The Erdem Spring 2025 RTW collection drew inspiration from ‘The Well of Loneliness’ by Radclyffe Hall, exploring the push and pull of masculine and feminine dressing.

The parameters of menswear and womenswear are blurred and juxtaposed, playfully and confidently. Masculine suits appear in dusky pink and pistachio. Tailoring merges with drop-waisted silhouettes of the 1920s. Slouchy men’s cardigans and blazers are worn over tea dresses. Cyanotype prints of flapper dresses on loosely structured garments are heavily embellished with jewels. The queer emblem of the carnation appears in different guises, subtle and over-sized, graphic and ghostly. Erdem’s first handbag – the Bloom Bag – in calfskin leather with a hammered brass bud handle feels quietly opulent.

The needle swings back and forth with details and shapes, echoes and references that question the strict dictat of gender identity. How we choose to identify and who we choose to love are questions we have been asking ourselves since the dawn of humanity. We stand on the shoulders of figures such as Hall to be able to respond today that beauty and power lie not in conforming to social constructs, but in celebrating individual self-expression.