Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena-Irons found inspiration close to home for Fall 2024. Just outside the Chopova Lowena's new studio windows in Deptford is a sailing club and boat launch into the River Thames.
There, sailors perform their daily ritual, rigging boats and casting off into the murky waters, establishing the waterfront as a sacred site for everyday traditions, a place of communion with each other, our pasts, and our bright futures.
That sense of exploration informs the collection's courageous spirit and touches on the core ethos of Chopova Lowena: the daringness to be oneself. Rig yourself up in your bravest bungee dress, your biggest bubble skirt, and your stompiest new boots and demand this world become yours.
Within the collection, mariners' nets are interpreted through hand-crochet panels in 1940s-shaped midi-dresses. A sea fairy drawn from a vintage mainsail design appears throughout as a woman ablaze, screen printed on wide-leg CL jeans and punkish sweatshirts. Sailor collars on white cotton blouses are complemented by oversize heart charms latticed with rope, a marriage of nautical uniform and girlish tenderness. Seersucker makes its entry into the Chopova Lowena universe as shirting and skirting, adding a wafty breeze to the brand's signature carabiner skirts.
But to venture out on the sea is also to leave something behind. Longing and love lost informs a contrasting narrative in Chopova Lowena's collection through explorations of wartime weddings. Often hastily arranged before military men were deployed in World War II, these ceremonies lend their demure glamour to silhouettes and embellishments, giving a lovelorn and haunting beauty to an expanded range of dresses and frocks.
Emma Chopova's grandparents, Emelia loveva and Ivan lovev, married in 1960, appear in a photo print on tees and dresses, surrounded by beads and slogans of endearment. Hand-beaded in India, these jersey pieces are inspired by the mementos wives would make in the 1940s while their husbands were at war, studding and beading pin cushions with photographs, jewels, charms, and bric-a-brac. The humble luxuries of the period are interpreted in powerful faux fur coats, a warm abundance of velvet, and a recurring floral metal charm knotted along waistbands and in a new headband style.
The tough and rugged spirit of the Chopova Lowena soul is the throughline between both stories, with characters clad in custom camouflage prints, mohair-trimmed bomber jackets, a new high buckle Stefanie boot, and low ASICS Sportstyle GEL QUANTUM sneakers. Their CL leather bag is always slung on a shoulder, equipped with a seahorse comb and custom pen, now with new macrame carabiner keyrings and dog charms. Whether conquering the high seas or pining for a faraway love, the Chopova Lowena heroine is dressed to conquer the world in all its might. Beautiful, brazen, she launches herself into tomorrow.
