Luxury streetwear brand LES BENJAMINS unveiled their Fall/Winter 2021 collection “Forgotten Places”. For the fall, designer Bunyamin Aydin takes racing culture as the starting point and marks a return to the label’s cultural roots exploring Turkish rally culture from the 70s and 80s and pays a tribute to Turkey’s rally icons Renç Koçibey, Serdar Bostanci, and Ali Sipahi. We see motorsport-inspired clothing merged with athleisure to create a new sense of proportion and function.
“In 2020, I found myself diving deep into my own culture and history. Renç Koçibey, Serdar Bostanci, Anadol cars, and the Turkish rally heritage have inspired me to design this collection,” Bunyamin told us.
Bunyamin Aydin doesn’t shy from confronting the richness of street-culture and traditional heritage while thoroughly rooted in contemporary fits. That’s probably why the brand is so popular and regularly spotted on Maluma, Justin Bieber, Jay Z, Teyana Taylor, Simihaze, and more.
Founded in Istanbul, the brand isn’t afraid to touch on cultural landscapes with a style that manages to defy cliché. Juxtaposition is key this season, vintage racing uniforms are reinterpreted with a sharp street culture twist. The track clothes mimic the actual rally in its boldness and stark contrasts: while going through this FW 2021 collection, one can perfectly imagine how heavily-modded cars emblazoned with bright sponsor logos engage in off-track racing punctuated by jaw-dropping, wild landscapes and occasional wrecks.
Defined in two chapters ‘’rally-style’’ and ‘’crash & repair’’ the collection’s garments narrates the entire cycle of a rally, from the pilot’s mental preparation to the actual race. In this context, style and performance are the collection’s spiritual and functional pillars and are translated into a rich range of tailored silhouettes, experimental textures, and bold patterns in earthy hues with eye-popping dashes of magenta.
Utilitarian and aesthetics are therefore at the core of this collection, which is why Aydin set his mind on experimenting with natural fabric treatments that come with an artisanal feel such as the distressed carpet jacquard, oil spill prints on polar fleece, natural shimmery cupro, printed denim, light woven knitwear, and we are very excited to see vegetal leather.
Take a look at the full collection below:
