“Another world is not only possible, she’s on her way.” So said Arundhati Roy at the end of her 2002 speech, Come September. The world Roy was manifesting has not yet materialized: far from it. So tonight Dilara Findikoglu created a parallel dimension in which it had. As she detailed backstage: “It’s about toxic masculinity—and being beyond it: I feel like tonight we are doing a mass ritual to end it. The collection is called Femme Vortex because I wanted to create a different reality, outside politics, borders, gender norms, any kind of systematic rules that have been created by hetero-patriarchal men. My previous collections were about fighting, about resistance. But I’m not fighting any more: I wanted to express divine feminine power somewhere beyond time, beyond reality, and beyond what is happening.” Welcome to the Dilaraverse.
Almost every one of the 37 looks had a title, and was crafted to encapsulate the spirit of a Findikoglu-conceived character through costume. The models then inhabited them, accepting the possession of that spirit through the prism of their own individuality. The input of movement director Pat Boguslawski (who through his work here and at Margiela is shaping an alternative world of his own) was a key contribution too.
The opening look, Female Territory, laid the ground. Hari Nef wore a corporate suit, usurped and transformed. Its pinstripe wool and cotton shirting was deployed as a split skirt worn beneath corseting, latex opera gloves, and a BDSM bow headpiece. Nef owned it—as every model owned their respective looks—with a performance of self-possession that physically rewrote the succubus myth into a femino-heroic narrative.
Some looks, including number three’s Man License, were accessorized with a tabloid newspaper whose splash headline ran: “OMG Dilara Is Doing a Satanic Orgy at a London Church.” Others, such as 12’s Fragile Ego, and the final two looks (Question of Time and Waking the Witch) were made of stiffened fabric apparently mid-flutter (or wrenched) as if to appear frozen in time. Look 32’s Cleopatra as a CEO turned eBay-purchased keys into the Egyptian queen’s hair above another suit-skirt as a declaration of office-culture revolution. Once she was done with power suiting, Findikoglu lampooned masculine tropes including soccer fans (her shirt came with Gaultier-esque bodicing).
These looks came with a see now, buy now scarf which, alongside the crystal-webbed black washed denim and corseted sportswear, hinted at promising real-world developments in Findikoglu’s business. Due to costs, the designer eventually elected not to show last season (here look 25 was christened only SS24 and was surely a carry over). However, if she can further translate tonight’s powerful Dilaraverse alchemy into the production of totemic “real world” pieces, her universe can only expand. When that other world does arrive, she will be wearing Dilara Findikoglu.