Yakup Biçer is the designer behind Y PLUS BY YAKUP BICER and one of the established designers at Fashion Week Istanbul who has paved the way for emerging talents along with creating fashion shows and projects in Turkey, he has garnered an international fanbase from showing abroad.  He continues to challenge identity and gender fluidity that are coded in us at childhood.

You showed your last collection at Fashion Week Istanbul, and your collections continue to evolve with the current times and generations. Did you always know that you wanted to be a designer?

Being a designer; I don’t think it’s something you want to do, it’s a skill It is an instinctive movement that develops from the moment we are born. We shape it over time we should not think only of fashion textile design, we are intertwined with design in many fields. My own story concept design, set design creative consultancy collection consultancy I took the first step to create my own brand and started my collection work. In short, I started designing the moment I opened my eyes to life.

You are quite established on the fashion scene. Have you always been in fashion?

I have 31 years of experience in the fashion world. I was in the fashion world as a model before. I was the creative concept and style consultant of fashion show organizations for many brands and designers and I collaborated with many celebrities.

Your Spring Summer 2022 collection has a good balance of timeless and on-trend. What is your starting point when working on a collection?

The theme of my SS’22 collection is “CODE”. When you look at my previous collections, there are sections from our lives in their themes. We see that I stylize the subjects that I created by being influenced by lived stories. I try to present our life, our future, our culture, and even our art in a collection. While I was preparing my SS22 collection, I realized that I was conditioning myself, that is, coding. As I thought, I found myself in such a deep subject that I decided at that moment The name of the theme of my collection was “CODE” In fact, we live in a world where we code everything without realizing it. We love to set our limits so much that we live our lives as if we have given them a concrete code. We don’t just code ourselves, in our lives, around us, in our business life, external factors also code us. In short, we code our life, our future, our culture, and even our art. The ‘CODE’ collection is actually a summary of what we have wanted to tell since the first collection. Dressing has no gender. A man can wear a skirt. A woman can dress masculine If you have any thoughts that make you believe they are, you’ve seen one of the truths you’ve encoded in your life… In the 2022 summer collection, in addition to denim fabric, splash, rose and code print designs Y Plus is actually on its way to a diversity within itself. The patterns and the layer effect we see especially on the sleeves is a wink to the 90s style.

Do you have a favorite piece from the collection?

Yes… my favorite piece of the full Splash patterned look.

If we visited your atelier, what would you be listening to on your playlist?

Acid Jazz and Funky -Grooves Funky Disco, House Cem Adrian

We think of fashion these days and we think of destruction and the harms done to the planet and human rights. Do you think fashion is still relevant and how important is sustainability in your work as an established brand?

If we love our life and our environment, we should give importance to a sustainable life. sustainable fashion brings an innovative and more creative process. The basis of the future of fashion is to create a sustainable fashion. Fashion is in a transition towards simplicity, here we have to be creative and draw a path that is sensitive to the world. How will we shape the future of fashion and where do we go from here is the most important question of our time. Now, there’s an evolution: Enter the age of slowdown. Now it’s time for action instead of anger.

What do you think most people get wrong about fashion, especially when looking at Turkey, which is a bridge between Europe and MENA?

There are so many cultures and civilizations lived in these lands that we live in that I can say that we live in great wealth. From past to present, Turkey, that is, Anatolia, is the meeting point of civilizations. Many cultures and civilizations lived together in this geography…. We carry traces from Europe and the Middle East Instead of being a bridge between Europe and the Middle East, I can say that it is the meeting point of Europe and the Middle East.

Do have any favorite places in Istanbul that we can’t miss on our next visit?

I recommend you to see the studio moss of painter İsmail Acar in Galata. you will feel like you have taken a time travel between religions and cultures there.

Looking ahead, what are your plans going forward?

I look to the future with hope, my goal is to reduce our carbon footprint by using all recycled organic-raw materials and to establish a sustainable life in cooperation with local, small companies to make my brand one hundred percent sustainable. And besides this, the cooperation of fashion houses, which we have seen in the recent fashion weeks, shows us the right way. Collaborating with another brand first among my post-pandemic goals

And finally, what was the best piece of advice you have been given?

No meeting in life is a coincidence.

 

Take a look at the complete SS22 collection below: