Cemil Ipekci |
By Ines Min
Turkish fashion designer Cemil Ipekci first encountered Korean culture about a year ago, in the form of television drama, “Queen Seondeok.” Not that he knew it was Korean.
“They aired it at one o’clock in the morning and, can you imagine, for one year I didn’t sleep. I waited for those episodes and I loved it,” he told The Korea Times in an interview Thursday. “I didn’t know it was Korean, because it was all ‘Silla’ — ‘Silla, Silla Silla,’ — and today at the National Museum they talked about Silla (Dynasty) and I understood: Silla is Korean.”
The 62-year-old — a graduate of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, who opened his first design house “Haute Couture” in Istanbul in 1984 — had his first official introduction to Korean culture Wednesday, with the start of Culture 20 (C20), organized by the Corea Image Communication Institute. The three-day immersive cultural experience has brought together 20 delegates from the G20 member countries, an opportunity which, for many of the participants, is their first look into Korea.
The popular hallyu show’s costume design caught Ipekci’s eye for color and flair, which even inspired him to draw some sketches for a collection. The activity-filled C20 schedule has provided him with a new muse: “hanbok,” or traditional Korean dress, a la legendary designer Lee Hye-soon’s Damyeon store.
“If you want to be really strong, you have to begin with your own culture. Because if you don’t go deeply to the roots of your culture — neither in fashion, neither in architecture, neither in food, decoration — you will always be a copy of Europe,” Ipekci said. “For me, it was important to visit Lee because she’s making traditional clothes. But I think it’s very important for young Korean fashion designers to visit her, take lessons from her and see where she’s going.”
The Turkish designer is himself a proponent of his native culture, integrating locally-inspired details, from vibrant color patterns to fine embroidery and draping reminiscent of sultans of past.
“It’s keeping your culture and your traditions but to bring them, the past, to today,” Ipekci said. In fact, he saw several similarities between the Korean dress and Turkish, finding familiar veins of inspiration from the embroidery to ancient royal jewelry.
“I want to make a collection that mixes the Ottoman culture with the Korean culture together,” he said, adding that one particular look he’d like to explore combines the long jackets of traditional hanbok with the prints and pants of Turkish origins.
The idea of cultural fusion has long been one the designer has explored, with previous collections focused on bringing together elements of Turkish looks with those of Japan, India and Africa. His last show “Monsieur Butterfly” married Japanese simplicity with Ottoman structure, resulting in a collection strong in monochromes and dramatic silhouettes with coquettish flair.
Although Korea has yet to reach the ranks of the elite in the fashion world, Ipekci said, the potential could be fulfilled with some tweaks and fine tuning — and that means more than just design.
“The Korean government should publicize their museums more, because it was so interesting,” he said of the National Museum. “I was shocked because I didn’t know that there is such a big national museum in Seoul. And it was beautiful, just incredible... It was like the Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre, or a London museum.”
For Ipekci, his earlier associations with the country stem from an uncle, who was wounded in the Korean War (1950-1953).
“When I was a child, I would always see the medals the Korean government had given him,” he said. Although his perceptions have obviously changed greatly, his initial impression as a boy took years to shake, indeed, until his first visit here. “So for me, I was thinking ‘Korea and the war.’ Korea and the war together.”
Now that he has seen the country form himself, the man who prides himself on modernizing tradition, advised future promotional endeavors to steer clear of falling into Westernization cliches, instead staying true to a sense of Korean nationalism.
“You have such a beautiful history.”
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