Fairy queen of the damned, Dilara Findikoglu doesn’t play by the rules. In fact she wholeheartedly dispels them. Born in Istanbul, to a family with traditional Turkish values, she’s basically been rebelling her whole life. Her first act of rebellion? Drawing sketches of women all around the walls of her living room when she was just two years old.
Another act that stands out is #encoreCSM, the guerrilla show she and a handful of other young designers staged during their third year at CSM, after being banned from showing at the school’s official annual press show. In fact, the idea of rebellion is stitched into the very fabric of Dilara’s collections, from her sharply tailored, frayed-edge suits in blood red and snakeskin, to her bejewelled ovary and bleeding heart patches.
Conceived as a captivating ode to the occult, and set in an actual church, her most recent collection caused quite a stir when the conspiracy loving alt-right radio host Alex Jones made a video to condemn it as “an act of Satanism”, described it as a “satanic orgy” and then said that “the only thing better is to kill a child”. Being the absolute boss that she is, Dilara responded with a selfie in a church and the caption, “I pray your Jesus to heal your souls filled with hatred”. Here, she shares some festive cheer. Amen.