Last year was the centenary of Maria Callas’ birth, and Erdem Moralıoğlu has been celebrating with gusto. For his pre-fall collection he imagined the American-born Greek diva’s private and public life, and for fall he took a deeper dive.
He wanted to juxtapose “the person and the persona,” and look at Callas “dressed and undressed,” which is why some of the models walked out in grand coats with dramatic shawl collars wearing fluffy, slipper-like flats and with wig tape stuck to their heads: The opera star on her way home.
For the show he also conjured her world, sending out his lavishly dressed models into Room 18 of the British Museum where the Elgin Marbles, which once adorned the Parthenon and remain at the center of an ownership dispute, are on display.
Moralıoğlu said he was going for a space that epitomized Callas’ “Greek-ness.”
He focused on 1953, the year she played the tragic, bloody Medea in a production directed by Leonard Bernstein, and in the decade when she was a fully-fledged pop icon showered in roses.
Moralıoğlu worked with a light touch, spotlighting the details of Callas’ everyday life. He added rosettes to kitten-heel sling backs, and to the waist of a slinky leather cocktail dress.
Those roses also came as gold brooches tacked on the front dramatic coats, in herringbone or bouclé.
He gave a glamorous edge to the most practical clothing, too, adding a frothy marabou cape to a cotton anorak, and bits of velvet and shiny embellishment to satiny pajama suits in eau de nil or blood red, for divas in need of R&R.
