Manhattan meets Ottoman
Coffee or tea? Zac Posen, 25-year-old New York fashion prodigy, P. Diddy investment and people page favourite, recommends tea to his entourage of young women. They are in Istanbul, after all, capital of the tea-drinking world. Posen, however, orders espresso, which seems to jar slightly with the theme of this particular Ottoman weekend.
But never mind; he's enjoying himself nonetheless, here to show an autumn-winter collection he has designed for Vakko, the upmarket Turkish fashion chain.
"Historically, Istanbul is a place I really needed to visit," he says, sitting in the bar of Les Ottomans, a new hotel that pays homage to that aesthetic and might have been built especially for him. "It's east meets west, it's been a marketplace for the world historically, it's the religious and cultural mix, and it's fascinating to me as a designer. It's where the decorative meets the divine, where religion meets motif."
It is a big moment for Posen, whom Cem Hakko, chairman of Vakko, describes as "a genius". This is fashion-speak for "promising" - Posen is talented, but he is, to some extent, as famous for his youth as for his designs. In making his collection of 30 pieces that will retail at three Vakko stores in Istanbul, he and Hakko are taking a gamble on the ability of a young and untried New York designer with no name recognition in Turkey to persuade a relatively conservative Turkish clientele that his is the vision for them. For Hakko, it's an opportunity to position the company at the cutting edge of style; for Posen, to blast his name across the Atlantic into the Old World. It's an interesting - and fairly unexpected - collaboration.
Fashion has, after all, been enamoured of the high/low partnership for some time now; indeed, the designer-and-sports-giant projects (Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas; Alexander McQueen and Puma) and the designer-and-high-street one-offs (H&M and Karl Lagerfeld; La Redoute and Sophia Kokosalaki) are practically de rigueur these days. But the combination of relative tyro Posen and established Turkish luxury brand (the first such ever) pushes the idea into an entirely new dimension.
"He has this timeless approach to design that is the most significant thing that strikes me about him," Hakko says, of how he came to choose quintessential Manhattanite Posen. For his part, says Posen, the two formative influences on his decision to work with Vakko were an excursion to the Topkapi museum, where he was inspired by the extraordinary headdresses on display, and the Grand Bazaar, one of the world's great markets, full of colour, opulence and the art of the bargain. "It's interesting how aesthetically attuned Turkish people are," Posen says.
Turkey is a cotton-growing country. It has long been aproducer of fabrics, and it has a tradition of craftsmanship. The country is relatively poor, but it is bracingly modern, too. Turks do not lack for style, and there is a lot of money in Istanbul. Vakko - founded in 1934 by the brothers Vitali and Albert Hakko, from the city's small and stoutly resilient Jewish community, and still controlled by the family - has done well from this demographic. Cem Hakko predicts turnover of $200m next year, including a contribution from his media interests, mainly music radio and television.
Still, what Turkey lacks, Hakko says, are the "creative minds" necessary to push the country's fashion industry forward. "We need to invest in people with the creative force to make the leap from being a textile country to becoming a fashion capital," he says.
Therefore Posen can also be seen as part of a larger effort to reposition the Vakko brand. Which they've done, in some cases, literally. Recently, Hakko made a striking decision, much commented upon by observers of social trends in Istanbul, to shut Vakko's flagship store on Istiklal Caddesi, the city's equivalent of London's Oxford Street. This store, he explains, was the first in Turkey to feature an elevator, but it no longer suited Vakko's image of itself. The street, in the entertainment district of Beyoglu, can be overcrowded, and it is the perennial victim of municipal roadworks. In the early 1960s, when the store opened, "Beyoglu was the most fashionable district of Istanbul, frequented by the elite society of Istanbul," Hakko says. "However, times are changing. Today, it has a different charm, which is not interesting for Vakko's clientele. Luxury shopping has shifted its location."
To be specific, it has moved to the areas of Istanbul where wealth is now most concentrated and visible: the upscale neighbourhood of Nisantasi, and a proliferating network of high-end shopping malls, where parking and security - in a city with poor public transport and a boom in muggings - are part of the service. If you want to see the Vakko/Posen collection, try Kanyon, a formidably upmarket mall that has just opened in Levent, the business district.
ZAC POSEN联姻土耳其时装店
曼
合顿和土耳其的结合
咖啡还是茶？25岁的纽约天才设计师雅克?波森(Zac Posen)向周围的女士推荐茶。毕竟，他们在世界饮茶之都伊斯坦布尔。然而，波森却要了一杯Espresso，与这个特殊的土耳其周末的主题似乎有些格格不入。
不过没关系；不管怎样，他依然会很高兴地展示为Vakko设计的秋冬季时装。Vakko是土耳其高端时尚连锁店。
他表示：“从历史角度上讲，我非常需要游览伊斯坦布尔。”波森坐在Les Ottomans酒店的酒吧里。这家酒店极富美感，或许是专门为他建造的。“这里是东西方相遇的地方，历史上曾是全球市场，是宗教与文化的汇聚地，作为一个设计师，我非常迷它。在这里，装潢与裱Ъ蚁嘤觯?叛鲇胫髦枷嘤觥！?/p>
对于被Vakko 董事长杰姆?哈科(Cem Hakko)描述为“天才”的波森而言，这是一个重要的时刻。“天才”是对“有前途的人”的时髦说法――但从某种程度上讲，波森的朝气蓬勃与他在设计方面的天赋一样出名。波森决定在Vakko位于伊斯坦布尔的3家商店零售他设计的30套时装。这是他和哈科在拿这个尚未在土耳其获得认可的、年轻且无经验的纽约设计师的才干来赌博，以说服相对保守的土耳其客户――波森的这些时装正是为他们设计的。对哈科来说，这是一次让他的企业取得时尚前沿地位的机会；而对波森而言，这是穿过大西洋、在东半球一炮打响的良机。这是一次有趣而且完全意想不到的合作。
国际时装界高低端合作的趋势
毕竟，时尚界迷恋高/低搭配合作关系已有一段时间了；事实上，当今尤其常见的是设计师与运动品牌巨头的合作，以及设计师与时装商场的合作。前者有山本耀司(Yohji Yamamoto)与阿迪达斯(Adidas)，亚历山大?麦奎因(Alexander McQueen)和彪马(Puma)，后者有H&M和卡尔?拉格菲尔德(Karl Lagerfeld)，La Redoute与索非亚?可可萨拉奇(Sophia Kokosalaki)。但是，相对年轻的波森与首个知名土耳其奢侈品牌的结合，将这种理念推到了一个新的高度。
谈到为何选择典型的曼哈顿人波森作为合作对象时，哈科表示：“他的设计手法不受时间的影响，这正是他最打动我的地方。”而波森表示，促使他决定与Vakko合作的，是他对托普卡匹星宫博物馆(Topkapi)和Grand Bazaar的游览。托普卡匹星宫博物馆展览与众不同的头巾，使他获得了灵感；而作为世界上最重要的市场之一，Grand Bazaar色彩绚丽，商品丰富，并且充满讨价还价的艺术。波森表示：“土耳其人在美学上的和谐程度非常有趣。”土耳其是种植棉花的国家，制造纺织品的历史很悠久，而且具有手工艺传统。尽管该国相对贫穷，但非常现代。土耳其人不缺少时尚，而且伊斯坦布尔非常富裕。Vakko是在1934年由维塔利(Vitali)和阿尔伯特?哈科(Albert Hakko)兄弟成立的，并且一直在该家族控制之中；其发源地是该城市规模很小但生存力很强的犹太社区，依靠这一人口学优势，Vakko的生意非常好。杰姆?哈科预测，该公司明年的营业额将达到2亿美元，其中包括来自以音乐电台和电视为主的媒体业务的收入。
然而，哈科表示，土耳其缺少的是推动该国时尚业前进所必须的“创意”。他表示：“我们需要把钱投向那些有创造力的人，以完成从纺织国到时尚之都的跨越。”
Vakko的重新定位
因此，波森也可被视为更为广泛的Vakko品牌重新定位努力中的一部分。从严格意义上讲，这些工作已经完成了。最近，哈科做出了惊人决定，关闭了位于该市Istiklal Caddesi大街（相当于伦敦的牛津街）的Vakko 旗舰店，并引来了伊斯坦布尔社会趋势观察人士的大量讨论。他解释道，这家店是土耳其第一家拥有电梯的店铺，但它已不再适合Vakko的自身形象。这条街地处Beyoglu娱乐区，不仅拥挤，而且一直受到市政道路建设的困扰。60年代初，这家店刚开张的时候，“Beyoglu是伊斯坦布尔最时髦的地区，伊斯坦布尔的精英经常在此出入。”哈科表示，“然而，时代在变化。今天，它拥有与以往不同的魅力，但对Vakko的客户而言，没有吸引力。奢侈品采购已经变换了地点。”
具体地说，这一地点已经移到伊斯坦布尔一些财富最集中、最显富的地区：Nisantasi附近的高端社区，以及日益扩大的高端购物中心网络，那里提供停车和保安服务――在这个公共交通设施简陋、行凶抢劫活动猖獗的城市，这一点很重要。如果你希望看到Vakko/波森时装，可以去Kanyon看看，这是一家不可思议的高端购物中心，刚刚在Levent商业区开张。
