latest impressive collection.

Grandly presented within the British Museum, the collection echoed multiple intimate moments of Callas's daily life. Models walk around with hair clips, wig tape and multiple shawls, suggesting a hurried moment of getting ready backstage after an epic performance by the diva. A cast often finished with heavy eye makeup and sometimes still dressed in pajamas, as if she were backstage waiting for a fan to appear.

Opening with a huge shawl collar coat, draped over veteran supermodel Guinevere van Seenus and worn with a completely exposed bra.

Erdem, like Maria, was always a fan of marabou feathers, presenting them as decorations on some slippers worthy of a femme fatale or with psychedelic colors on some top coats.

A preppy feel included gathered and crinkled herringbone Donegal tweed coats and a double-breasted jacket with lapels that worn wider than the model's torso.

For the evening, Erdem showed off mega-large cocktails in floral prints, flared in a 1950s style and adorned with grosgrain ribbons. Moralioglu revealed that he was particularly inspired by a 1953 production of the opera Medea, directed by Leonard Bernstein.

“There were many interesting parallels between Medea's life and Mary's,” the designer explained.

Medea, a play written by Euripides in 431 BC, is a woman who falls in love, sacrifices everything and ends up killing her brother and her children. Callas was born in New York and moved to Europe to live a nomadic life in which she was, in a sense, controlled by her own talents, and then she abandoned him for a disappointing love.

Hence the most beautiful dresses were the narrow crushed silk looks, finished with mini capes and overprinted with silhouettes of opera heroines.

It all came to a climax, when a live singer who enthusiastically performed 'La Wally', famous for being sung in the cult film of the 80s 'Diva' by Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernández.

Using some surprisingly fast staging techniques, the production team installed all the seating, sound platforms and lighting for this show in just 30 minutes inside the museum, a legendary destination permanently packed with art lovers.

After the show, Moralioglu noted that New York-born Callas was finally reunited with Greece, when her ashes returned to her ancestral home.

And, in a sense, it also brought Callas back to her roots. The show took place inside Room 18 of the British Museum, where the Elgin Marbles are located. These extraordinary marble sculptures taken from the Parthenon in Athens remain the subject of a bitter dispute between Greece and Britain. They should be returned to their homeland, as Callas was poetically by Erdem today.

Richard Quinn: rarefied elegance

Haute couture at Richard Quinn, not useless exaggeration, from the most original fabric innovator in British fashion today.

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A sense of rarefied elegance that echoed the ballroom shows of the 1950s and yet seemed very appropriate for today, presented in a renovated Victoria ballroom.

Few designers (who are actually couturiers, which is what Quinn is) are as uncompromising as Richard, who develops all his own materials and cuts with grandeur and gallantry.

She really has some serious couture design chops: the frosted sequin columns and snowy beaded dresses cinched at the waist were technically perfect and great examples of classic with a twist. While her black velvet columns and doll dresses worthy of Audrey Hepburn were also sensational. Like many looks, finished off with spectacular ruffled taffeta necklines. Climaxing with an extraordinary series of wedding dresses, including a triple series of dimpled cocoon looks that earned standing ovations.

In a very real sense, Richard Quinn is the classiest act in London fashion, without being remotely uptight. Their shows are elegant expressions of joie de vivre, like this one in which a string quartet accompanied Welsh singer Hannah Grace in great renditions of American classics like 'Both Sides Now' and 'I Want To Be With You Everywhere'.

All dressed in bold floral prints, part of a 900-meter route that also served as giant curtains inside the Andaz Hotel ballroom where this show took place. Fabrics that will now be sold to a textile company, reinforcing the idea that clothing is passed from one generation to another.

“Clothes exist to be cherished, passed down from mother to daughter for days to come,” Quinn argued in her program note, placed next to a large pink rose at each seat.

Few of her peers have as strong a signature style as Quinn, whose floral whimsy is instantly recognizable. It's no wonder she's in such demand for partnerships. Unfortunately, her 2022 collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger was badly affected by a storm in New York's East River. But it was the best connection in eons with the American designer.

Quinn's show on a wet Saturday night in Bishopsgate also featured some fabulous floral bottles of blended Scotch whiskey titled 'Royal Salute' which resulted in some excellent cocktails. And next week in Milan, Richard will present a capsule collection for Italian giant Max Mara's Max & Co.

Although today in London it was a triumph of British haute couture.