The Erdem Pre-Fall 2023 collection is social whirl of modern events, balanced out with his more practical daywear takes on tailoring, trousers, and suchlike.

Details included puffed-sleeved dresses, varieties of long-skirted silhouettes, cropped bustiers, elaborate-but-light textures and embroideries, and more sober coats—while he talked through the backstory that lies behind them.

This chapter’s colors, prints, silhouettes, and suggestions of under-things are shadow-projections of his research in the London Library in St James’s Square.

A flounced, dark green ball skirt, a Watteau-back dress, broderie anglaise petticoat dresses, and 3-D anemone appliqués came out of his hours of study, while narrow, pleated, flower-sprigged dresses harked more towards children’s book illustrations by Kate Greenaway.

Every season, his narratives sound more like the pages of an evolving script.