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The musing of Maria Callas by Erdem Moralıoğlu for his Fall/Winter 2024 collection, revealed a palpable creative synergy. Callas, the Greek-American soprano whose legend remains not only within operatic history but within the fundamentals of strong female pioneers, curated a career and persona that imposed an exceptional level of style.
Moralıoğlu’s collections are of the same aptitude. Feminine architecture crafted with exquisite fabrications and the most decadent of appliqué – pieces celebratory, powerful and exultant in their reverie for great art and design. As an art history major, the connection to historical culture goes with the territory for Moralıoğlu. His prints often sample the works of master creatives and honour their aesthetic nuances. However, it was not generically the life and style of Callas that brought inspiration to Moralıoğlu this time, but rather her singular, 1969 film Medea.
A cinematic take on Euripides’ play The Medea, the stoic image created by Callas in the film became almost as heroic as the heroine she embodied. Costumed in delicate brocades with rich embroidered tunics, the look transferred to Callas’ own life, a time in which she began to reject her operatic past.
This collection is an inspired homage, with a convincing coolness that will translate into the season’s obsession with the 1960’s well-dressed woman (more crassly referred to as the ‘Mob Wife’ aesthetic). Exaggerated shawls in bouclé wool, cape-sleeved herringbone gowns and square-collared jackets (that resembled Callas’ iconic silk stoles) created a fabulously harmonious Erdem season. Each look played flawlessly into the next, much like the haunting arias, sung by Callas, that filled the room around them.
Fabric is an integral part of Moralıoğlu’s designs, and his use of merino jacquards, crushed metallised satin and organza trimmed with guipure lace (many framed with wispy ostrich feathers) summoned both the beauty and pain of Medea’s tragical dramaturgy. Each look strong in its own characterisation, either draped in asymmetrical lines or cut large to build valorous silhouettes, one could imagine any of them as sartorial sopranos.
Certainly the use of texture – both rugged and fragile – played perfectly into the contrasting life of Callas. A woman who was often referred to as “La Davina” (the divine one), her all-encompassing performances blurred the line between reality and escapism. She became her character so undeniably there was often difficulty separating the truth from fiction. Perhaps that’s what makes Moralıoğlu’s assiduity for artistic expression so timelessly intoxicating – his ability to create a dress for the moment that then wholeheartedly becomes it.
