“I don’t want any burdens,” says Dilara Findikoglu plainly. “I just want to make people feel amazing—and I want to feel amazing. I don’t want any extra clothing. I just want body, mind, and soul.”
Less baggage, more brio is Findikoglu’s message—and the spirit of post-lockdown life in general. Free yourself, live wildly, embrace the unknown, go outside and reconnect with nature. Her recommended method? A seaside escape—and she has just the wardrobe for it too. Tomorrow, Findikoglu is launching a new swimwear collection that translates her maximalist vision of corsets, bows, and veils into its purest form yet. “We were looking for ways to feel lighter and feel more fun,” Findikoglu says. “Usually I look at politics and religion, these heavy subjects and issues. This time, after the heaviness of COVID, I don’t want to hear any of that. I want to strip back and be more minimal.”
The swimwear pieces are still as sexy, with corsets inset into one-pieces and bikinis made with many ties and straps. Much of it, in colors like cherry red and lilac, could double as ready-to-wear or bodysuits, especially a one-shoulder swimsuit and the lace-up swim leggings. Other pieces in the collection are actual ready-to-wear, like ruffled jeans, a nostalgic track jacket, and a trio of wickedly beautiful dresses in ivory, floral, and black with mirrored beading.
Even in the crowded swimwear market, Fidnikoglu’s pieces will stand out for their unabashed femininity. Making sure every person exists in a state of ultimate babedom is her goal—and she is especially in tune with the ways our bodies (and our feelings about them) have shifted during the pandemic. “We have been indoors. We couldn’t work out. I think everybody is beautiful and I want to show it,” she says, pointing to her sheer one-piece style with floral “pasties” and her corseted pieces as being particularly hot for summer.
To help show off the collection, she has enlisted the Academy Award–winning director Yorgos Lanthimos, who photographed a cast of models along the British seaside wearing the collection. Calling it a Hot Girl Summer would be reductive. It’s a Hot Coven Summer at least, a communal happening of women reconnecting with the sea, nature, and each other.
If that sounds like your ideal summer vacation, these are the swimsuits for you. But if vacationing remains out of the question, Findikoglu is bringing her vision of eclectic escapism to the metaverse too. Her first NFTs, a trio of works made in collaboration with artists Enes Güc and Zeynep Schilling called “Saint Dilara Beach Club,” go up for auction this week. “It is a place, on the way to Golden Fleece, where the sun shines in a glamorous silver, where the days are so long that you can live in an endless summer breeze, and where the nights are only for joyful dreams,” reads their description. Findikoglu hammers the idea of escapism—however you can get it—home: “I want people to have fun and feel good. That’s why this collection and project is really important for me; it’s a completely new thing for me, a breath of fresh air.”
