Rifat Ozbek

     Rifat Ozbek is a fascinating international 
fashion designer, born in Turkey, he is recognized from his exotic fashion styles and culture-inspired garments. He has been named British Fashion Designer of the Year in 1988 and 1992. 

Culture Influenced Museum Exhibit
-Rifat Ozbek

Rifat Ozbek's Awards: Woman Magazine Designer award in 1986, British Fashion Council Designer of the Year award in London in 1988 and 1992, British Glamour award in 1989.

Influenced by the O-line
-Rifat Ozbek

Influenced by the New Age
-Rifat Ozbek

 Rifat Ozbek was born on July 11th in Istanbul, Turkey in 1953. He stayed in Istanbul until the age of 17, he decided to go to school as an architect at Liverpool University. Not long after starting his studies at Liverpool University, he decided he was more interested in decorating the buildings then learning about the construction of them. Rifat went to St. Martin's School of Art and graduated in 1977, he first showed interest of creating his own fashion garment designs in 1984. He then went to work at a company called Monsoon, for three years. Monsoon was recognized for creating popular styles based on non-Western originals. Rifat took his experience and concepts he learned at Monsoon and added them to his ideas. He began creating garments of strange and creative ideas, with different shapes from many cultures and his contact to use unusual fabrics made him become first known in the 1980s. He created such unique combinations of clothing, he had a headway because of his general sources of fabrics from places such as Africa, the Far East, ballet, and the Ottoman Empire. 

Influenced by culture Pecci Museum
-Rifat Ozbek

Prato Museum
-Rifat Ozbek

    Rifat's skillful clothing line was made of luxurious, fashionable and tailored fabrics such as moiré silks and taffeta. He was also recognized for his beautiful color palette made up of different types of turquoises, purples and fuchsias. Rifat's style became very easily recognizable style, because he used heavy fabrics such as gabardine and cashmere to design the top half of an outfit combined with lighter fabrics below, like silks or jersey. Rifat created garments that showed there true origin and culture. In the 1980s Rifats collection was made up of sarong skirts and gold chain belts, midriff tops, and boleros embroidered with crescent moons and stars, loose hipster trousers, and tasselled bras worn on the runway by models who looked like Turkish belly dancers, a very cultural collection. In the 1990s Rifat released a White collection, his white was a stark bright white, he was trying to acknowledge the New Age, which was based on a range of easy to wear separates based on track suits and other sports clothing to be worn as club gear. His white collection was the exact opposite of his first cultural chic collection in the 1980s. Rifat continued with the fashions of the 1990s, the "comfortable" easy to wear look. In 1995, Rifat released to the U.S. and England his own fragrance called "Ozbek" manufactured in Milan by Proteo Perfume. In 1997, Rifat noticed a change in the fashion industry, he thought his work was suddenly becoming more of a job then a hobby as it used to be.

Prato Museum
-Rifat Ozbek

  "I still love designing, but it just moves too fast. Fashion has become sort of a relentless Ferris wheel, and you can't get off it— you know, it's one collection after the other."-Rifat Ozbek

    Rifat later joined the British stylist Christopher Farr's carpet of designers in 1998 and he added his vibrant prints to his clothing line. For city silhouettes, he created long romantic skirts mixed with energized, sporty and easy to wear jogging pants in polartec fleece. He declared his cheerful fabrics such as sensual chiffons, flocked velvet, devores, jerseys, and metallics a return to his Turkish roots. I think Rifat Ozbek is an inspiring fashion designer, I love the way he is individual within his designs, and I love how he incorporates different cultures as well as his own into his collections. 

Fellini Costume de le mode
-Rifat Ozbek

   Rifat's Exhibitions: Fellini: I Costumi e le Mode, Pecci Museum, Prato, Italy, and Stedeligk Museum, Amsterdam, both 1994; V&A: Street Style, From Sidewalk to Catwalk, 1940 to Tomorrow, 1994-95; Customized Levi's Denim Jacket for Benefit for Diffa/Dallas Collection, 1990, 1991, 1992.



































































Exotic 

Rifat Ozbek autumn/winter 1992 :

Exotic autumn/winter Fashion Show Rifat Ozbek 1992:






By Randi Lyn Metherall












Bibliography

Information-

1.  http://www.answers.com/topic/rifat-ozbek-1
2. http://www.istanbul-yes-istanbul.co.uk/Turka/Rifat%20Ozbek.htm
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/interiorsandshopping/4290986/Rifat-Ozbeks-Turkish-house-Aegean-genie.html
4. http://www.turkishculture.org/whoiswho/fashion_designer/rifat-ozbek-1649.htm
5. http://www.fragrantica.com/designers/Rifat-Ozbek.html
6. http://www.cornucopia.net/highlights6full.html
7. http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/autumn-winter-2006/ready-to-wear/pollini-rifat-ozbek
8. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20095032,00.html
9. http://innewyorkparistomorrow.blogspot.com/2011/10/exoticism-of-rifat-ozbek.html
10. http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8186181/Rifat-Ozbek-returns-with-new-textiles-range.html
11. http://yastikbyrifatozbek.com/index_eng_aboutus.html
12. http://www.ipdfragrance.com/RifatOzbek/Ozbek.htm
13. http://www.infomat.com/whoswho/rifatozbek.html




Pictures-

1.http://www.larasayilgan.com/celebrities/2007/08/dnm.html
2. http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/images/sjcf_01_img0297.jpg
3.http://maxskansascity.com/wordpress//wp-content/uploads/2011/02/00310f.jpg
4.http://nymag.com/fashion/fashionshows/2008/fall/main/europe/womenrunway/pollini/
5.http://www.turkishculture.org/images/people/example-1649-3-48704289.jpg
6.http://ris.fashion.telegraph.co.uk/RichImageService.svc/imagecontent/1/TMG8186181/m/celinejonasgustavs_1779743a.jpg
7.http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/240x360/Shows/SS2005/Milan/R-T-W/Pollini-Rifat_Ozbek/00010f.jpg
8.http://www.modaturkiye.com/tr/20072/aralik/rifat-ozbek/1.jpg
9.http://org27.zorpia.com/0/3901/24971496.977709.jpg
10.http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/512/00240mzj5.jpg/
11.http://www.turkishculture.org/whoiswho/fashion_designer/rifat-ozbek-1649.htm