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By Elizabeth Patón
Dilara Findikoglu experienced the kind of summer that most emerging designers can dream of.
She dressed Margot Robbie in a daring dress word of honor for the after-party of the London premiere of “Barbie,” one of the most publicized red carpets of the year. Kylie Jenner pouted on Instagram in a red champagne-colored silk bra. matching corset and miniskirt, and Zendaya posed for Elle in a mohair bikini. At the MTV Video Music Awards, Cardi B wore a traditional dress and matching cuffs consisting of thousands of silver hairpins.
Then there’s the final glimpse of Findikoglu’s display last season, the “Joan’s Knives” dress, animated through a vision of Joan of Arc returning from the dead to take revenge. It is a fierce feminized armor forged with Victorian silver cutlery and placed conscientiously over a black Case that hugged the curves. Hari Nef wore it in her red carpet debut (at the premiere of “Barbie” in London). A few weeks later, Emma Corrin wore it on the cover of ES magazine, accompanied by a protruding fork. of your hair.
Ms. Findikoglu’s unwavering social media fan base went crazy every time she scored a win. Seven years after launching her eponymous label, and with a recent nomination as a womenswear designer from the Nouvel Établissement at the Fashion Awards, she seemed poised to move from the cult of fashion fans to a wider consciousness.
All this would culminate in the London Fashion Week, where his show would be the maximum expected in the calendar. But just a few days before the parades began, on September 15, and after months of preparation, everything changed. In the end, there would be no parade.
During a Zoom call earlier this week, Findikoglu said she was out of the season, but not because of the anarchic series she’s known for. He said he had to cancel the program if he wanted to keep his business afloat.
“It wasn’t something I wanted to do or a resolution I took lightly, but the truth is, we don’t have the monetary means for a parade right now,” he said. Her brand, which she owned one hundred percent from the beginning, needed investors. In the run-up to Fashion Week, and despite the uproar, the task of balancing the books has become more troubling. Eventually, he said, he learned he would have to “cancel the exhibition and use that budget smarter than being a crazy artist. “
“To put on a show, I have to have a brand,” Findikoglu said. “Dilara’s global and all her dramas are free. You have to pay everybody. With my shows, I take my brain out of my head and put it on the catwalk for everyone to see. If I have to do it without enthusiasm, then all the other sacrifices are no longer worth it.
Findikoglu, 33, isn’t the only one struggling to thrive in the twenty-first century fashion landscape. Around the world, demanding situations for independent designers are multiplying and insurmountable, especially as conglomerates such as LVMH and Kering expand their portfolios and become increasingly dominant in the industry. .
In London, a magnet for emerging skills in fashion for three decades, the scenario is challenging due to the continuing fallout from Brexit and the pandemic.
“I don’t think it’s ever been harder to be an independent designer in London than it is now,” Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, told a press convention this week.
Once-brilliant callers like Christopher Kane and Nicholas Kirkwood entered management (the British term for bankruptcy) this year. Many of London’s most promising new talent, such as Nensi Dojaka and S. S. Daley, had already withdrawn from exhibitions this season, long before Ms. Brown had withdrawn from the exhibitions. Findikoglu cancelled his. The fact that the most prominent decision felt that its exhibition might not continue says a lot about the precariousness existing in the industry.
However, Mrs Findikoglu has been prepared to go against the tide. Raised in a classical space in Istanbul, she went alone to London at 19 to study fashion design at Central Saint Martins. When her tutors did not choose her for the prestigious After presenting the graduate collection to journalists and editors, she led a team that organized an outdoor guerrilla exhibition of the exhibition venue.
His first solo exhibition in a strip club. The occasion took place in a deconsecrated church, as did his most recent exhibition, in February. Dubbed “Not a Man’s Territory” and encouraged in part by protests in Iran against the compulsory hijab, the exhibition is the harshest synthesis to date of the central themes that have motivated Ms. Findikoglu’s work: anger, sex, feminism, emancipation, witchcraft and history. The collection, based on her iconic corsets and underwear, Array, said behind the scenes, her “little dance of revolution towards women reclaiming their bodies. “
Lynette Nylander, executive editorial director of Dazed Media, described Findikoglu as an author who likes to challenge and galvanize her audience, just like Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen.
“Dilara gives those fierce visions of old-fashioned female gazes and is afraid to move into dark garments or make you feel uncomfortable watching her do it,” Nylander said. At the same time, the garments themselves give the wearer an absolutely opposite feeling.
“She presents herself as an intense industry rebel,” Nylander said. “But Dilara really knows how to make her consumers feel empowered, in this sexy and fun way. She is a woman who creates for women.
Nef said she wanted to wear the Joan’s Knives costume for the premiere of “Barbie” because of the way it accentuated her waist and because it wasn’t pink, defying expectations.
“He is also covered in knives,” he wrote in an email. “Which is a fitting way to respond to a moment of unprecedented visibility. “
Despite the industry’s enthusiastic reaction to her most recent collections, Findikoglu had been thinking about new paths, at least creatively, long before canceling her Fashion Week show. Small and full of silver Gothic jewelry, last month she sat at a picnic table outside the doors of her studio in the sunny London neighborhood of Hackney. She wore a satin jacket and an antique Victorian lace skirt, and her long dyed hair cascaded over her back. He laughed a lot more than one might expect given the emotional toll of his job.
“I feel the weight of the global on my shoulders every time I start a collection, let alone finish it,” he said. “I know I’m working too hard. “
“I’ve had a lot to say about what’s bothering me in the world,” he continued. “But given the emotional, even physical, consequences of this situation, it would probably be time to say less. I still care, I don’t need to do it anymore. I’m tired of fighting, feeling heavy, and struggling to exist.
The collections beyond Findikoglu are rooted in a deep and disordered conflict: the intelligent versus evil, the beyond versus the present, Istanbul versus London, political or sexual freedom versus oppression. The new collection would make young people believe in the clubs of the 1980s teleported to eighteenth-century Paris through the harsh vibrations of a magical first kiss. Lately, she says, she has been disappointed by the quality of evenings in London. It had to be his way of organizing the party of his Dreams.
“I’ve focused on good looks and glamour, and my life comprises a lot of that, but now I need more joy,” she said. “Joy is not something I’ve explored before in my paintings. “
The advertising realities of fashion have been at the root of much of its mindset shift. Simply put, she didn’t have as much of herself to give creatively once she focused on running a business. Rumors around celebrity mentions, awards, and reviews do not generate monetary returns; Most of those pieces are unique traditional pieces that cost thousands of dollars.
But a line of swimwear that Findikoglu produced during the first two years of the pandemic, when her studio suspended runway collections, has worked incredibly well, she said. Her jewelry too. Lately, she has been thinking about how to make her clothes worn by more people and in her daily life. Dilara denim, he says with a smile, was about to become a big novelty.
It’s not that he didn’t like seeing his creations on the red carpet and in magazines. As a self-proclaimed “Barbie girl,” dressing the actresses for the film’s premiere was a dream come true. He also learned that it wasn’t enough.
“I feel very, very animated through the street and subcultures,” she said. “And if I don’t see my clothes on the street, it makes me think, ‘Why am I doing this?I want normal. Power arises from the integration of Dilara’s global into genuine life.
Unlike many designers who opt for a minimalist uniform, Findikoglu is a living poster of their sensual and theatrical universe. I would not hesitate to put on a corset to buy half a liter of milk in the store. Having the freedom to do so selection is sacred to her, especially in Turkey, where what women wear can be debatable or even dangerous.
“It’s vital for me to make myself explicit,” she says. In recent years, he has taken a step back from posting photographs of himself on social media. She had been told that this might inspire other people to take her more seriously. This is another option he is reconsidering.
“My ex-boyfriend tells me all the time that I’m too dramatic,” she said. “Now I just think, ‘Why would you be surprised by this?Have you noticed my creations? That’s who I am. Take it or leave it. “. ‘ That’s how I feel more and more about my public image.
On the day news of Dilara Findikoglu’s show was cancelled, another wonderful British fashion story broke out: Sarah Burton left Alexander McQueen’s space at the end of the month. Soon, rumors circulated online that Ms. Findikoglu was vying for one of the most important positions in the industry. Was the rumor true?
Mrs. Findikoglu skillfully waved her hand. Her main focus, she said, was her company, her “baby,” which she had grown up and raised. What would happen to him? Maybe I’d exhibit at Frieze, the new art fair taking place in London next month, or maybe something off the calendar next year.
Meanwhile, business continues as usual: the behind-the-scenes activities of production and sales that rarely succeed in the eyes of the front rows of the podium.
“I love what I do and I wouldn’t need to do anything else,” he said. “But I need other people to know that becoming a freelance designer in 2023 is an exhausting and exhausting struggle. This is not a fairy tale. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. “
Due to an editing error, an earlier edition of this article erroneously included the last call from an actor who wore Dilara Findikoglu on the cover of ES magazine. This is Emma Corrin, Corbin.
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Elizabeth Paton is a journalist for the Styles section, covering the fashion and luxury sectors in Europe. Before joining The Times in 2015, she worked as a journalist at the Financial Times in London and New York. More about Elizabeth Paton
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