From the Local to the City
TORTU
“Everything is layered not to be seen, but to be able to exist together.”
The festival's fashion chapter — Curator & Fashion Designer: Aydan Uzun & Merve Kahveci
August 18 · 5 PM · Runway show
Tortu — sediment — is the sum of memory, experience and the traces that accumulate beneath what is visible. Neither a mere relic of the past nor a singular story of the present, it is a layered way of being, formed as different times, labours and stories settle upon one another. Nourished by Datça's historical, cultural and natural fabric, this approach treats the journey from the local to the city as a continuous process of accumulation.
Chapter One — Upcycling: From Kilim to Runway
In the first chapter, hand-woven kilims and silk fabrics come back to life through the principle of upcycling. Datça's natural textures, rocky shores, olive-tree shadows and sun-shaped landscape re-emerge on the body as graphic surfaces, organic forms and modern cuts. Hand-woven bürümcük and dastar cloths embody the bonds of solidarity and belonging among local people. Traditional silhouettes are preserved yet reshaped with a contemporary eye — this chapter argues that cultural heritage can only live on by transforming.
Final Chapter — From the Chests: Zero Waste
The final chapter is the heart of the collection. Textiles and handcrafted pieces kept in local families' chests and passed down through generations are redesigned with a zero-waste approach. Each piece expresses respect for the labour of past generations; the marks the fabrics carry are treated not as flaws but as precious witnesses of memory and life. Each look is presented with the name of the owner of the chest it came from — anonymous labour made visible again.
Because every weave is a story, every trace a memory, and every transformation a new heritage left to the future.
Sketches from the Collection
Design sketches from the sixteen-look TORTU collection
Goals of the Fashion Programme
- 1Building sustainable collaboration models between local producers, artisans and designers
- 2Creating an inclusive structure that places women's labour at the centre of fashion production
- 3Making local crafts visible
- 4Encouraging young designers
- 5Reinterpreting traditional craft techniques through contemporary fashion design
- 6Supporting environmentally conscious design fed by natural, local and endemic materials
- 7Framing shows and presentations as curatorial narrative spaces
- 8Translating Datça's cultural memory into a contemporary aesthetic language through fashion
- 9Creating a holistic fashion experience through interdisciplinary exchange (art, craft, music)
- 10Placing Datça on the international map of culture and design