Erdem Reimagines Archive in The Imaginary Conversation for 20th Anniversary at LFW

Erdem Moralıoğlu opened his Autumn/Winter 2026 womenswear show The Imaginary Conversation as a 20th-anniversary season at London Fashion Week, presenting restitched archival gowns, coats and new hybrids that deliberately put past characters into dialogue. The show, reviewed Feb 22, 2026, reimagined signature silhouettes rather than reproducing them, with garments altered in cut, fabric and embroidery to read as fresh pieces for now.

Accounts differ on the room that hosted the presentation: Fashionotography places the runway at Somerset House, while Harper’s Bazaar describes a Tate Britain setting with William Turner and David Hockney paintings hanging near the clothes. Both outlets, and reviews that referenced the LFW schedule, agree the presentation occurred in London during Fashion Week, but the venue discrepancy highlights the show’s museum-like ambitions and its curated proximity to British art.

Moralıoğlu framed the season explicitly as process, not patrimony. “I find the word retrospective uncomfortable,” he told Anothermag, and added, “I like the strange exchange of these different voices, talking to one another. An imaginary conversation.” He staged imagined pairings, “Debo talking to Tina Modotti, Radclyffe Hall talking to Maria Callas”, to make the archive behave like collaborators rather than relics, an approach Designscene said links earlier work to current practice and projects it forward.

The clothes read as tangible evidence of that method. WWD called the collection “a mashup of archival reference and contemporary tailoring, with lace, satin, feathers and collage-like textural [treatments],” while Fashionotography described the runway as a “living wardrobe” where patchwork and layering prevailed and draped and structured pieces coexisted on the same body. Harper’s Bazaar recorded literal reveals: a country-house needlepoint floral skirt pulled back to show a bejewelled denim corset evoking Y2K Kate Moss, and a fraying tweed suit that in motion uncovered a black satin slip skirt trimmed with 1950s beaded roses.

Casting underscored the past-meets-present conceit. Harper’s Bazaar named younger newcomers Ella Dawson and Summer Dirx alongside legacy beauties Guinevere van Seenus, Edie Campbell and Karen Elson, whose daughter also walked and was noted to be the same age as many runway newcomers, making the runway itself a generational exchange.

The anniversary also carried a political charge. Harper’s Bazaar asked blunt questions about reference and responsibility, writing, “It’s impossible to make clothes that reference Victorian and Edwardian England without smacking into the violence of colonial rule. It’s hard to look at perfect dresses without wondering why more women aren’t being paid to design them.” Moralıoğlu reflected on that tension in the room: “Have we really learned from the past? From our own pasts? I think about it a lot.”

Staging details reinforced the museum motif: Anothermag noted “forensic” museological-style labels stitched across the venue and garments, and Harper’s Bazaar reported a capsule described as “Erdem’s greatest hits.” With Instagram promoting “intricate florals, sculptural tailoring, and timeless femininity,” The Imaginary Conversation closed as both a retrospective rethink and a platform for future pieces, a twenty-year inventory restitched into the blueprint for what ERDEM will be next.