Photographer and director Ina Lekiewicz captures the somewhat ravaged, historical beauty of Erdem’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection. Ib Kamara styles models Ana Flavia, Caren Jepkemei, Elisa Mitrofan, Justi Ageitos, Mia Brown and Precious Kevin in a collection inspired by Susan Sontag’s novel ‘The Volcano Lover’.

Locked up in his COVID-suffering London house for four months with no access to the multitude of references that inspire his fashion vision, Erdem Moralioglu became totally infatuated by the story of Emma Hamilton, “who married a volcanologist obsessed with Grecian vases and had a passionate love affair with Lord Nelson’, writes Anders Christian Madsen for Vogue.

Set in the weeks before the French Revolution, Hamilton became friends with the queen of Naples, the sister of Marie Antoinette whose influences pervade the collection.

“There was something about this odd time that we’re living in, and the idea that there is something so much bigger than all of us that controls everything,” Moralioglu said, drawing a parallel between crises past and present. “It’s beauty in a time that’s very ugly, and the idea of creating something decadent with an underbelly of something poor.”

Erdem joined other designers in showcasing his Spring 2021 collection in nature, choosing Epping Forest in Essex, England as the site of his no-audience presentation. The designer told WWD that he didn’t want the collection to feel polished at all.

“It’s a little sloppy, there’s an un-doneness to it, a sense of unwinding that felt relevant to me,” said the designer, who couldn’t help but compare Emma’s dilemmas, and the puffing Vesuvius, to the current times.