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.