If Capucine Safyurtlu had to identify with a book on fashion, he would flee from the aristocratic airs of the famous Inès de la Fressange or Caroline de Maigret –both protagonists of their respective guides to achieve the fantasized Parisian style– and would identify more with the pages. de À Paris, the book or antique where its author, the fashion prescriber Jeanne
Ladies, it emphasizes that Parisians are all the women who inhabit the French capital: from the daughter of a wealthy family who collects Chanel bags to the African baker who runs the most famous boulangerie in the 7th arrondissement.
Paradoxically, the creative director of The Kooples meets all the requirements that fuel the myth of “effortless elegance” that so many boast about. Nothing is further from reality. “I want to think that I am not a cliché de la parisienne. Although perhaps, deep down, I am. In fact, it may be that you see reflected in me many of those codes that supposedly define it. And I accept it”, said the creative in a burst of sincerity.
Because fleeing from the roots, from the environment in which one has been raised, is to renounce a part of one’s own identity. And when Safyurtlu received us at her offices in Paris dressed in a pinstriped suit combined with a basic T-shirt and white sneakers, she could not – nor did she intend – to hide that yes, she embodied those codes to be a Parisian comme il faut.
“I love mixing styles, so I wouldn’t know how to define mine. Maybe that’s what makes me truly Parisian,” she joked. In her capsule wardrobe, black and red colors predominate and her infallible trick is the result of mixing feminine codes with masculine ones. Another open secret of hers is her passion for vintage clothing, the same one that she regularly combines with clothes from The Kooples, of course.
Of the donkeys in the showroom where the latest collections are exhibited to the press and clients, he could not help but show us a very special jacket that, until then, had not come to light. “First it’s black, then leather, and lastly there’s fringe. It’s all a mix between the DNA of the brand and how I want to transform it. This will be the key piece of the season”.
And it is that after her arrival at the creative direction of The Kooples, a little less than two years ago, this all-terrain Parisian wanted to establish a new identity for the brand, one with a more rock spirit and a more daring soul. “I want to give dresses a sexier touch, because when a woman dresses in one, she wants to feel attractive, and this process involves understanding the body, its shape… It is a journey of self-knowledge and this is the twist that I want to contribute in this new stage”.
