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Sustainable Anatolia:
Craft-Centered Design
A research study by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şölen Kipöz, a faculty member at Izmir Economy University and a designer renowned for her work on Sustainable Fashion, and Duygu Atalay, a faculty member at Beykent University and a former student of Şölen Kipöz, was included in the book “Global Perspectives on Sustainable Fashion” released by Bloomsbury Visual Arts publications.
The book edited by Alison Gwilt, Alice Payne and Evelise Anicet Rüthschilling is a guide to addressing the development of sustainable fashion in various cultures and geographies.
The chapter “Sustainable Anatolia: Craft-Centered Design” by Kipöz and Atalay in the book treats Turkish fashion in a sustainability perspective for the first time. The authors studied the evolution of sustainability philosophy on a craft-centered design approach in Anatolia i.e. Turkey’s cultural, historical and physical geography.
In their article Kipöz and Atalay claim, “Through a reappreciation of local crafts, Turkish designers are challenging the Eurocentric, standardized, global workings of fashion design. They have begun to highlight the need for quality over quantity, diversity over monoculture, the use of local materials and crafts, as well the importance of employing local expertise to create a fairer production process.”
In this context, the brand Agrande developed by the designer Hatice Gökçe and supported by GAP Regional Development Agency and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is treated as a social sustainability model.