Women's Lifestyle February 22, 2026 0 Comments

Why Erdem’s 20-Year Design Rebellion Might Just Change Everything You Thought You Knew About Fashion

Ever wondered what fuels a fashion designer’s genius? For Erdem Moralioğlu, it’s not a personal chef or a fancy gym session—it’s a librarian. Yes, you heard that right! Just five days before unveiling his Fall 2026 collection, Erdem’s East London office looks less like a designer’s lair and more like an epic library labyrinth, bursting at the seams with everything from botanical catalogues to royal histories. His secret sauce? “I need to read before I can see,” he says, flipping through pages like a detective chasing clues. This season celebrates 20 years of Erdem’s label, but his designs are a brilliant mashup of centuries—think rebellious Victorian lawmakers rubbing shoulders with ’90s UK rave vibes and British art renegades. It’s a sartorial time machine with a punchy modern twist—layered skirts hiding denim corsets, tweed suits peeling back to satin slips—each piece a story aching to be told. So, is it possible to truly unravel the past through fabric and thread? Erdem seems to think so—and he’s inviting us to dance with all the contradictions and questions that come with it. Fancy a peek into this whirlwind of history, style, and raw creativity? Trust me, you don’t want to miss this. LEARN MORE

5 min read

Erdem Moralioğlu will be with me in a moment. He just needs one more minute with his librarian.

It’s five days before Erdem’s Fall 2026 collection, and the 48-year-old designer sits in his East London office surrounded by leaning towers of books–botanical catalogues, royal history chronicles, and Bloomsbury novels. There are art catalogs and coloring books, too. “People always ask, ‘Would you have a personal chef if you could?’” says Moralioğlu. “But me, I don’t know. I want a librarian instead!” Now he has three: two for the studio and one at the London Library, where he sketches in a carrel every Tuesday to clear his head. “I need to read before I can see,” he notes, adjusting his glasses. “It’s almost like forensic research. The books are the gateway to the clothes.”

This season marks the 20th anniversary of Moralioğlu’s eponymous brand, yet his new runway looks draw on centuries of references. Called “The Imaginary Conversation,” the new heap of runway clothes and their accompanying capsule collection of Erdem’s greatest hits boast callouts to the 1990s UK rave scene, to secret lesbian lawmakers in Victorian England, and to the British artists of the 19th and 20th century who captured and challenged the state of the UK everygirl.

The show was held at the Tate Britain museum, which meant some of Moralioğlu’s most obvious shoutouts, like the paintings of William Turner and David Hockney, were hanging mere feet away from the clothes.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

The designer loves a museum moment–he’s previously shown on the steps of the British Museum–but his historical references don’t usually come from exhibit halls. Instead, he excavates them from his book stash, then layers them like torn wallpaper in an old mansion—big chunks of eras and shapes, all piled on top of each other and peeling back in big, curling strips.

The Fall 2026 collection is filled with prime examples: Peel back a floral skirt inspired by country-house needlepoint and you’ll see a bejeweled denim corset a la Y2K Kate Moss underneath. Watch a fraying tweed suit inspired by a formal British school uniform as it moves, revealing a black satin slip skirt with 1950s beaded roses. The models are babies—college kids like Ella Dawson and Summer Dirx—and legacy beauties like Guinevere van Seenus, Edie Campbell, and Karen Elson, whose own daughter is the same age as most of the runway newbies. “I feel like the past and the present are always stacked on top of each other in a way,” Moralioğlu says. “Have we really learned from the past? From our own pasts? I think about it a lot.”

The designer’s “own past” began in Montreal, Quebec. Born to a Turkish father and an English mother, Moralioğlu studied in Toronto before moving to London and enrolling at the Royal College of Art. Though the embellished bodices and flounce-forward shapes of his first employer, Vivienne Westwood, are visible in his work, he cites his first muse as his twin sister, Sarah, who’s now a documentary filmmaker and producer.

“I’ve never felt ‘that’s for a girl; that’s for a boy,’ and I think that has to do with my childhood,” he says. “It might have happened in my chromosomes, in my mother’s womb… I’ve always been drawn to women, and as a kid, I was always drawing women. My dad was a Turkish man who came from Eastern Turkey to be Canadian, and he wanted me to play hockey. It never was to be,” he shrugs. “Sorry!”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Instead, Moralioğlu fell hard for fellow Canadian style star Anne of Green Gables, whose Big Dress Energy is a constant source of inspiration. “The puffed sleeves she always wanted. Oh my gosh! Of course, I will make you puffed sleeves, Anne!” he declares, laughing. But Anne-With-an-E also helped Moralioğlu realize what he calls “the real job” of being a fashion designer. “There’s that little moment when something clicks in your head, and you’re like, ‘Actually, this is a more beautiful version of myself.’ Or it’s armor, and you feel protected by it. It’s that more-something version of yourself. That’s my only job.”

“I think he’s one of the most thoughtful designers we have,” added Julie Gilhart, the fashion consultant and former Barneys New York retail director who championed Moralioğlu’s early work. “He’s such a deeply kind, nice person and also so smart. It really comes through” in the clothes.

“I think that his clothes got me in a way I’m not sure I’d gotten myself yet,” said Rashida Jones, a front-row guest at today’s London show. “So I decided I was going to be friends with him. I literally made it my mission. I said, ‘We’re having lunch. I need to meet the guy.’ And what’s exciting is that lunch was 15 years ago. We are still friends. And I still want all the clothes. They are grown-up, gorgeous, and cool. I feel smarter wearing them, but still, you know, like myself… I don’t know many other fashion brands that can do that.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Moralioğlu’s 20th anniversary comes at a nutso time for both historical appreciation and male-centered ateliers. It’s impossible to make clothes that reference Victorian and Edwardian England without smacking into the violence of colonial rule. It’s hard to look at perfect dresses without wondering why more women aren’t being paid to design them. These things have long been true in fashion, but right now, it feels like a particularly important conversation to be having.

“I love these questions, and I don’t think we should ignore them,” says the designer. “You know, fashion, as a thing, can make people feel deeply uncomfortable… Why not just dance with it all — the contradictions, the apprehension, the uncomfortable questions? Art is the way to get into it! So let’s get into it!”

He cites Erdem’s Spring 2018 collection, inspired by a meeting between jazz legend Duke Ellington and Queen Elizabeth II. “He wrote her a love letter, you know!” he says. “He was so impressed by meeting her just before her coronation. Think about it. Duke Ellington, who founded the Cotton Club in Harlem,” a legendary nightclub for Black culture established just after The Great Migration of communities fleeing the violent American South.

“Think about what that is, and the contrast with Queen Elizabeth,” whose wealth and power came from both her own remarkable leadership talents and her inheritance of the world’s largest colonial fortune, built largely on the backs of African and South Asian labor. “That’s like, really looking at something head-on. That’s part of what I find so fascinating.”

Today, Moralioğlu has famous London fans like Keira Knightley and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, along with 87 employees and retailers, including Net-a-Porter and MyTheresa. “But I’m ruthlessly competitive with myself,” he says. “I’m trying so hard to just enjoy my 20 years. But of course, I can’t stop thinking about what else I should have done. I’m really brutal on myself, which I know is an issue.” He looks up from his desk and smiles. “I guess it’s not that much of an issue though,” he says. “I mean, the clothes, actually, I’m pretty proud of them. The teamwork and the vision, and the way the girls feel in them. Honestly, yes, they’re great.”

What, I wonder, will Moralioğlu do after his show, where Lily James and Helen Mirren will also confirm, with a standing ovation, that his work is, in fact, great? “Oh, I mean, there’s always more reading,” he says. “The night before the show, we ordered pizza. The night after, we get a drink.”

Then: Back to the books.