DUBAI: British Turkish fashion designer Erdem Moralioglu showed off his latest collection at London Fashion Week in front of a star-studded crowd on Saturday, while Bahraini label Noon By Noor unveiled an offering titled “Winter Solstice.”
Designers Shaikha Noor Rashid Al-Khalifa and Shaikha Haya Mohamed Al-Khalifa of Noon By Noor unveiled their Fall Winter 2024 collection at London’s Somerset House over the weekend, showing off a collection marked by experimentative trench coats and inner-wear reimagined as outerwear.
Meanwhile, Erdem, which is a celebrity favorite, unveiled an Autumn/Winter 2024 line inspired by Greek singer Maria Callas and her interpretation of the opera “Medea” in 1953.
“For Autumn Winter 24, we are taking our seats in 1953 for a career-defining performance of Medea by Maria Callas. The production was like alchemy. Callas did not play the role; she inhabited a persona with such force to the point that the boundary between artist and performance vanished,” the show notes read. “The collection explores the thin realm between myth and reality, on stage and off stage, dressed and undressed, person and persona, sorcery and seduction,” the label added.
The front row boasted the likes of “Bridgerton” actress Nicola Coughlan, Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, Dame Anna Wintour and actress Lily James, among others.
Meanwhile, the staging of the show caused some controversy with the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, who expressed her anger late on Saturday over the runway’s backdrop of the Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum.
“By organizing a fashion show in the halls where the Parthenon Sculptures are exhibited, the British Museum, once again, proves its zero respect for the masterpieces of Pheidias,” Mendoni said in a statement, as reported by AFP.
“The directors of the British Museum trivialize and insult not only the monument but also the universal values that it transmits. The conditions of display and storage of the sculptures, at the Duveen Gallery, are constantly deteriorating,” she added.
The sculptures were taken from the Parthenon temple at the Acropolis in Greece in the early 19th century by British diplomat Thomas Bruce, the earl of Elgin, AFP reported.
Athens maintains the marbles, which are a major draw for visitors at London’s British Museum, were stolen, while the UK claims they were obtained legally.
The 1963 British Museum Act prohibits the removal of objects from the institution’s collection.
But officials at the museum, which is under pressure to repatriate other foreign antiquities, have not ruled out a possible loan deal.
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