Paris Fashion Week: Burc Akyol transforms his courtyard into an oriental catwalk

“Haven’t slept all night…” Less than three hours from his show, the first on the official calendar of Paris fashion week, Burc Akyol finishes strumming the note of intent for his collection. A few words in the first person that will be printed and then left on the black benches, intended for the 150 or so guests of the show.

The case is being held in the courtyard of a building on rue de Saint-Petersburg, in Paris, in the 8^e arrondissement, the nerve center of the world of the 34-year-old designer who founded his brand in 2019. Here, the 65 square meters of the apartment on the ground floor where the Franco-Turkish designer lives are both a place of life and the workshop, in which he manufactures, supported by a team of three people, a non-gendered fashion, handmade, pure and sensual, which aims to create a dialogue between the rigor of a French couture and an oriental hedonism.

“Anyone who has a double culture knows this feeling of having grown up between two waters, and of not feeling really in their place anywhere. This parade is a way for me to say: this French identity is ours too”he claims, detailing the outfits “dramatic” for burning evenings that he imagined. Sparkling trousers slit from the top of the thigh to the ankle and combinations of cracked lace rub shoulders with transparent black tops or ensembles, awakened by a fine gold edging, draped sheaths or jackets with angular shoulders, inspired by kepenekthe coats of the Turkish shepherds without buttons.

Ankle boots that slender the silhouette

All spiced up with “falling out of bed” or coming out of a torrid night: fabrics (falsely) tied in a hurry, coat-bathrobe or silver glasses in the shape of fingers, like those of a lover who would hide you eyes by surprise. “I wanted to explore what dressing for going out can mean, a very Mediterranean effort and a sophistication that we have unfortunately lost a bit”explains this son of a tailor, finalist for the LVMH 2023 prize, who is always his own guinea pig for the first fitting.

On the large cardboard where each planned silhouette has been pinned, reminders indicate the final finishing touches carried out in an emergency, between the living room and the kitchen: ” button “, “zip”, “handkerchief hem”… In the courtyard, where you move around in plastic socks or overshoes so as not to stain the sand carpets that cover the ground, you uncover four seventies palm trees in gilded metal. Here and there, production managers or friends come to lend a hand. You have to make sure that the ground is stable and tape the carpets to avoid a twisted ankle; hide the bins for fear that they will swear on the video of the parade.

For the last rehearsals, everyone – girls and boys alike – put on black high heels. Beneath the amused gaze of residents of the building, leaning out of the windows or returning from shopping, the models also spawn in civilian clothes: here they are reviewing their journey, in football shirts or Led Zeppelin t-shirts, but perched on ankle boots that slender their silhouette. Before heading backstage, put on a translucent caftan or a tight dress so that a thrill of black magic happens in front of journalists, buyers or artists (like singer Bilal Hassani). Burc Akyol, dreaming that his court passes for a “Arab garden”encourages them: “This place belongs to you. Make it yours, with strength and nonchalance. »