If she hadn’t decided to work as a fashion designer, Dice Kayek’s Ece Ege probably could’ve been an architect or a sculptor, and a talented one at that. Her clothes are so precise and sharp, they look like beautifully cut carapaces; no wonder that her lucky charm is a bug.
The designer called the collection the Dark Side of Cute. “My style is sober, strict. Structure and romance, yes. Femininity? Not really. And humor,” she explained. Masculine tailoring is definitely the foundation of her design; in 1992, when she started her label, she presented a small collection of just a dozen or so white shirts, in crisp, sculptural reinterpretations of the classic men’s shirt. Her disciplined approach has stayed much the same: “Of course, there’s l’air du temps in my collections, but my style has always remained consistent.”
She favors fabrics that are quite dry to the touch; they help retain her signature sculpted shapes, which she molds as if they were malleable putty. For Pre-Fall, a pair of high-waisted, wide-leg trousers were made out of a textured wool normally used for polar coats; scuba jersey was applied for hooded sweaters with balloon-ish batwing sleeves. Denim was the most raw and unwashed that Japanese textile fabrics could provide; it was tamed into a trucker jacket with ruching on the front and a trapeze-cut back, and paired with ultra-slim pants. A series of signature black short cocktail dresses had structured frills and folds kept in place by thick bonded duchesse. With their crystal bow appliqués, they had grace and were quite exquisite in their exact design; but please, do not call them feminine.
