"As a designer, you are responding to the zeitgeist: What is going on in the world? What do women feel like at this particular moment in time? What really matters to them? How do they want to present themselves? What do they need? What will make them feel better?", so says Vancouver-born and London-based Edeline Lee, who gets it so right for so many women with her designs that meld a feminine sense of detailing with a strong use of shape and structure.
A lauded fashion favourite to some of the most powerful women in the world for her Made in England designs, which look to Jacquard fabrics, draping details and ruching, Edeline made her debut on the London Fashion Week schedule in 2016 and has since been a permanent fixture.
Her move away from the conventional presentations seen at LFW to the more avant-garde has too been a consistent hit with the fashion flock. Previously collections have taken on the form of contemporary dance, while more recently for AW19 she showed voice after voice of female power, structured as a marathon of oration. A member of the House of Lords and a curator from the Tate Modern were just a few of the women who took to the podium to share their stories.
A fighter for females, Edeline is creating a brand that is a welcoming space for women of all drapes of society – and for the future to come. We followed her around for the day to find out how she puts her feminist message into fruition...
"My studio is downstairs from my flat, so after I've prepared myself in the morning I walk down the stairs and take a deep breath before entering. I've never been a morning person – no matter how hard I try – but in the weeks before my show the adrenaline takes me down those stairs much more quickly."
"I design for the ‘Future Lady’ – a muse that I invented to represent what dignity, grace, femininity, and power look like on a woman of the contemporary world. This season, I am inspired by Mary Beard's Women & Power: A Manifesto exploring “the public voice of women and our cultural assumptions about women’s relationship with power”. Public voice is power, and since ancient history, women's voices have been diminished. Fashion itself is an arena where women are always seen, seldom heard."
"Music-wise, I’ve collaborated with Tom Burke on the sound design of my shows for a while. His old band is called Citizens! and that's on our track list, as well as my dear friends from Kaleida. Every season, we throw a London Fashion Week party with Glass Magazine and I Am Rockstar. This season our DJ's were El Conchitas and Krista McBride. So we've been listening to a soundtrack that they put together for the studio filled with old-school R&B anthems, songs that are impossible not to dance to."
"I do what I do because I never feel that I've gotten everything "just so", so I keep on going, even though it is a punishing schedule. The craft of fashion is deceptively complex."
"Every season we have new materials to work with, the products keep on changing and the fashion cycle endlessly keeps on turning. So the goal is to get it right: to make something useful, practical, exciting and beautiful in a limited, finite time. What feels completely current now, may be obsolete tomorrow. So how do we extend past this and create something that is current, but also lasting?"
Also on Because Magazine:
+ Look further Through the Lens! See how Marta Jakubowski is fronting the next creative generation…
+ Norma Kamali talks trendsetting and leading a healthy lifestyle.
+ Refresh your reading list with Caroline Issa’s latest murder mystery favourite.
