‘I couldn't help but feel the magic’: At Chatsworth, Erdem pays ode to Duchess Deborah Devonshire’s life and style

Opening Erdem’s S/S 2024 show at the British Museum in September 2023, model Tasha Tilberg emerged wearing a particularly beautiful, somewhat elaborate iteration of the classic Barbour jacket: ankle length and boasting proportions more akin to an evening gown, its waxed exterior arrived overlain with a quilted floral layer.

The coat, and the show’s subsequent 42 looks, were inspired by the late Duchess Deborah Devonshire (Debo) and marked the initial offering from Erdem Moralıoğlu’s rich study of Chatsworth House, the Derbyshire mansion the youngest Mitford sister moved into with her husband, Lord Andrew Cavendish, in 1959, the revamping (and ultimately saving) of which she oversaw. While the floral outer of Tilberg’s coat repurposed Debo’s original curtains, further pieces in the collection riffed on Debo’s fondness for Elvis (a series of leather jackets) and echoed her affection for chickens (the gnawed hem of a tweed suit).

‘Erdem: Imaginary Conversations’ at Chatsworth House

‘I would probably ask her what it was like when she first moved in,’ proposed the designer last week, speaking to Wallpaper* at the opening of ‘Imaginary Conversations’, a new exhibition celebrating the collection in dialogue with Chatsworth, facilitated by the Chatsworth House Trust. ‘The moment she stepped into the house, what was the first thing she saw? What did it feel like? I'd love to know how the first day was.’

Moralıoğlu’s own introduction to the house was in 2017, three years after Debo passed away at age 94, when one of his dresses was included in ‘House Style’, an exhibition co-curated by Hamish Bowles, and he was invited to dinner. ‘It was black tie, with candles and flowers from the garden. There was something very beautiful about it; I couldn't help but feel the magic of the house,’ he recalls.

Installed in the Regency Guest Bedrooms – among which is a chamber where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned, four centuries prior to the Cavendishes’ arrival – the new exhibition reimagines the space as a source of inspiration for Moralıoğlu, highlighting the relationship between the two and how he’s employed references and motifs from the archive into the S/S 2024 collection. Mannequins don standout looks with heavy fabrics bearing the original prints draped nearby, while vitrines hold Debo’s personal items – a straw bag from Hubert de Givenchy, a selection of bug brooches gifted by her husband. Elsewhere a video of the S/S 2024 show is projected onto a white curtain, while portraits of Debo, among them Lucian Freud’s ‘Woman in a White Shirt’, add further context.

The first designer to be given such free rein, Moralıoğlu worked closely with the head of textiles at Chatsworth, Susie Stokoe, who initially arrived at the house in 2009. ‘Chatsworth swallows things,’ she says, relaying how inaccessible much of the mammoth archive was previously (the house itself features some 126 rooms). The exhibition, however, features just a tight edit of Debo’s belongings. ‘It was kind of picking just the exact right pieces,’ notes Moralıoğlu. ‘Certain things required specific types of cabinetry because of humidity, et cetera, but then there are pieces like her chicken bag that felt like a really interesting story to tell. Her riding boots too, felt very important, and that yellow underpinning was a really important piece to have in the show.’

The underpinning, from a Jean Patou couture piece from the 1950s, is situated in The Scots bedroom positioned directly next to a dress it informed from the S/S 2024 collection, near a painting of Debo by John Ulbricht and a grand four-poster bed that fills almost half the room. ‘That tulle dress was one of the last exits from the show, so the relationship between the two [with the yellow], how those dresses relate to each other and kind of speak to each other [feels significant],’ Moralıoğlu notes, observing the correlation between this specific duo and how it encapsulates the spirit of the wider exhibition. ‘I love that room. It’s quite odd, because there are only two things in it, so you have to really look.’

Perhaps one of the busiest rooms, albeit largely calming with its soft palette, is a recreation of the Erdem studio. Featuring a moodboard and fabric swatches, several toiles, a series of paper miniatures, the S/S 2024 show line-up and, at its centre, a workstation with scissors, books, drawings and more, it serves as a nod to process, which is ultimately the nucleus of the exhibition: a chance to engage with Moralıoğlu’s research and appreciate Chatsworth through his lens.

Speaking then, on this curatorial exercise versus putting on a fashion show, the designer suggested that ‘a show is an ephemeral, quick thing. You're thinking about how someone sees something walking, whereas this is thinking about how someone sees something static. You're also thinking [here] about an audience that may or may not know who you are, may or may not have seen your work before, so it's an introduction,’ he says. ‘Also, it’s making the connection between the permanent collection here, combined with the collection that it inspired.’ At the exhibition’s conclusion, Stokoe says, three Erdem looks will join the permanent collection, a move she anticipates will allow future designers to be inspired in the way Moralıoğlu has been.

‘Erdem: Imaginary Conversations’ runs at Chatsworth from 22 June - 20 October 2024.

chatsworth.org