By Olivia Bennett ~
Fashion is so eager these days to go loose and wild with the passing world, increasingly Turkish fashion designers are looking for inspiration for models in something eternal—herititage. Treasure chests of over a millennium of heritagand heights of traditional mastery at hand unparalleled in the whole world, Türkiye is getting fashion crazy where past and present stroll hand in hand shoulder by shoulder down the catwalk.
From date-to-date embroidered fashion to hand-tied Anatolian kilims, Turkish fashion in the past has been symbolic. Upcoming designers throughout Turkey are looking back to that history as they try to produce not just trendy but even identity-based attire—a counter-narrative act of defiance of the globalization-model one-size-fits-all fast-fashion product.
Tradition Tailored for Tomorrow
There is a visual vocabulary in each Turkish province to be transformed yet again into its color, texture, and fabric equivalent. Fashion designers co-opt increasingly such provincial gems into clothing, re-interpreting symbols. Motifs that were once the exclusive domain of cushions and carpets now appear on formal coats and flowing gowns.
Among trendleaders such as her to steer this revolution is a head and shoulders above the rest, and she is Zeynep Tosun, whose trend house draws inspiration from Anatolian history but will never sell out into samey colour and fashion-forward form. Her dresses are not only history-inspiring but attempt to rewrite it, every stitch a badge of honour for women’s empowerment and agency. Bahar Korçan Late is yet another trendsetter most renowned for his magnum opus of massifying Turkish handmade heritage. His contribution brought craftsmanship and embroidery to the hearts of people, empowering rural artisans whose hand otherwise could not have been visible. Bahar Korçan’s contribution has inspired present-day designers who are fervently interested in carrying on Türkiye’s textile culture.
Sustainability with Soul
Apart from being cosmopolitan in character, Turkish designers are also racing against time to catch up with the latest trend of going green fashion. The companies are also spending more on organic Turkish cotton and organic dyes and going green in whatever they do. Through shopping locally and wastage minimization, apart from making the Turkish economy stronger, the designers are also turning global green shoppers.
This focus on sustainability is not a passing trend, not a whim, but proof of a larger philosophy that imagines fashion as so equally as beautiful an endeavor as it is moral. Turkish fashion is showing, with green materials and mindful manufacture, that duty and beauty are not two different things.
Istanbul Steals the Spotlight
Turkish fashion identity is redefined to perfection on Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Istanbul catwalks where collection is presented by designers blending East and West, past and future. And here in this presentation, the world is provided with a platform on their toes, an opportunity to unveil all the richness and creativity of their work before world fashion elites.
Uncovered is a fashion universe as rich and diverse as the country itself. New to trend-hopping as a way to simply stay in the loop, these designers are pushing risk to an all-time extreme, employing the clothes themselves as a vehicle for posing questions about questions of identity, heritage, and map-making.
A Style All Their Own
There is worse taste and fashion elsewhere in the world, but something real in Türkiye. Other rich cultures in Türkiye are recycled by head and hand designers of Türkiye in the seam of a suit or in the stitch of a gown.
Backing away from their past without sacrificing an aspect of the present, the Turkish designers are creating a global, conversational, and rightfully innovative future. And doing it, no less, without simply exporting Turkish fashion to the world—but redefining globe style from a voice both theirs and hers.
