MOWALOLA - Autumn Winter Show 2023

As members of mankind, we are all engaged in a particular conflict - not with one another, but rather with the technologies we have created. Tools and infrastructures originally developed to ameliorate our lives have turned on us; rather than masters of our own destinies, we have become but pawns in sinister plots written by machines with motives of their own. Dark Web - Mowalola’s defiant return to London, the city where the brand’s journey began - offers an exploration of the techno-apocalyptic tones that colour contemporary existence; the struggle between man’s desire for self-determination and the algorithmic strangleholds we find ourselves in.
New York - the epicentre of capitalism, and the genesis point of the mechanisms that keep it chugging along - offers a thematic backdrop. Symbols associated with the Gotham-like sprawl - its sports teams, numberplates, cultural institutions, faceless corporation - translated to logo-hacked prints and embellishments across baseball caps, jersey tees and leather bags.
The agents of these faceless corporate entities are, well, faceless - derobed of markers of individual identity. Eyes are concealed by buggish reverse-wraparound sunglasses - some featuring mock Bluetooth headsets. Second-skin column dresses in nightshade hues - constructed with hoods, groin cut-outs and bound arms - convey a sense of fetishistic servitude.
A clique of hackers - underground vigilantes fighting to undermine corporation-imposed law and order - sport looks that embody a spirit of dissidence. Battered leather bombers are scrawled with biro graffiti, and floor-length leather skirts and wide-set trousers feature airbrushed trompe l’oeil graphics, marking the return of one of Mowalola’s signature techniques from the brand’s archive. Elsewhere, a band of survivalists - exiled from the city’s harsh technotopia - sport bolero-and-booty-short twinsets and skirts in both micro and maxi proportions in slick ponyskin, along with hardy Timberland boots featuring a bootlegged New York Yankees logo.
Makeup - conceptualised in collaboration with Isamaya Ffrench - develops on the collection’s central ponderings, with light sources seemingly embedded into models’ skin. Blurring the boundaries between man and machine, it gestures towards a world in which the two have inextricably merged - a world, there’s good cause to believe, may not be far off.
Designer - Mowalola Ogunlesi
Styling - @lottavolkova
Casting - @mischanot @11casting
Make Up Artist - @isamayaffrench @isamayabeauty
Hair Stylist - @clairemoore @theunseenbeauty
Production - @chiaralafour
Art Direction - @frederic_saint_parck
Set design - @tom____schneider
PR - @l52world
Lighting Design - @hydradesign__
Runway Photographer - @ikaldama
Lookbook Photography - @hendrik.schneider
Runway Film - @max_gabbay @dop_e_gaffer @bykevincheung
Showcalling - @go2show
Runway FIlm:
Executive producer - @chiaralafour
Show Music - @joeylabeija
Director - @max_gabbay
DOP - @dop_e_gaffer
Editor / DIT - @morganpez
Prod - @bykevincheung
Cam Op - @peter.garajszki
1st AC - Marco Alonso Alvarito
Trainee - Ruben Alavarez
Special thank you to @jake_gabbay
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