AIN’T NICE: TUULI TURUNEN’S SS27
It was clear before the show had started that Tuuli Turunen’s SS27 collection, Ain’t Nice, was far more than a carefully constructed collection of garments; it was an attitude to be chewed at, bathed in and exhumed like smoke. It was a gritty, grungy and unapologetically physical experience to be embodied rather than a fashion show to be simply observed. Hosted at Ground Floor Gallery in Islington, the show transformed the loft-style exhibition space into a hive of activity. Shadowy lighting and mismatched concrete and wooden flooring mixed with a thick, heavy, earthy air to create a dirty, hazy, hard-to-pin-down atmosphere that left me eagerly anticipating the show’s start.
Photography courtesy of Marina Langrishe
The setting felt like something lifted straight from a David Lynch film: a red curtain pulled back beneath an exposed ceiling tangled with cable trays and electrical wires. Circular tables draped in white tablecloths sat sporadically around the space as guests gently sipped red wine. A small stage, glowing in the green light of an antique banker’s lamp, was decorated with a dark wooden chest of drawers, dusty paperbacks, a glass decanter, a tapestry rug, an ornate frame and an old landline – a strange portal back in time. The small flat-screen TV and home printer were the only interruptions to the nostalgia, adding to the sense that this runway was going to be a meeting of two contrasting ideas.
Photography courtesy of brand
As guests fell quiet and the lights dimmed further, the contrast moved from the room to the runway. The show opened with the music of Swedish post-punk band Viagra Boys, their single Sports – a track that parodies the hypermasculinity men exude when talking about sports – blaring out as the first model moved with a somnambulant rhythm. They wore a gorgeous oversized, fringed jacket in crêpe-pink velvet and cowboy boots, with dishevelled hair and eyeliner applied with a heavy hand. A collision between masculine and feminine, saturated in anti-minimalist rhetoric, was instantaneously cemented in the collection.
Photography courtesy of brand
Models lit cigarettes mid-walk and swigged from bottles of beer. This attitude fed into the designs: frills and fringes were met with dirty shoes, boldly overlined lips, smudged makeup, dark eyeshadow, upcycled taffeta and hand-dyed silks. It was a masterclass in punk nouveau. Finnish-born, London-based designer Tuuli is no stranger to a subversive, rebellious runway, with her SS26 Girls of the Year collection featuring stumbling models carrying bags of groceries whilst wearing distressed silk dresses – a true champion of the Type B girl.
The models’ attitudes embodied the brutal, volatile fierceness of the archetypal angry alpha male, accompanied by nods to violence, aggression and war. A brown and white acid-wash-style fabric, used across the collection for trousers and capris, could be mistaken for camo in passing, while jackets subtly emulated the style and silhouette of Napoleonic hussar jackets from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. One cropped brown jacket, adorned with various brooches, some incorporating chains, appeared to evoke medals worn by soldiers, whilst a green silk bomber jacket drew inspiration from the outerwear of pilots during the World Wars.
Photography courtesy of brand
Yet moments of pink, softness found in feather boas, liberation seized in frayed hems and a sense of freedom in moving tassels distorted this image through the ideology and aesthetics of the anti-war and hippie movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This idea could be seen most strongly in Tuuli’s Twin Peaks-inspired My Concerns Are Global vest top, which bore a peace sign in place of the O. As Tuuli explains:
“I’m interested in how power, control and femininity are constructed through clothing and visual culture, the ever-changing line between vulnerability and strength, and how complex it can be.”
Photography courtesy of Marina Langrishe
The showstopper for me was a pink leopard-print-esque top, worn sliding off the shoulder and paired with distressed, low-crotch black jeans. It confronted the masculine tropes in a playful and evocative manner that felt equal parts messy and feminine. The show concluded with the very contrast it had led with and sustained throughout. Abigail Morris of The Last Dinner Party, wearing a sheer beaded mini dress that sparkled under the light and a long robe that draped off her shoulders, followed the final model before taking to the stage to sing Kate Bush’s haunting Army Dreamers, which explores the senseless loss of young lives in war from the perspective of a grieving mother. As her soaring, otherworldly voice filled the room and the models returned for their finale walk, the power of Tuuli’s exploration of the tensions between aesthetics and ideology hung in the air.
Photography courtesy of Marina Langrishe
Daisy Culleton is an Essex-based writer. She works as a Content Creator at Hearst UK for Made Club & Prima.
