Hakan Oktaş, Fashion Designer

An act defined by your close circle as “a real Hakan classic”?

That I get frustrated when someone asks me to share my food because I don’t like sharing it… That I’m not capable of talking on the phone… That I sound busy or down on the phone even if I’m as energetic and happy as I could be. Fortunately my friends got used to it.

The most accurate saying on fashion?

Fashion fades, style is eternal.

Let’s leave your fashion designer identity aside. If you had chosen another profession, what would it be?

I guess it would again be a field of industrial arts. Could be interior design or graphic design.

What happens in a day that makes you say “I don’t know how time passed”?

It starts with the messages in my inbox that awaits my response. Many approvals and decisions to be made, depending on the season… Many details on my work such as fabric, color and quality approvals, model delivery or fitting critics. If there is a meeting on top of it, I don’t know how the day passes…

How do you observe the fast growth of the fashion world? Where did we come from, where are we headed to?

Wherever you are in the world, it is now easier to follow the latest changes and updates on many fields through technology. There is a tendency to get effected by similar things. People follow what people who are known are wearing, and can find something similar in the market and reinterpret it. Consequently, there is a big rivalry in the ready-to-wear industry. The uniformity brought by technology will become boring after a while, and it will turn into individualism. Custom designs will be popular.

A misconception on fashion?

Fashion is to wear what suits you :) Fashion is a manipulation and an illusion. You start to like a piece that you didn’t at first after seeing it on three people. It actually still doesn’t suit you, but you feel good because it reminds you of the details you liked on that three people.

What song do you listen to the most these days?

Solange / Cranes in the sky.

The word you use the most?

Hope for the best! I’m a fatalist person :)

How do you spend an ideal Friday night?

Either a quiet night conversing with friends at home, accompanied by a nice dinner menu… Or, a night that starts with a nice cocktail and ends as a drunken night… Sometimes both.