Next up at H&M? It’s Erdem. A two-hour drive from London, deep into the Hampshire countryside, along a winding lane, past a tucked-away gatehouse, through swaths of secluded parkland, and up a hill lies a dilapidated Palladian house where mysterious fashion activity has been taking place this week. On one side of the house, a man was patiently spray painting the lawn a little greener. Beyond it lay a vista of tents. One was packed with clothes, and inside it was Erdem Moralioglu and the team from H&M.
Quite a surprise, this, because anyone who knows London’s most successfully romantic, cinematically minded independent designer also knows how charmingly adept he is at turning down almost every business approach that’s come his way in his label’s 12 years of existence. So why H&M? “He gets to try out a few things he hasn’t done before,” says Ann-Sofie Johansson, H&M’s creative adviser. “Like, it’s my first menswear,” said Moralioglu, laughing. “And the menswear informs the women and vice versa; I’m thinking of my sister wearing a tweed jacket over a tea dress and trainers. And what our parents were wearing when they met in the ’60s.”