A/W 11 MARIA FRANCESCA PEPE

'Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.' - Victor Hugo

Maria Francesca Pepe's collections continue to appeal to the pagan within me. She could have just displayed a couple of old bones on mirrored plinths and I would have been sold on the spot. As an aesthetically-inspired aetheist, I am drawn like a magpie to the adornments of religious culture, just not to the belief. MFP's accessories seem to draw on the most diverse of spiritual and cultural inspirations: tribal antlers and horns take on a punk identity when adorned with leather and studded cuffs; there are references to Christianity in crosses and to the Egyptian cult of Ra in a tiara decorated with tiny kohled eyes; A studded, polished arm cuff resembles a prehistoric animal vertebrae at first glance, while a t-shirt dressed on a human skeleton torso suggests elements of sacrifice.