The archives at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire are neither elegant nor grand. Rows of small, stone-walled rooms are lined with metal filing cabinets and bulging garment bags hanging on rails. But open the tin trunks and put away the tissue paper, and a sartorial treasure meets your eyes. Here’s the Dior pink satin Carmel dress from spring 1953, here’s the Alexander McQueen plaid from the 1990s. Elsewhere, neatly folded, is a white lace christening gown worn by one of the famous Mitford sisters and, even more surprising, Henry VIII’s rosary.
Designer Erdem Moraloğlu knows the way to the house’s contemporary textile store, but as we investigate, he constantly expresses excitement and admiration as if this is his first hunt. We look at the collections of the 11th and 12th Dukes and Duchesses of Devonshire. Maybe just two generations of a family, but also 80 years of fashion history.
“This is incredible, it has a bony bodice,” she exclaims, rustling the box marked 11th Duchess Dior. She opens another zippered cover: ‘This was made for her by a wonderful village tailor. He had relationships with some designers in Paris and returned to them, but also placed local orders. I got the impression that she knows what she likes and what suits her.’
The woman whose intimate belongings we examine is Deborah ‘Debo’ Cavendish, nee Mitford, sister of Nancy, Unity and Jessica, who died almost a decade ago, aged 94. Moraloğlu, 47, knows her clothes inside and out (she examines the lining of each piece) and has visited Chatsworth perhaps a dozen times to seek inspiration for her eponymous label’s spring/summer 2024 collection, which was unveiled at the British Museum during London Fashion Week in September.
The Duchess’s look and persona shaped the designer’s mood board, from the idiosyncratic (her penchant for shin-length skirts led to the creation of a candy-coloured maxi version) to the figurative (her late-life obsession with Elvis Presley inspired the collection’s design). embroidery). Enamored with her eccentricities, Moraloğlu placed a 1941 portrait of the Duchess and her pet (the latter of which wore five strands of pearls instead of a collar) on the seats of every guest in the show.
Laura Cavendish, Countess of Burlington, who is married to the current Duke’s heir, photographer William Burlington, was also at the show and was fascinated to see what the designer could do with the ideas she came up with while visiting him. laws. ‘It was as if he had put the archive in the washing machine and turned it over,’ she says. ‘It was great.’
Moraloğlu’s relationship with the Cavendish family goes deep. He met Lady Burlington in 2005 after graduating from London’s Royal College of Art. As the buyer of The Shop at Bluebird, Lady Burlington purchased her first catwalk collection, which was shown at the V&A. ‘We’ve been friends ever since,’ she says. He first visited the house in 2010 and also stayed at the family’s Irish castle, Lismore.
He raided the archives for the first time for his fall 2018 collection, which centers on the 1930s romance between Lord Charles Cavendish and Adele Astaire (Fred’s older sister). ‘A local family in the village right next to the castle kept a notebook of all the times Adele Astaire was in the press,’ she says of the resources the family provided her. ‘It was incredible.’
Although he grew up in Montreal with a Turkish father, Erkal Moraloğlu, his inspirations are often British aristocrats; perhaps an inheritance from his English mother, Marlene Jeavons. For most of his collections, he identifies a muse and then proceeds to fully explore her; For example, I spent most of 2017 with Queen Elizabeth II. He spent his time focusing on the clothes Elizabeth wore in 1958.
‘I always wanted to make a collection about Debo,’ she explains, opening the drawer containing her husband’s extensive club tie collection. ‘His story fascinated me; There are many different aspects of who you are, and some of them are quite contradictory. “I found it riveting.” The insect brooches attached to many of her runway looks were inspired by the Chatsworth jewelery vault; The 11th Duke gave his wife a jeweled beetle, bee or butterfly as a gift each year, which she wore again and again, sometimes climbing up his arm. Sometimes all together on the front of a vest.
The Duchess’s former secretary, Helen Marchant, told the designer exactly which Elvis songs were her favourites, and how she and the Duke made sure to wear black tie to dinner every night. She also recalled how the Duchess loved to feed her flock of chickens (she sometimes wore couture for another perfect visual contrast). As a result, Moraloğlu created screen prints of birds for the cocktail dresses in the collection. ‘I like a chicken to be weird,’ he says. ‘It’s quite a funny creature, and it’s in this new context that we see it,’ he says. ‘I made an English-style cropped tweed suit and imagined the skirt being pecked to pieces.’
Lady Burlington admits that the family had no idea what Moraloğlu might devise, but they trusted him and were happy to let him run wild, “because we knew he was going to do something interesting”.
‘The first photos Erdem sent me were of a velvet dress that was moth-eaten and no longer exists, but we have a photo of Debo,’ she explains. ‘I was really excited that he was coming back to life, being reborn for a new age. He didn’t show me anything beyond that until the show, which I thought was the right thing to do; absorbing the material and making it his own without me giving my two cents. At the fashion show, I couldn’t take in everything fast enough; insects, curtains, wallpaper, pieces of old clothes…’
The reflected glory of a catwalk show is a gift to the estate: staying relevant is crucial to the house’s survival. Maintenance costs around £4 million per year. Chatsworth attracts more than 600,000 visitors a year, mostly to explore the 17th-century stacks, art collections and Capability Brown gardens. The 11th Duchess herself spearheaded the operation of Chatsworth and occasionally opens the archives to the admiration of new generations.
‘We believe that Chatsworth is not just a place of the past,’ says Lady Burlington. ‘By preserving and sharing these archives we hope to inspire creativity, add another layer to our collection and keep Chatsworth a place where great beauty and exciting ideas meet.’
While Andrew and Deborah Cavendish set up the Chatsworth House Trust in 1981 to open the house to the public, piles of uniforms, ballgowns and couture dresses were stored in wardrobes, only becoming a working archive in 2009.
As each new owner left his mark on the decor, soft upholstery fabrics inevitably found their way onto the shelves. If you have a house with 459 windows, that’s a lot of old curtains. In this collection, Moraloğlu repurposed the remnants of the Duchess’s 1940s chintz curtains, transforming them into opera jackets, spliced panel skirts, and patchwork sashes on tulle dresses. ‘Deborah was not alone in adopting a ‘build and mend’ approach after the war; It was the spirit of the age,’ says Lady Burlington. ‘But in many ways Deborah was a pioneer of regenerative living and sustainability; ‘Things we’re still passionate about today.’
For Moraloğlu, this opportunity broke the fourth wall, so to speak. ‘I’ve never had the chance to include something that belonged to the muse in the collection before,’ he says cheerfully. His love of the past is integral to his approach as a designer, but his real talent is as an interpreter; it’s how he allows historical ideas to influence a contemporary, truly lust-worthy fashion collection without ever seeming dated or costume-y. It’s this balance that defines their style as timeless and attracts celebrity clients from the Princess of Wales to Nicole Kidman. Actor Sheila Atim was the first to wear the black bralette style long skirt, which is not very Debo style, at the awards ceremony.
Whenever a creative director position opens up at another global mega-brand, Moraloğlu’s name comes up, but he has always valued his independence and focused on building his own house. The romantic narratives his label tells are part of the appeal, but most of his clients come to him just for the perfect fit.
‘I spend a lot of time in the store [on London’s South Audley Street], because I like to zip up someone’s dress,’ she says. ‘There’s a great feeling when it fits them perfectly. But I wonder, how much of the story and what has come to this point is felt by this person looking at themselves in the mirror?’
No matter what, he will always be a storyteller. ‘As a designer, it is important for me to say something with these works,’ he says. ‘I find this element really impressive and beautiful.’ After about an hour of perusing open hat boxes, scarves and travel bags with admiration, we come to a small collection submitted to the archive by Lady Burlington, a future Duchess and former model.
‘Here’s one of mine,’ grins Moraloğlu. ‘This is a coat from my Adele Astaire collection.’ Then she finds a tiny bridesmaid dress she made for a wedding in Lismore in 2016. In the spirit of cyclicality, she is now adding to the archive that inspires her. Pieces from his newest collection will definitely find their place here one day.