From one fanciful designer to the next, showgoers dashed to the Walks at Gray’s Inn, one of the largest privately owned gardens in London, for Erdem’s SS20 show. Erdem Moralioglu always educates and inspires by choosing a radical historical figure and using them as the starting point for his inspiration. This time it was Italian silent film star-turned-communist agent Tina Modotti. Her death (sudden, and in the back of a cab in 1942) is still shrouded in mystery, and she’s seen as a courageous figure thanks to her activism during a time of political and social chaos. Erdem looked to the way Modotti presented herself – through Victorian dress, avant-garde glamour and later, militaristic utility wear – to make a point not about clothes but about dress as self-expression. The collection was dramatic and daring, with puffed-up black dresses made for a funeral, and a colour palette inspired by Modotti’s time in Mexico, all sea greens, hot fuchsias and egg yolk yellows. There was an abundance of prints, from polka dot suiting to floral silk shawls, and as ever, the show left guests with a sense of escapism and fantasy.