YOUNG DESIGNERS OF KOZA
DENIZ AKKAYA
For the first time, 28th Koza Young Fashion Designers Contest, held digitally last night in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Koza Young Fashion Designers Competition, which has been organized by the Istanbul Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters’ Association (İHKİB) since 1992, is considered to be the most important platform where young talents who want to pursue a career in fashion design meet with the industry. Koza Young Fashion Designers Contest is all about supporting young designers and also introducing them to both local and global fashion industry. The Koza Young Fashion Designers competition, which was postponed due to curfews within the scope of the Covid-19 virus measures that affected the whole world at the beginning of March, continued the entire process online, allowing the process to progress.
This year, Sansim Adali and Bora Aksu were the mentors of 10 finalists, Oguz Erel was the style consultant, Yasin Soy and his team carried out the choreography and digital presentation stages. The young designers of the future had the opportunity to work with these two designers in all fashion show preparation stages, from fabric selection to casting and styling.
Here are the talented winners of the 28th Koza!
1.NADIN ALTIPARMAK
ORGANIC NOW
The young designer, who took the first place among 10 finalists, explains the source of her collection inspiration as follows; My starting point in this collection was the generation Z, which is my generation. If it is necessary to define the generation Z; We can say that because they were born in an age dominated by technology, known as the internet generation, they can reach information very quickly, live fast, think fast and analytically, and use social media intensively. In the region we live in, this profile that I mentioned has grown hungry for nature and rural areas. While this profile grew so intertwined with technology, I thought of their interest actually nurtures in the nature. With the awareness that this generation means “future”, I wanted to show that the phenomena of “technology and natural life” can actually lead closely related life. My inspiration in the collection; A profile of the generation Z, born and raised in the city, was adapted to rural life.
2.GULSAH AYPAK
BEHIND THE ROOTS
The young designer who took the second place in the competition describes her collection as follows; I have an ancient legacy from my family. I took over a dying culture, a colorful worldview. My roots go back to one of Anatolia’s most unique human communities. It is possible to find centuries-old traces in the story of migratory birds in the high plateaus of the Taurus Mountains. I am a Yoruk woman born in Istanbul. I grew up in a global order that overlooked at the authentic cultures. I realized that the antidote to the monotypic world of mind is also my own stories. There is a great creative energy at the distance between where I come from and where I am. My collection looks like a water element sequence: H2O. You can find the magical effect created by different elements on each other in the most capillary vessels of my collection. Inspiration stems from the meeting of contrasts, a mutated culture.
3.LIDYA ZENGINEL
lab-grown
Lidya Zenginel, who won the third prize, describes her collection as follows; While humanity was affected by nature in the past, they started to affect nature in the process from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Humanity’s influence on the world has increased and the Earth has entered an irreversible period. This period is called the Anthropocene / Human Age. With the technological developments and the use of fossil fuels during the Human Age, the carbon dioxide emission in the world has increased and our world has entered a warming cycle. Human beings, who destroyed the living species that they harmed in order to continue their life and protect themselves for luxury and prestige, have affected, consumed and altered all the natural resources that they can possibly reach. lab-grown people aim for a conscious and sterile utopia that is corrected “out of the laboratory”, far from this age we are entering.
The winner of the competition was awarded 50,000 TL, the second 25,000 TL and the third 15,000 TL, all three winners were also awarded with Study Abroad scholarship, foreign language education, International Fair Visit and 1-Year Membership to the Fashion Designers Association. Also, 10 finalists who complete their education at IMA (Istanbul Fashion Academy) will get a chance to debut their collections at the “New Gen” fashion show within the scope of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Istanbul.
Congratulations to the young designers who have won and we look forward to seeing your upcoming collections!
