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The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein
Erdem Moralioglu: “I’ve Always Been Attracted to Things with a Human Hand”
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- [00:00]
Erdem Moralioglu
I've always been attracted to things that have a very human hand and I think, you know, whether it's in how the dress has been made or what it's been made out of or the shape, it's that idea of a humanness, hopefully to you know how that person feels when they're wearing it. They feel like they're the only person who has that piece.
- [00:22]
Dan Rubenstein
Hi, I'm Dan Rubenstein and this is the Grand Tourist. I've been a design journalist for more than 20 years and this is my personalized guided tour through the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food and travel. All the elements of a well lived life and welcome to the 12th season finale of the Grand Tourist. We'll be back in May with new episodes and keep your eyes peeled for a special announcement before season 13 begins. So make sure you're staying up to date by signing up for our newsletter, the Grand Tourist curator@thegrandtourist.net or at the link in my bio on Instagram In 2025 the fashion world has been rocked by a revolving door of high profile designers going from one legendary house to another. The ongoing headlines have made me appreciate the days of fashion that solidified my generation's worldview, especially in New York with the likes of Donna Karan, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Staying independent today with your own fashion label year after year, season after season can be quite the daunting task. Some say it's damn near impossible. That's why I'm so excited to speak with my guest today, a womenswear designer who has maintained his own label and quite the fan base for nearly 20 years. Erdem Moraleu, the Canadian native, studied in London where he lives and works today. His womenswear is many sophisticated, feminine, delicate and often inspired by the designer's own intense research and inventive narratives. His collections have garnered him numerous awards, including the 2010 inaugural British Fashion Council Vogue Designer Fashion Fund Award, and He received an MBE from the Queen in 2020. Speaking of narratives for his spring summer 2025 collection, he was inspired by the classic novel the well of Loneliness by Radcliffe hall and its ideas of blurring the lines between the masculine and the feminine, exemplified in his lines, tailoring and silhouettes. More on that later. He's a real designer's designer and luckily for me, as you'll hear, he's a charming soul if there ever was one. I caught up with Erdem from his studio in London to discuss his early life and his obsessions with women as a young man. Why he Moved to London to pursue his dreams.
- [02:31]
Erdem Moralioglu
Why?
- [02:32]
Dan Rubenstein
He has a quirky collection of busts, his plans for the future, and more.
- [02:39]
Unnamed Interviewer
Well, we're almost the same age. I think probably a little bit older. But I was wondering what your earliest memory of life was in Montreal as a child, like in the 80s.
- [02:50]
Erdem Moralioglu
Gosh. Well, my earliest memory of childhood is probably the lake I grew up in, a little yellow stucco bungalow in the suburbs of Montreal. My earliest memory would be the big lake at the end of our street. It was called Lac St. Louis. And I remember being on my BMX and riding around the edge of the lake, and it was like. I mean, that lake was just. It felt so big when I was a child. It just was like this big expanse of water. That's my. That's my earliest memory.
- [03:27]
Unnamed Interviewer
And what kind of child were you? Like, what was your. What is your teachers during those teacher evaluations, tell your parents?
- [03:34]
Erdem Moralioglu
That's. That's a good question. I was. I was very shy as a child. I was very. I was. I definitely liked to play by myself, and I drew. So I was often in my own world. I mean, I loved going to the library. I was a geeky, strange child. I read lots, and I kind of. I drew and kind of hid in my own world.
- [04:07]
Unnamed Interviewer
And what did you draw? Like, were you kind of, like, could you draw from an early age that we would recognize today, or was it like a totally different kind of kid's drawing?
- [04:16]
Erdem Moralioglu
I could draw from quite a young age, and I generally drew women. I was obsessed with women. I was obsessed with how women looked, how they walked. I was interested in my. Like, my mom, her clothes, her makeup, her friends, how they spoke to each other, how they sat, how they would, like, you know, often my mom would have coffee with her friends, and I was fascinated by the female. I also grew up with a twin. I have a twin sister. And so the kind of the idea of having someone who's a part of you, but in so many ways the opposite. But also, there's something very interesting, I think, when your twin is the opposite sex, it's interesting.
- [05:04]
Unnamed Interviewer
And did your twin sister pursue a creative career also?
- [05:09]
Erdem Moralioglu
She did. She does. She works in film. She's a director and a producer in documentary film.
- [05:15]
Unnamed Interviewer
Oh, amazing. And so your father was Turkish, right, and your mother was English? Yes. Did you feel any sense of growing up sort of differently at home, you know, than some of your friends did? I'm not sure how, if your father was Turkish, like, how, you know, when he came to Canada or like, how many Years he was there versus from where he was from.
- [05:39]
Erdem Moralioglu
Well, I mean, they emigrated to Canada when they were quite late, like quite. They were quite old. They were in their, like, late 30s. So it was. It was interesting, you know, growing up in the suburbs of Canada, you. I was surrounded by a lot of people named Brian or Kelly or, you know, and I, of course, had a very distinct Turkish name. I also grew up with parents, but my mom had a very, you know, had a British accent. My father had a Turkish accent. It was, you know, it was an interesting childhood of contrast. You know, both of my parents come from two very different places. Two different cultures, two different religions, two very different upbringings. My father was. Came from a very big family. He was the youngest. My mom came from a smaller family. She was the eldest. It was. Yeah, I always. I always kind of grew up with the sense that my parents were kind of living somewhere where neither of them really belonged in a way, if that makes sense. I always felt like, you know, ultimately they would probably both want to go back to their respective birthplace.
- [06:55]
Unnamed Interviewer
And, you know, you also spent time in, I heard, in Birmingham growing up. Is that true?
- [07:02]
Erdem Moralioglu
It's. Well, I mean, we. We spent time in. We spent a lot of time in Birmingham and in Turkey. So we, you know, growing up, you. We would visit our grandparents in the UK and then visit our grandparents in Turkey and that, I mean, just even in that, you know, being this, like, suburban kid from Canada to, you know, experience going to, I don't know, going to the Tower of London and then suddenly you would be in a bazaar in Istanbul. You know, that kind of visual food and contrast was really amazing, I think. You know, of course, I didn't realize it at the time. It was just life and it was the process of visiting the family. It was an amazing way to grow up. But also at the same time, you grew up really with just your parents and my sister. So we were a really small, small kind of family unit. You know, everyone else was far away, so everything seemed to be happening far away.
- [08:07]
Unnamed Interviewer
I was actually fascinated that by. You mentioned in an interview that you love this Canadian TV show called Fashionphile, which I have heard about referenced. But, you know, for us in the us like, we've never seen it. How do you describe that show? And I love those. You know, for me, I didn't have Fashionphile, but I had CNN Style with Elsa Clinch, Elsa Klench, who was my one little portal into that universe that I love so much. And so tell me about Fashionphile and why you loved it.
- [08:39]
Erdem Moralioglu
Oh my gosh. Fashionphile. And like, which is so interesting because Tim Blanks was the host and where I've gone on to become great friends with Tim. Tim's amazing. And he's also of course the most extraordinary writer, critic and, and I mean he's, he's such a, he's such a part of, you know, he's even at my, at our wedding, he's, he's a part of my life. But I grew up watching Tim Blanks on television and he would report on fashion shows much, you know, like, I mean there's of course like, like Elsa Clench was reporting on fashion, but I, Tim, Tim's approach was, was very different to Elsa Clench. I think Elsa Clench is, you know, it's a very, you know, dealing with fashion with kind of kid gloves. It's a very, it's a, it's a, it's a different approach, a formal approach to fashion. But strangely, growing up in Montreal, you had Fashionphile with Tim Blanks. You had Fashion TV with Jeannie Becker. You also had a show on like the kind of French Canadian equivalent of MTV that was called. Well, the channel was called Musique plus. And you had a fashion show, a show about fashion called Perfecto that was hosted by Stephane Leduc. Amazing. And we also had the channels from France who would like. So you had Channel 5. And what's so amazing about France or you know, they report on the, on the shows, on the, on the fashion shows in the news. So there was, you know, you could access as like a 10 year old. I could 10, 11, 12. I was, I was able to, you know, see those amazing Go Che collections or the, those first Yoshi, you know, those early Yoshi collections, Dries, everything like it was, it was food that you were constantly being fed in this other, this other world. So even though I was, you know, very, very young and maybe the only thing that we had or only relationship we had to fashion was like whole Rembru, which was a kind of a department store. Asides from that, that actually television just was amazing. It allowed us to, it allowed you to really to study it. I recently went to. There was this kind of wonderful full circle moment. I grew up of course, like the supermodels. As I kind of entered pop culture, that was something that was so important to 12, 13, 14 year old me. And I recently gave an award to Linda Evangelista at the Canadian Fashion Awards for her contribution to fashion, which is, which is extraordinary.
- [11:35]
Unnamed Interviewer
So you studied fashion in Toronto before getting your master's at RCA in London. And so tell me about that decision. And, like, why London? Why were you like, I gotta get out of here. Montreal is not for me. Or you're just like, I want to hit the big time. Like, what was that experience like for you? Going to why rca? And, like, what happened there?
- [11:56]
Erdem Moralioglu
So, I mean, I think there was always, like, in the back of my head, there was always a plan. I always knew that I was going to leave Canada. I always knew that if I wanted to become a designer, that I would have to leave. Also, I had. Because my mother being British, I had a passport, so I knew there was. There was a possibility that I would be able to maybe figure it out. And in my third year in Toronto, I did an internship, an apprenticeship with Vivian Westwood. And that was like a real seminal kind of moment. I was suddenly, I was. Well, I was doing this. I did an exchange program. Funnily enough, the exchange program was at University of Central England, which doesn't exist anymore. And that was in Birmingham.
- [12:51]
Unnamed Interviewer
Okay.
- [12:52]
Erdem Moralioglu
My mom, I remember telling my mom, she was like. I was like, I've. I've. I've got a place in the University of Central England. And she was like, I've worked so hard to leave Birmingham, and now you are effectively going back. But, but she, she, she. She did appreciate it. And there were some amazing teachers there. And, And Westwood was. I. I love Vivienne Westwood. I grew up loving Vivienne Westwood and all those amazing collections. Storm in a Teacup, et cetera. And when I was there, you had kind of two groups of students. You had either one group of students that were from St. Martin's or you had the other group that were from the Royal College of Art. And so it was there that I understood you either had to go to St. Martin's or the Royal College. And those are the two main places to go to. And if you went to either of them, that was good. And I worked in the atelier, and then most importantly, I worked in the archive. So going through and sorting out old collections, which was. I mean, you can imagine was like corsets made by Mr. Pearl or the kind of the platforms that Naomi Campbell fell in, or all of these, like, you know, extraordinary. You know, the bustle that Eva Herzegova wore, covered in, you know, crystals. It was all of these extraordinary kind of iconic outfits. But there was probably where the. The seed was kind of officially planted in my third year. So once I finished my. I went back to Toronto. I finished my, my. My BA. I applied. St. Martin's was the UCAS system and I'd missed the deadline, so I only applied to the Royal College kind of by default, and I managed to get an interview. And then I think I kind of had like a little bit of a student loan and went, got myself a ticket to London, did the interview and then had to figure out how to kind of. And then I got in, which was amazing. I was in a class of about 10 and then kind of figuring out how to pay for it and had to kind of work backwards and figure it out. And so it kind of all began once I went to the Royal College. I was living in London and suddenly everything changed.
- [15:25]
Unnamed Interviewer
What did London mean to you at the time?
- [15:27]
Erdem Moralioglu
I mean, it was like London was this like, big, amazing city of discovery. It was like you had the best.
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Unnamed Interviewer
What year was this about?
- [15:41]
Erdem Moralioglu
This is 2001 to 2003.
- [15:43]
Unnamed Interviewer
So you had this is like go, go, kind of like boom, London time, right?
- [15:48]
Erdem Moralioglu
Yeah. You had like a night, Wednesday night, you had nag, nag, nag. That was this like kind of amazing queer night. You would go and you might see like Bjork on the dance floor or you would. It was like Wolfgang Tillmans. It was a time of like, you'd have like pop stars at. On Friday at Scala. You'd go to heaven on Monday. I mean, these are all the places you'd go out to. But all of me and all of my friends, we would just go out. It was all about going out, figuring out where you were going to go, how you're going to buy as many drinks as possible and what you were going to wear. And of course, college was amazing. It was such a different approach to a kind of maybe a North American system where you had classes and a schedule. So you would be in art history from 11 till 1 and then life drawing from 1 till, et cetera. Whereas at the Royal College, there was no schedule really had to make. You filled your day with research inspiration, working with tutors, one on one discussions and crits. And it was a very. It was a very open way of working. And, you know, we had. We had tutors like Albert Albaz did a project about designing for a specific character. So the idea of designing with a character in mind was something I really discovered at the Royal College. It wasn't something I had understood really previously. So it was this kind of time of real discovery. Also, like, there was a textile department. You know, you became friends with people that were doing a master's in printing or embroidery or weaving. You know, I'd never seen a You know, you could do your master's in weaving to like. I'd never really seen a proper loom before and then to just, you know, have all of these resources there, people studying millinery, it was, it was just like very open, exploratory time. It was also like. It was also like. It was a really, it was a difficult time. It was challenging. My father died when I was at the Royal College, so there's a lot of like, life things happening at the same time. But it was there that I understood I was kind of exactly where I needed to be. And that was a great feeling to have at such a young age.
- [18:32]
Unnamed Interviewer
What did you aspire to in your studies or right after your studies? What were you like? I'm gonna be like, whatever that was. What was your fantasy at the time?
- [18:43]
Erdem Moralioglu
My fantasy was to work for a house in Paris. The idea was I would work for a house in Paris and then I would start my own label.
- [18:50]
Dan Rubenstein
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- [20:16]
Unnamed Interviewer
And then so you kind of struck out on your own early compared to others, I'm sure. And I'm sure there must have been someone said like, why? When do you take that leap?
- [20:28]
Dan Rubenstein
What pushed you to take that leap?
- [20:29]
Unnamed Interviewer
Why didn't you go to Paris? Or did you kind of attempt it and then kind of just go like, what? You know, to, to. To make that decision. You're just going to do things on your own early, you know. What was that decision like?
- [20:42]
Erdem Moralioglu
Well, it's interesting. It was a funny time. I graduated. I. I lived in New York. I got a job in New York, which I really. I just, I was an assistant. Assistant, assistant. And I always. I just, it wasn't. I hadn't found my seat and I. There was something about going to New York that almost felt like I was going back to. Oh, backwards in a weird way. Whereas I so desperately wanted to stay in Europe. And I had met by that point the person I would marry and who I'm married to, Philip, an architect who is studying architecture. And so I moved. When I moved back to London, there was a. I did. I mean, I did interviews. I did so many interviews. It was like the summer of 20 job interviews. And I just. It didn't happen. And I ended up doing this competition to kind of update my portfolio and I won it. And that gave me a studio for two years, a little small amount of money for a press to use a press agency. It gave me a small amount of like budget towards an accountant. And I had like this little tiny 200 square foot room, a pattern cutting table, a sewing machine, and then a communal fax machine that we had to share in the days. Like that's. I'm kind of aging myself. But anyways, the facts, because you had to, weirdly, Italian mills, French mills, if you were making a fabric order, it was all by facts. Everything was like you had to facts. And so I, I won the competition. I did it very. I made a really small collection. And then I did my first full Runway show in fall 2006 and that I showed at the V. And a very small. I couldn't afford shoes, so I bought like these awful kind of bridesmaids shoes that Philip helped me spray paint black. And I showed the collection and that collection then I ended up selling to Barney's, who became my first client. So I sold that to someone named Julie Gilhart and Judy Collinson. And that really, if I have to choose, like a little moment where maybe my career began was suddenly when I was being sold in Barney's on Madison and in Beverly Hills.
- [23:21]
Unnamed Interviewer
Wow. And to the younger listeners, Barney's was a store in New York. Sad. I have to kind of say that now Barney's is a very important store. And so your first studio space, I read, was in Shoreditch, right And then.
- [23:36]
Erdem Moralioglu
Yes. So what was Hackney? I was in Hackney because that place.
- [23:42]
Unnamed Interviewer
That neighborhood, I don't think was as cool as it is now. And all kind of, you know, now it has, like, the shortage. It's like the Ace Hotel and there's, like, Soho House and there's sort of shortage outs and all. It was kind of like, was it a rougher area when you were kind of working there? At the time?
- [23:57]
Erdem Moralioglu
It was definitely rough. Fur rougher. And then kind of evolved into somewhere kind of really amazing. There was an amazing kind of energy there in Hackney. And then I would. We would end up living there for a very, very, very long time. We still actually have a house in Hackney, but we live in Bloomsbury, which is kind of more kind of really in the middle of London. But. But it was amazing. It was. It was amazing. You know, those early collections. I went back to the Royal College and worked with seamstresses that had helped me sew my graduate collection. It was. You know, it was. You kind of just made up the rules as you went along. You. You know, and. And there was something very interesting. Once I was in Barney's, then suddenly, you know, I was in Harvey Nichols or at another store that changed a lot of things for me was a store called Colette in Paris, which was kind of very, like. You could almost say, like. Like a precursor to Dover Street. Like a kind of. Kind of. Very kind of conceptual, kind of amazing retail space. And, you know, all of. I kind of came from it, like, not really from, like, a press side, but rather almost from a client side, creating collections and working with kind of really amazing partners, doing trunk shows, zipping customers into dresses. And that's really how I began.
- [25:41]
Unnamed Interviewer
And tell me about that first collection. If you just describe it to a blind person, how would you describe that first collection and that sold to Barney's? And what do people react well about it? Like, what was. What was what. What clicked in people's minds?
- [25:54]
Erdem Moralioglu
Uh, it was. Well, it was mostly made of overstock fabrics. So I went to. I became friends with a. Someone who was a fabric agent, and. And he happened to have lots of overstock, kind of beautiful tailoring fabrics and kind of off cuts. So I was able to kind of buy smaller amounts and. And just these beautiful kind of fabrics that I'd normally never be able to afford. I always, Like. I never began as, like, someone who. I was never a printer, but I always imagined the fabrics that I wanted to use. So I would. I started kind of digitally printing fabrics, and just because I knew What I wanted something to look like, and I'd kind of create it on my laptop quite badly and crudely. And I remember we were living in this shared house, and I think one of my roommates. Friends came home with a book on ornithology that they'd found in a skip, which is the garbage, basically. And it was this beautiful kind of Victorian book of bird. The kind of. The images in the book were amazing, and it was a very old book. And I kind of scanned them, manipulated them, used them. And yeah, it kind of. It was. So there was. It was a combination of birds, overstock, tailoring, and worked with these kind of amazing older ladies that were amazing hand knitters or beautiful hand knits and Scottish tweeds that were made. It was. It was a lot of beg, borrowing and stealing, but it. It culminated in this kind of very, very English collection. It looked very English, and all of it was made in London, actually. And that was. That was. As a result. That was because I just didn't know how, like, how else to make things. I had to be able to go to the factories myself. I had to talk and work with the graders myself. It was something that, you know, at the beginning was something where, you know, you had to kind of be aware of every single stage and step.
- [28:11]
Unnamed Interviewer
And that collection received a lot of, you know, acclaim. And in those first five or five or so years. Career. Yeah. Ish.
- [28:22]
Erdem Moralioglu
Ish. Tepid, I would say.
- [28:24]
Unnamed Interviewer
Okay, okay, well, you're still here today, so something must have. So with a growing kind of label in those early days, like, what was your biggest challenge? Like, do you think you could have. You could do it today if, like, you. Instead of graduating when you did, you did it in 2020.
- [28:40]
Erdem Moralioglu
Oh, my gosh.
- [28:41]
Unnamed Interviewer
Do you think what was your.
- [28:43]
Dan Rubenstein
What was tough about it?
- [28:44]
Unnamed Interviewer
And you think, could you do it today?
- [28:47]
Erdem Moralioglu
I mean, you know, there are so many different. There are so many different aspects of it that were, like, challenging. I think, you know, the hardest thing was, which is, you know, I think a challenge for any designer is you can have a very beautiful collection, you can sell it very well, but then to be able to, you know, take that collection, produce it, deliver it, and then, you know, to actually be able to go through the full cycle of making and delivering a collection is a very different thing. And that also requires a certain amount of, like. Like finance actually, like, so to actually to do the full cycle is something that, like, people never really talk about. Certainly, like, when you're a fashion student, it's like you kind of. I Kind of always just thought it miraculously all kind of happened, which is not the case, which I discovered. So I mean you had challenges like that. I remember even, I mean also asides from the challenge of being someone who is not very well known, you know, and that kind of, you know, there is a skepticism that you receive either from buyers or from the press when you're, when you're new. Yeah. I mean, gosh, there were so many different challenges. I think, you know, even I remember one of my first orders was stolen and it was going to Barney's and it was, you know, you had a kind of form of insurance that covered you from the port to America and the van had been robbed on the way to the port. So the insurance, I think I was insured for like the cubic value of like, of what was in the van, which was like, amounted to like, I think I got like £30, but the value of the order was like £20,000 or something. It was, you know, things like that that happened early on were, you know, oh my gosh, there were lots of challenges also at that time when I just began, my mum passed away so that my parents passed away in quite close succession and like just under four years between both of them. So I was in my twenties and then suddenly this like small family unit, half of everyone was, was gone. That, that also, that kind of, you know, feeling of, of starting this, this world and then also kind of not that kind of grounding that everyone's parents gives you was, was suddenly was gone. So it was the, the challenges came from, from lots of.
- [31:35]
Dan Rubenstein
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- [33:03]
Unnamed Interviewer
And do you have a personal creative process you go through when you're conceiving of a collection? Like, what is. When you kind of first sit down to go, okay, spring, summer 2025.
- [33:13]
Erdem Moralioglu
Yep.
- [33:14]
Unnamed Interviewer
Like, what is that? Like, what do you do personally? Like, how do you start that process?
- [33:19]
Erdem Moralioglu
Well, it's actually, it's like, it's pretty, it's, it's. I have like a very defined process. I go to the library. I go to London Library every Tuesday, where I research. So it's, it's the oldest lending library in London. Virginia Woolf was a member. E.M. forster, Edith Sitwell. It's an amazing place. It's such a. It's a very, it's a very. There's something in the walls of that place that, that is, is very special. And I sit there and I draw. If I can't think of something, I look at books, I research. I even sometimes work with a librarian that works there to help me research an idea. I often will have a few ideas in my head of where I want to go for a particular season. Some of those ideas work out, some of them don't. Some of them I keep for the future. So, for example, the last collection was about Radcliffe hall and a book called the well of Loneliness, which is kind of a queer bible of sorts.
- [34:27]
Dan Rubenstein
And when did you first read that book?
- [34:31]
Erdem Moralioglu
I had read it many years ago and then recently reread it. And it was always something that I knew I wanted to come back to in the story of Radcliffe and Oona, who is her kind of life partner. And this idea of like gender and identity and if Radcliffe was alive today, would. Would they be they them or, you know, this kind of question of gender I thought was very, very interesting. And it's a fascinating story and her story is fascinating and the story of the book itself is fascinating, how it was banned, etc. So, you know, I knew that I would eventually do something on that book. But for whatever reason, spring, summer, and that idea of working with a Saffy Road Taylor and all of those things kind of aligned with this idea of something that felt very masculine or very feminine. It kind of came alive. So it's kind of, it's almost like making like a little like, almost like A little film and you, you know, there's. There's a lot of different moving parts that go into a collection. And the timing of kind of where you go is dependent on so many different things.
- [35:42]
Unnamed Interviewer
And so let's go maybe go one collection in the past. Was there a different inspiration that kind of had that kind of film? If you give another example of this kind of narrative that kind of fuels your sort of creativity.
- [35:54]
Erdem Moralioglu
Yes. So, for example. So, like, Fall Winter was. Was inspired by Maria Callas, which is, like, definitely. There's been many collections, you know, exploring her life. But I was particularly interested in a performance that she did at the Scala in 1953, and it was an opera called Based on the Story of Medea. I knew that maybe there was something about her kind of particular Greekness. And I knew, of course, I was showing in the British Museum and the opportunity of maybe doing something with the Parthenon marbles. Medea was written around the same time that the Parthenon was built. And the kind of. The story of Callas being American, born in New York, dying in Paris, but having her remains returned to Greece. This idea of returning something circularity or that where people end up or things end up aren't necessarily where they're from. And it was kind of a kind of looking at her kind of Greekness. And so that was like a kind of, you know, a research process that went into really looking at, like, kind of theater production from that time. What she wore, the idea of being dressed undressed on stage, off stage, and the story of Medea and the parallels between that Greek tragedy and her life as well, that was fascinating.
- [37:35]
Unnamed Interviewer
And how did that translate into your actual designs?
- [37:39]
Erdem Moralioglu
Well, I mean, there were some literal translations. So the, you know, the idea of some of her costumes from that particular production were amazing. They were, like kind of these very crude outlines of, like, kind of Grecian kind of costumes, but painted, like, in a very kind of flat way on the. On her. On the front of her dress. So she had this kind of, like, controlled 1950s silhouette, but it was just kind of very crudely painted with a paintbrush. And like, that idea of taking, you know, creating these, like, kind of very perfectly fitted, controlled garments and then just taking a paintbrush and doing something that felt kind of almost like you were, like, kind of desecrating something that was, like, perfect felt very interesting. So that was one aspect. I definitely think there was this idea of the. On, off stage, you know, images of her, like, in her kind of. With, like, marabou and dressing Gowns and half in costume, half not in costume. Wig, tape, you know, all of those things were, like, clues into creating the little, like, puzzle pieces of the collection.
- [38:48]
Unnamed Interviewer
And you're. You're quite known for your prints, and I'm sort of, where does that come from? And obviously, you. You know, we've been talking about how you've. In the early days, you kind of took those scans and you kind of move them on the computer. Like, why do you. Why do you think these prints kind of speak to you? Do you have, like, this sort of. Is it a quant of. Does it overlap with other loves of yours? Like, you know, do you love painting? Do you love, like, graphic design? Like, is there some kind of. Where's that? Trying to find the. Maybe the source code of, like, where. The love of prints and your. Your aptitude for them, clearly, you know, it's.
- [39:21]
Erdem Moralioglu
It's a good. That's also a good question. I think it comes from, you know, you can almost imagine exactly what you want and what you need for a particular collection. So you then create it in a way. So it's creating something that you need in a way to kind of either say something with the collection. I also think there's something very interesting about creating a cloth or a textile that sits in between. Something that feels like, is that new? Is that old? Is that familiar? Is that not familiar? That kind of, like, rub of something that almost confuses the eye. I find very, very interesting. And also, like, maybe you can create an artwork that has, like, tiny clues or secrets in it. For example, the Callas collection. I was, like, looking at, like, these amazing set designs from the 1950s. And when we. When we started, like, applying these kind of very strange scales on garments, we could see that actually it created something very interesting, like something being projected onto the back of a stage or being projected onto a dress. Felt like it kind of helped tell the story. And it also, through abstraction, looked kind of quite modern. So, yeah, print is like, an extension of the storytelling, maybe if I had to break it down in a really simple way. And I think I've always been fascinated by tools that help tell, tell some say something.
- [40:54]
Unnamed Interviewer
I want to ask you how you kind of stay inspired. But I'm also fascinated by your collection of busts that I think T magazine did a story somewhat recently about them. How did that start?
- [41:09]
Erdem Moralioglu
I would bust. I think I go through these kind of strange, cyclical phases of looking at specific objects and collecting them quite obsessively. And busts are one of them that fall into that category.
- [41:24]
Unnamed Interviewer
And most of them are heads, right? They're not like full sort of like, you know, Mozart like head and shoulders and upper torso kind of busts. They're like feminine more almost Brancusi kind of like heads, right?
- [41:39]
Erdem Moralioglu
There's a few shoulders in there. Okay, there's some shoulders, but you are right on the kind of. That kind of elongated. Like, there are certain, there's. There are certain, certain artists that I'm like, very. That I'm attracted to and go back to and that kind of beginning. The beginning of the century. And even like English sculptors, people like Frank Dobson, I find really amazing.
- [42:12]
Unnamed Interviewer
How many busts do you think you have? Our heads, or however we want to call them. How many?
- [42:17]
Erdem Moralioglu
Last count, I think we're at 27. We're just under 30.
- [42:22]
Unnamed Interviewer
Is your partner also a compulsive collector? Like, is he like, yay, more busts or is he kind of like, ugh.
- [42:28]
Erdem Moralioglu
No, he is like an eye rolling, like, very worried about where we're going to put all of this stuff. And he is, he's. He. Philip is like. He is. I mean, he has a. I mean, he has amazing. He has amazing taste and is. But I would just. He's much more minimal.
- [42:48]
Unnamed Interviewer
And last year you had a collection that was inspired by the Duchess of Devonshire, who is sort of icon in different ways, the late icon. And you had an exhibit at Chatsworth House, and that was part of like an imagined conversation between the two of you, which I found really kind of fascinating from sort of like a art history, curatorial performance, everything rolled into one. Tell me a little bit about that.
- [43:15]
Erdem Moralioglu
I mean, it was an amazing opportunity. And the first time I had ever kind of co curated an exhibit that was at Chatsworth House, which is a large, extraordinary, beautiful house in the middle of Derbyshire. It's like the British equivalent of Versailles. This is a huge, very important historic house and building. And Deborah, Duchess Deborah, were married into the family. She was originally one of the Mitford sisters. She was the youngest of the Mitford sisters. And of course they have their own extraordinary history. And her story and this idea of continuing something I found so kind of beautifully inspiring, her and her husband Andrew were never really supposed to inherit the house. The house was supposed to be taken on by Andrew's older. Two older brothers, but both of them died in the war. And. And so they ended up inheriting this huge house. There were extraordinary inheritance taxes and they had to kind of save the house. And there's so many different elements that went into saving the house. And she definitely played a part in, in saving it. And that story I found kind of really inspiring as well as the history of the house. You know, there are these extraordinary 14th century tapestries that they sold to the nation in order to pay the death duties. And so that kind of made a kind of strange appearance in the collection. She was also a huge fan of Elvis. That also made a huge, kind of played a big part in the collection. Looking at like embroideries that he wore when he was on tour in Hawaii and looking at couture dresses that she had from the 1950s. Kind of the kind of weird kind of how they both spoke to each other, this idea of ornamentation. And it was a interesting collection to kind of get our teeth into. And she was so fascinating. And the family were amazingly generous. I mean, even we were able to create things out of textiles that belonged to her, things that were, that were in her bedroom. And she was, she was extraordinary. I knew, I also knew the late Stella Tennant, who was an amazing, amazing model, but also an amazing supporter of Scottish textiles and spent time with her going up to Scotland to look at different tweed mills. And Debo was her grandmother. And I, I then met Stella's young daughter at the time named Cecily, and she would go on to do an apprenticeship with us. So she did this beautiful embroidery on the finale dress into one of Debo's old curtains. So the dress was this kind of deconstructed thing and it was this wonderful kind of full circle moment of Debo's great granddaughter embroidering something. So it was this idea of lineage and kind of inheritance and the idea of, or the idea of kind of family and circularity I thought was so interesting.
- [46:53]
Unnamed Interviewer
And, you know, by the time this comes out, it'll be in the next season, which will be in early 2025. So do you have any holiday plans? Like, do you have, like, what is your winter? Like, what do you kind of, you like to do during those months?
- [47:07]
Erdem Moralioglu
Well, we live in a very old house in, as I said, in like Bloomsbury. So we're kind of near the British Museum. And it's an old Georgian house which really kind of lends itself to Christmas well. And we like, we love cooking together and having friends over or family. So, you know, there's lots of, lots of turkey and having friends coming and going and it's, it's a really lovely time. We kind of stay put. Also, Philip is from a very, very big family and they're all mostly in London, so We spend a lot of time with the in laws as well, but it's a great time of year.
- [47:57]
Unnamed Interviewer
And what's next for you in terms of work wise, where are you in your cycle at the moment in terms of collections and all of that.
- [48:04]
Erdem Moralioglu
So at the moment working on pre fall which we're going to shoot the week after next and the next fall winter collection which we'll show in February and then all gearing up really for the 20 year anniversary which will be fall 2026.
- [48:21]
Unnamed Interviewer
Oh gosh. And are you thinking about doing something special for it? Are you like an anniversary person where you think this is like, oh, I gotta, you know, are making you nostalgic or, or thinking strategically or having big thoughts kind of thing?
- [48:34]
Erdem Moralioglu
I mean all of the above. And also just excited to keep going and just, I'm excited about the next collection. And so there's some exciting projects that we're working on. We're working on a book which is something that we've never done and hopefully another exhibit. So there's definitely some interesting, some exciting projects happening in the future.
- [49:03]
Unnamed Interviewer
Amazing. And as I ask a lot of my guests, if you had to describe yourself in three words, what would those three words be?
- [49:12]
Erdem Moralioglu
Curious. Bookish. Can I say bookish?
- [49:17]
Unnamed Interviewer
Yeah, why not?
- [49:18]
Erdem Moralioglu
Why not? And a dreamer.
- [49:25]
Dan Rubenstein
Thank you to my guest, Erdem Moraglioglou and to his entire team for making this episode happen. The editor of the Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don't forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, the Grand Tourist curator@thegrandtourist.net and follow me on Instagram DanRubenstein. And don't forget to follow the Grand Tourist on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. And leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps till next season.