New York Fashion Week, as is standard, was mostly a load of ZZZs this year, but fortunately, Istanbul was concurrently hosting a fashion week of its own, and they were not playing.
On the runway for NewGen, the British council which showcases some of the world’s most interesting and talented emerging designers, a couple of Turkish designers were thinking big. Neslihan Çömez incorporated an element of art in her “Dual Souls” collection, with giant bowed sweatshirts and tent-like portions of taffeta, but kept humor in it, too—see above left, a dangling hand, like a kitchen witch that’s been defenestrated.
There are shades of Fall 2012 Comme here—when are there not!—but the overall project, especially in this photo, was like expanding on the quince dress, uniting each look to make one giant cyborg princess ready for a waltz. She hashtagged the ‘grams leading up to the show as a #new #utopian #world, and part of that may include clothing that can double as housing.
Presumably we’ll need extra hands for all the labor we’ll be doing in the future, but also: This is how I’m interested in accessorizing.
Tuğçe Demiran, Çömez’s NewGen counterpart, was also inspired by huge proportions, but hers represented something more like a beautiful dystopia in which we must scavenge for materials to wear. You know what will be great for a blazer in 2058? The good ol’ American dollar. Although, at the rate things are going, it might be 2018.
Demiran’s vision seemed like ‘80s excess taken to its logical extreme, glamour as the grotesque; shoulder pads were stretched out so far they seemed to be garmentspreading, as though a comment on a nation’s culture impinging another’s space.
To my American eyes it also looked like commentary on the carceral state, but it was also a play on criminals as the ultimate hedonists and “the defeat of a government to a man.” Called “Los Magicos,” Demiran wrote on instagram that her collection was inspired by Pablo Escobar, and imagining a future of freedom.
“People under this spell will feel matchless in this new world.” Now that’s a fashion goal to aspire to.
