Erdem Moralioglu and Cecil Beaton—what kismet occurred at the National Portrait Gallery for London’s most romantic history-researching designer. Learning that “Beaton, Bright Young Things”—a show of his twenties and thirties portraits of dazzlingly glamorous socialites—is opening at the gallery in March meant that Erdem’s inspiration was right there. He has a longstanding relationship with the gallery, where he has shown before. This season he slicked the runway with silver foil for his Beaton-referencing collection.
Comparisons between the 1920s and the 2020s are beginning to surface in fashion—the Deco geometrics, the glitter. For Erdem, the resonances were personal, lodged in knowledge of how Cecil Beaton first photographed his sisters Baba and Nancy, dressing them, rigging up sets at home, making his fantasies come true. “It spoke to me, because in his early years he created who he would become. He wasn’t born into that family of aristocracy. He wasn’t a socialite, he was a middle-class kid with parents who had boring middle-class backgrounds,” said Moralioglu. “It reminded me of how I photographed my sister Sara up against the wall in our basement, with a disposable camera, and then had those pictures printed to make up my portfolio application for Ryerson University.”