HATİCE GÖKÇE

When did you first realize the existence of fashion concept?
I guess in the beginning of my college years… But my mother had been a tailor for so many years. Because I was both open to learning and patient, she made me do the hand-workmanship.  
 
Was she professional?
Yes, she was a professional tailor.
 
Then your talent must be a genetic gift…
Yes. She was a tailor who could tail without making molds practically. All the information she gave me became much important for me in time. I know she has a magical eye. Because of her, I learned all the details involuntarily. For example, how I can use the remain of materials and fabrics.   
 
If we turn to the fashion perception in your college years…
Actually in those times I didn’t have a fashion perception. I was just curios. I remember something about me in those times; I was always drawing jacket models although everyone was drawing couture dresses. Different jackets with different cuttings and drawings… 
 
Were they avant-garde designs?
Yes, they were arbitrarily… Actually, I can say that I knew what I would do but I didn’t have a conscious in those times. (Shouts of laughter)    
 
Shall we say you discovered your own road map earlier?
I was a silent kid who lived all the emotional explosions in herself. I can say I charted out my way by myself. There wasn’t any right person who could inspire me about this in my environment. I created my own conditions. I went to both college and university by using the money which I earned from part time jobs. And then I worked in the kitchen of this job to decide rightly where I needed to be. So I started to the university late.     
 
Was that a conscious choice or natural flow of life?
It was something inside me. I chased after not the results but the pleasure in process. Still, the construction phase of a work excites me most. Even because of this I always try to delay the results. (Shouts of laughter) The learning in the process is like rejuvenescence and I can feel it. I understood after all the educations I had that I want to learn the classical process of work but then try to change it. This perspective is applicable to all the things about design.
 
You are a revolutionist soul… 
It can be said in one sense… My goal was about analyzing well the existing, adding something into it and creating a new thing. Choice of men’s clothing can’t be seen the right choice for me in normal conditions. When I chose it seventeen years ago, I chose to product alternatively although everyone was making classical production.
 
What is the most important phase in the work you are doing?
State of discovering! When you spend time with the material, you realize it has a language and it tells you something. You start to think about understanding it well and adding a new touching with its feelings. In this process, interesting works can be created. I enjoy this process. Matter of time dies out. I think the most important thing in a job is to feel that the time which is spent isn’t in vain.   
 
Why did you choose men’s clothing?
There can be so many psychological reasons. In other way, I realized all the topics about fashion are narrated by using women when I looked into fashion magazines. It put a question mark in my mind. I started to think why no one started to work with men’s clothing. It is enjoyable to design for women but there was a world which will be discovered for men’s clothing. There were a few materials, cuttings and accessories. I felt I could do incredible works in a new area which no one was coping with, I believe it is a playing area for me. So I found my company without big commercial expectations. I knew that I needed some time in the beginning. But in the end I started to learn about it. For example, I realized there was no men’s clothing archive. I asked myself what I could. I thought that I could complete it with a thesis: I chose a thesis topic as “what are the factors which affected Turkish men model since 18th century until today?”. It was so utopic but I prepared a thesis which tells about Turkish men’s clothing profile in the end. 
 
What are your sociological detections about the Turkish men’s way of dressing?  
There are a couple of things. First: there is a dressing profile which is affected and created by social pressure. Secondly, there are two phases which we can separate them as after the clothing reform in republic period and before the clothing reform in republic period. Naturally, clothing reform changed the dressing profile in a sharp way. It wasn’t a negative thing, of course. It needed us to adapt the world. But there could be a less sharp method for clothing reform. Because it caused that they suddenly left their background and started to use the innovation by importing it. It is so hard to erase everything and create from scratch. Actually Turkey can’t create marks because it can’t use this background. No one thinks of transforming it. We ignored it, even we had bias to it and we blamed it as ethnic without transforming it. We stole its energy in some way.
 
If we speak of the men profile who chose your designs…  
They are people who like to dress differently, know about materials, don’t give in themselves, try to reach their wishes and find the way they need to dress. Of course, they aren’t so crowded.
 
Do you feel lonely in this market place?
Yes, because I generally worked for men’s clothing, I was alone for a long time. Because I design alternative models and this area is limited, there is a loneliness. My goal is to show the edges and the huge gap between these edges and our position today and is to make people interrogate why. I am a designer who wants not to choose develop horizontally but to choose vertically.
 
You design clothes for so many male singers in music world, too; such as Tarkan… 
Two years ago we started to work together again with Tarkan. I prepared his special stage costumes for a year in 1997. It was a leather collection. They wanted me to design a simple model but because I like to produce and draw, I went to them with a couple of models. And when he couldn’t decide what to choose among my models, I prepared him a collection with ten pieces. I like to design for different men profiles who have different music styles. Can Bonomo, Hayko Cepkin, Tarkan, they are all different profiles. I think stage is magical and it is so enjoyable to support stage’s magic by using the language of textile. It is an easy touch but I think it has a permanent affect.  
 
What is your criteria for evaluating a man’s elegance?
Fabric quality and mold stir me up but I think shoes choice is so important to be elegant.
 
If a piece you dreamt of doesn’t exist as the way you want, how can you motivate yourself?
I am working with my sister and my partner Zehra in the process of production. We argue so much in this production process. If it doesn’t go as the way we want, we push each other. Stress transforms the results. We don’t give up as if it is over. In the beginning, it starts to excites us. We say that we know it will be awesome when it is over and because we don’t want the process, we have some problems but we are sure that we could find a way and then we start to focus on again.
 
What is your material as a designer?
I love leather so much. It is an organic and valuable material for me. It looks like hard but when you push it, you can create interesting models. Also it has a masculine touch and I like it, too.
 
In the world, so many people prefer artificial leather instead of real ones. What do you think about it?
Yes, I never use the leather of the animals which are haunted. But I don’t think it is harmful to use the leather of the animals which are utilized for its meat in side industry. Zig leather is a material something like that.
 
Now description of fashion is made meaningless. What will take its place?
We are in fashion and we are questioning it when we are doing it: For what, to whom I am doing, what to compete, where I want to be so on… Eight years ago, we decided to make a social responsibility project to answer all these questions and be useful: “Argande”. I am the project’s design coordinator for eight years. Until now, we reached approximately one thousand women in South Eastern Anatolian Region and they earn money temporarily or permanently. You can see how it results when women are included in fashion. A reality started to be exist about how sustainable fashion gonna be. Fashion is now a field of occupation which is included in the industry. Changing the system will take time but in a long shot designers show their power of design to design more special pieces. Tailors and designers will be included in the luxury category.

This year’s first interview is with you. What do you wish for it?
I wish 2017 will be a year which we listen our invoices, hear ourselves more and move with it.