Ceylan Atınç, who has dressed Hande Erçel, Tuba Büyüküstün and Serenay Sarıkaya, talks about her profession and various topics involving Turkish fashion
From Ottoman kaftans (the famous Moroccan tunics) to creations inspired in the modern global fashion, turkish fashion has, in its history, wall paintings dating back to 100 B.C that show Central Asian Turks wearing leather boots, mintan shirts (loosely cut, collarless shirt), short kaftans and riding breeches, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Over the years, due to emigration from Asia to Anatolia, the integration of cultures has brought about several changes in Turkish fashion and culture.
In 1923, when the Turkish Republic was established, there was a movement to promote a secular and more modern nation-state, also influencing the way of dressing. Laws started to be implemented, forbidding the use of traditional clothing and encouraging the use of western fashion. In 1960, the tailored clothes from the past were replaced by the ready-to-wear industry.
All this movement brings us to nowaday, where we can see a big influence, almost daily, of the western fashion, also present, of course, in Latin America. The fact is that Turkish fashion and culture have been drawing attention, especially of Brazilians and of course Entretetizei needed to bring this topic to our readers and followers. And who could better than a Turkish professional from the fashion world to tell us about it, right?
We talked to Ceylan Atınç, Fashion Director of Vogue Turkey and certified in Styling for Media at the London College of Fashion. She has been working as a fashion and styling editor since 2005 and has been a lecturer at the Istanbul Fashion Academy. But what does a Fashion Director do exactly? How is a fashion campaign created? And how is it to work with celebrities? You can check these questions and much more in our interview. Check more below:
Turkish fashion and the day-to-day routine of a Fashion Director and Stylist: how does the whole creative process of a campaign work?
Now that you got to know a little about the history of turkish fashion, let’s go to the good part: the interview. We started the chat asking Ceylan what was the most challenging campaign she’s ever worked on as a Fashion Director and she told us that, once in a while, they receive challenging projects, both for the magazine and for the campaign itself. “To me the most shocking are the advertising campaigns. One of the hardest photoshoots I remember was the photoshoot for the campaign at the Museum of Archeology of Istanbul on a very snowy and icy day. The model was constantly falling on the ice and, at the end of the shoot, the photographer fell and broke the camera”, she said.
Another topic that awakens people’s curiosity, is the process of the creation of fashion campaigns, that requires some good hours of work and much, much creativity involved. When she was questioned about how the process of creating a campaign from scratch works and what happens behind the scenes, she comments that one of the most fun parts is preparing the moodboard for the photoshoot. “It’s very exciting to pick the model and the place, style the outfit to fit her, decide the hair and the make up and, finally, create the hero of the story. But this hero doesn’t always end up the way you dreamed of. Things that happen in your surroundings and that cannot always be foreseen can affect the shoot: for example, the menstruation of the model on the shooting day, a fight with their lover or a disease. Because our business is always with people, therefore the mood changes affect us a lot”, she adds.
Fashion and Celebrities: how is working with big turkish actresses, like Hande Erçel?
It’s a fact that a fashion director has the possibility to work with many professionals, among them, artists and celebrities. In Ceylan Atınç’s case, some turkish actresses have already stamped her portfolio, like Hande Erçel, Tuba Büyüküstün and Serenay Sarıkaya. In Hande’s case, one of the most famous turkish actresses in Brazil and Latin America, Ceylan had the opportunity to direct and work with the actress in two campaigns for Vogue Turkey: in 2021 and 2022, besides a special work for the Elle Style Awards, also in 2022, where Ceylan dressed Handemiyy with an iconic Gucci dress – the famous purple dress.
“Working with Hande is very pleasant and easy. She is respectful, well-intentioned, pleasant and sincere. The most important criteria for me are respect and good-will. Besides, everything she wears fits her very well and she can understand the persona I want to create in the shoot and pose accordingly. Sometimes the actresses don’t like to be photographed and it’s very hard for us. Hande loves fashion. She enjoys every moment of a photoshoot”, she says.
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Oh, of course we couldn’t leave out the question if we can expect another work with Hande in the future and Ceylan replied to us with a “yes, sure. Why not?!”. For those who still don’t know her, Hande Erçel became globally famous for her role of Eda Yildiz, in the series Sen Çal Kapımı, of Fox TV, broadcasted in Brazil by HBO Max. She is the most followed actress of her country and constantly draws attention with her looks and impeccable style.
Still on the topic of fashion production, Ceylan comments about her criteria and references to pick the ideal outfit for each event and photoshoot: “in the first place, time is very important to me, because when I can think and work on this, I can do a much better job. In difficult times, everyone can panic and this complicates our work. Besides that, it’s important to me to get to know correctly the content of the event the celebrity will attend. I prepare a lot of famous celebrities, both women and men. It’s an important criteria to me that the person that I work with likes and is open to innovations”, comments the director.
How to conciliate various projects and how powerful is Brazilian fashion & culture around the world?
Besides working at Vogue, Ceylan Atınç has her own style agency and creative consultancy. With her team, they offer seasonal or monthly consultancy and do the styling of campaigns/advertisement and textile companies. To add up, she has been teaching Styling classes for ten years now. “I love to be in all facets of fashion”, comments the stylist and creative director.
And since we’re brazilians and in love with fashion and turkish culture, we had to include Brazil in this conversation. By the way, did you know that Brazil is one of the countries that most consume the famous dizis (turkish series)? And what would be the “secret” of this match between such different cultures? That’s what we asked Ceylan. She says that, after university, she continued her studies in Berkeley, USA and, while she studied there, her closest friends were from Chile.
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“As we spent more time together, I felt that the cultures of these two countries [Turkey and Chile] were also very alike, although they couldn’t be farther from each other. I think that the latin american countries are very attached to their families, friends and traditions, like my country. We’re also countries with a large and young population. This can cause a bit of chaotic situations. We’re also similar in this base”, she said.
The truth is that Brazil and Turkey have much more in common than we imagined. In our conversation with Ceylan, we found out that, for example, the latin telenovelas were also broadcasted in Turkey, proving that this bond comes from a long time. “When I was a child, we used to watch brazilian TV series in Turkey. The term ‘novela’ entered our vocabulary at that time. Young & Restless, Marimar, Ugly Betty and many more..”, she completed.
She also adds compliments to the brazilian women: “Do I have to mention your beautiful women? The brazilian models are so epic in the fashion industry. But to me, the most interesting part of the brazilian culture is the tradition of festivals. I love all the costumes, colors, music and dances. I hope to visit it one day and see it with my very own eyes”, said Ceylan.
Turkish fashion and the Dizis: what can Ceylan Atınç tell us?
In this matter we have understood the importance of the turkish fashion for its people. Every detail tells a story, just like in the dizis, that are earning their space around the world. The turkish actors, in general, are very dear to brazilians and working in the styling of these characters is certainly a job that requires a lot of care and creativity. Thinking in the future, we asked our guest if she intends to work with styling in dizis and how it would be, for her, the ideal character. She replies talking about the difficulty of working with a styling in a production that shoots for a long period of time:
“To be honest, I tried twice: I dressed Asli Enver for Istanbullu Gelin and did the styling for another turkish series for one season. But the problem is that the episodes are so long, they run like a movie in one week, so I think that the most difficult part of the styling of a series is trying to find time and adapt the script based on the costume. I will only do styling if this challenge of time disappears. 🙂 so maybe a project for Netflix or Disney+ would be better”, she adds.
In Turkey, the dizis are separated by seasons: the winter season and the summer season. The turks are in love with dramas that are broadcasted during the turkish winter, since it’s the period they spend the most time inside their houses. Which means that the audience consequently increases. There, they take in consideration the audience by economic classes: devices are installed in the houses and that is the way they can see the classifications [ratings], that are divided in three: total, AB1 and AB. The ones that get the higher audience and who’s always rising in the AB classification stay airing, that’s why some dizis stay on air for many years. Summing up: if there’s an audience, they will keep renewing and shooting many seasons, no matter what the script looks like.
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This explains what Ceylan said about the styling taking “a long period of time”, since the dizis are broadcasted just once every week (different from Brazil, that broadcasts their novelas every day), the medium duration of every episode is from 2h to 2h30 per episode – and they don’t film in studios: the filming always happen in real places.
The turkish culture, feminism and conservatism
Besides dizis, another subject that has been drawing attention – and that we learned through turkish series, is the turkish conservatism. Despite being a country filled with talent and with highly inspiring professionals, the population, especially women, still suffer with sexism and the classic conservatism, but that doesn’t mean that this “minority” is silenced: on the contrary, actually.
Thanks to this, we see a very symbolic and important movement from artists and from the turkish media itself in favor of the freedom of speech. At the same time, feminism is still a matter that, compared to Brazil and other western countries, is a taboo. As a website made by women and that supports the work of other women, we questioned Ceylan as to how she deals with feminism in her day-to-day routine and job.
She told us that she loves working with women, even when sometimes they’re more complicated [to work with]. “I believe that they’re more creative. Women are creators of solutions. I always try to support the Women’s Rights and organizations/initiatives of women”.
Recently, a post in her Instagram caught our eye and encouraged us to chat about these issues with the fashion director: it refers to the assault on iranian women that protest daily, against the current regime, authoritarian and conservative. In the post, Ceylan comments: “I had a lot of iranian students in the styling classes we opened online during the pandemic. I admire the talent, vision and eye for fashion in each one of them. Today, in our last class, I had a student that left me very emotional: he imagined that he had finally achieved the freedom they fought for and published the Vogue Iran. He dedicated his first cover shoot to the young iranian women that died while fighting for freedom. Not only imagined, he also took a photo with his young iranian friend that cut his hair short. I wish “freedom” for all of my fellow citizens under pressure”. Take a look:
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Ceylan Atınç and her plans for the future
In fact, the turkish fashion is increasingly on the rise. It follows historical periods that marks important events for the culture and turkish people; and nowadays, it gets inspiration from trends, brands and styles that are also present in the western fashion – and latin.
Our interview with Ceylan Atınç ends with Entretê asking if she has interest in expanding her work for other countries, including Latin America. The stylist and director tells us that, in Vogue, diverse photoshoots are made outside the country, mostly in Europe. “Our next cover for December was filmed in Los Angeles. I would love to be able to visit Latin America and do some shoots there. Personally, I’m very curious about this part of the world where I’ve never been”, she said – and we would love to see her here, making beautiful and empowering photoshoots.
Ceylan knows that us and our audience are in love with the entertainment world and, of course, the fashion world – including the turkish culture. Her final message to our readers was: “Thank you for this interview. Come and visit Turkey: Istanbul, Capadoccia, Bodrum, Göcek, Mardin… you will find a beautiful environment here!”, she finishes.
Entretetizei is a portal that supports diverse cultures and insists in diversifying the agenda we work on. Besides having a newsroom specialized in turkish culture and fashion, we want, more and more, to provide different experiences to our audience, like this interview, where we can get to know and understand professions and traditions in a real and authentic way. We also support the freedom of speech and don’t compactuate with institutions that promote violence against women and people who desire and seek for freedom.
So, what did you think of this interview? Tell us here in the comments or in Entretetizei’s social medias (Insta, Face e Twitter).
Also read:
+Reasons why you should watch Sen Çal Kapimi
+Turkish fashion: 5 actresses to be inspired by
+Hande Erçel without filters: actress is the new cover of Hello Türkiye magazine
+Interview | Brazilian actress Jessica May talks about her trajectory in Turkey
+Meet ISMY, a brazilian brand inspired by Turkish fashion and culture
Credits for the header: Entretetizei
Credits for the traduction: Layla Smaili/Entretetizei
Source of research for the content of this article: Culture Trip; Nexo Jornal; Entretetizei