A few months ago, divers off the coast of The Netherlands discovered a 17th-century dress that had belonged to Jean Ker, Countess of Roxburghe, a Scottish courtier and lady in waiting to Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I.
Erdem Moralioglu related this discovery backstage with clammy-handed excitement, recounting how she was a spy conspiring to sell the crown jewels in France on the Eve of the English Civil War. He projected the narrative into another era, pre-World War II, to conceive his show theme.
“I love the idea that her army and her women landed at Deauville’s beach in 1930,” he said. “To me, the show was about a landing. There was something so very interesting about the idea, these 1650 nipped-in jackets with these Deauville-y cropped trousers and these sun hats.”
Moralioglu basically packed what could be a mini-series into a parade of gorgeous dresses as frothy and romantic as the churning sea paintings that framed his boardwalk show set.
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There’s often a potent period quality to Erdem’s clothes that you just have to let go of, and submit to the prim beauty of his neck-to-ankle dresses, wrapped up like perfect packages with black velvet ribbons.
With the exception of the clunky platform sandals, which landed like bricks on the weathered boards, everything about this transporting show was hyper-feminine: the tiered ruffles winding around skirts; the detached sleeves sliding off shoulders; and the fabrics, from colored lace as delicate as sea foam to gleaming jacquards and pretty floral brocades.
The clothes were as detailed as the set — with novel pages and eyeglasses frozen in faux pools of water — and they stood up to the backstory and its broad sweep of history.
It was a struggle to drink it all in, and that’s real fashion: Ideas to chew on and dream about. Commerce can wait six months.