DESIGNER INTERVIEW | DESIGNER INTERVIEW

An Innovative Interpretation of the Subcultures

Cihan Kurtoğlu's fashion journey in 2016 was just an aim to produce clothes that is for himself and his loved ones. Today, the designer puts his signature on many people we love following on social media.

Can you tell us the story of For Fun?

Towards the end of 2016, I founded For Fun with my ex-girlfriend. In the beginning, the idea was not more than just 'let's make our own t-shirts'. With the reaction of our environment, we immediately saw that this could be more than just some t-shirts. In December 2016, we launched our first collection. And so our story began. Thanks to our rapper friends' support we had a rapid growth. Afterwards, we tried to nursery this interest by including crop tops, sweatshirts and hoodies. In the first six months, thousands of people had already started to wear our designs.

From what do you get inspiration when creating a collection?

Too much, actually. I try to derive insight from songs, films, series, sometimes from a banner, and sometimes from observing. I transform that insight into a design by interpreting it according to my own sense of humor. For example, we are preparing a capsule collection that we will introduce within the scope of Fashion Week next September. Here we were inspired by many subcultural groups that remained behind in society, crushed, or lacking the humanitarian support they deserved. Like homeless, disabled, LGBT or punk. In general, I am not focused on a single source or thought.

With the increase in street fashion culture, many Turkish brands started to launch their own brand. What do you think about this?

The good part, I think, is that the spectrum is expanding and the styles are getting diverse. As a result, interest in street fashion is increasing. I don't think that there is a bad thing about the fact that there are more brands in production than the last year. However, I don't like brands who copy others. I see this as a threat to the development of this culture.

Will there be different designs apart from t-shirts and sweatshirts?

We created different designs for outerwear and bags this season. In May, we will maybe launch our swimwear collection which we have been planning for a long time. Afterwards, I mentioned the capsule collection we planned for September, hopefully, we will see For Fun with full look designs. We also have an activewear collection for 2020.