Overview
Dilara Findikoglu is a London fashion label founded by Turkish designer Dilara Findikoglu in 2016, the year after her Central Saint Martins graduation and the #encoreCSM guerrilla graduate show. Early collections used churches, a Soho strip club and Sir John Soane’s Museum as part of their argument, joining corsetry, historical dress, heavy-metal and occult references to direct questions about the regulation of women’s bodies. A Sarabande Foundation residency supported the young studio, and Findikoglu was selected as an LVMH Prize semi-finalist in 2017.
From 2018 the label developed a more sustained London runway language. Dilaratopia placed embellished corsetry and altered pinstripe tailoring inside the Banking Hall; Spring/Summer 2020 tied deadstock, upcycling and Turkish embroidery to a climate-focused ritual; and Spring/Summer 2023 marked the physical runway return after the pandemic-era hiatus with a silent show built around confinement and release. That creative expansion exposed the costs of operating an independent label: in September 2023 Findikoglu cancelled the planned Spring/Summer 2024 show because the studio could not justify financing another production while carrying earlier show costs.
The runway returned in February 2024 with Femme Vortex, followed by Venus from Chaos for Autumn/Winter 2025 and Cage of Innocence for Spring/Summer 2026. Alongside the mainline, collaborations with Heaven by Marc Jacobs, Boux Avenue and Khy broadened the label’s commercial reach, while the 2025 Vanguard Award strengthened its institutional profile. The current business remains founder-led and independent, combining ready-to-wear, couture and bridal work, accessories, direct e-commerce and wholesale distribution. Hysteria, introduced with the Spring/Summer 2026 collection and sold from 2026, is the brand’s first handbag; bags remain a product category within the main label, not a separate division.
Philosophy
The label treats historical clothing as an active system of power. Corsets, panniers, bustles, high collars and formal tailoring are selected for the ways they have disciplined the body, then cut apart, exposed or exaggerated until their original authority changes. Lingerie can become outerwear, pinstripe suiting can collapse into a body-bound silhouette, and hard surfaces or sharp details can turn conventional ideas of femininity into protection. This repeated transformation gives the work its continuity more reliably than a generic gothic label.
Findikoglu builds atmosphere through a dense but recognisable vocabulary: Victorian and medieval dress, Turkish references, punk and heavy metal, fetishwear, tattoos, pagan and occult imagery, religious architecture and horror cinema. Red, black, lace, leather, velvet, corsetry and metal recur, but the effect depends on how they are organised around the body. Runway spaces are part of the same construction. Churches, museums, banking interiors, industrial venues and distressed rooms become charged settings in which clothing can confront ideas of purity, hierarchy, faith, gender and social control.
Material practice anchors the image. Collections have incorporated vintage and deadstock textiles, upcycled garments, natural dyes, hand embroidery and specialist craft, with Roker footwear recurring in the earlier runway years and later pieces developed with leather specialists such as Whitaker Malem. The recent expansion into more ready-to-wear and bags has not replaced that labour-intensive side of the label. It creates a second register of denim, tailoring, knitwear and accessories that can circulate through wholesale and e-commerce while couture-like objects continue to carry the most extreme construction and surface work.
Timeline
Disclaimer
Creative timeline
Button TextDilara Findikoglu x Heaven by Marc Jacobs was released on 31 July 2024. The collaboration extended Findikoglu’s corsetry, distressed surfaces and dark romantic styling into Marc Jacobs’s youth-focused Heaven platform and formed part of the commercial work supporting the independent studio after the SS24 show cancellation.
In September 2023, Dilara Findikoglu cancelled the planned Spring/Summer 2024 runway because the independent business could not fund another show while managing costs from earlier productions. The label remained active, making this a financially driven calendar cancellation rather than a closure or completed SS24 collection.
After the Autumn/Winter 2020 runway, Dilara Findikoglu entered a prolonged absence from physical mainline shows during the pandemic and the designer’s extended visa-related stay in Turkey. The label remained active through e-commerce, smaller projects and product activity, so the interval is a runway hiatus rather than brand dormancy.
During the first 2020 lockdown, Dilara Findikoglu paired its direct-to-consumer e-commerce launch with a domestic Instagram presentation featuring Honey Rose Heaven. The activation translated the label’s theatrical styling into a remote format at a moment when physical events and occasion dressing had abruptly contracted.
In 2017, Findikoglu collaborated with independent publisher Ditto on Dilara: Warrior Sorceress, with writing by Amy Tipper-Hale and illustration by Benjamin Filby. The comic translated the label’s feminist, political and occult imagery into a discrete publishing project without establishing a permanent publishing line.
Dilara Findikoglu collaborations
The label’s collaborations usually translate its corsetry, body-conscious construction and subcultural image into a defined partner format, from specialist footwear to wider-access fashion and lingerie projects.
Fashion and product collaborations
- Roker Atelier
- Footwear collaboration, 2018–2020
- Roker developed custom footwear for several early runway seasons, giving Findikoglu’s historical and fetish-inflected silhouettes boots and shoes engineered to the same exaggerated proportions as the clothing.
- Heaven by Marc Jacobs
- Fashion collaboration, 2024
- The Heaven project brought Findikoglu’s corsetry, distressed surfaces and dark romantic styling into Marc Jacobs’s youth-focused line. Released in July 2024, it also formed part of the commercial work that supported the independent studio after the cancelled Spring/Summer 2024 show.
- Boux Avenue
- Lingerie collaboration, 2025
- Findikoglu adapted her long-running interest in lingerie and corsetry to a high-street underwear project with Boux Avenue, extending a central design code into a more accessible product category without creating a permanent lingerie line.
- Khy
- Fashion collaboration, 2025
- The Khy capsule translated fitted silhouettes, corset construction and body-conscious separates for a larger direct-to-consumer platform. Its May 2025 release continued the label’s post-2023 use of collaborations as both audience expansion and commercial support.
Publishing and cultural projects
- Dilara: Warrior Sorceress with Ditto
- Comic-book collaboration, 2017
- Produced with independent publisher Ditto, writer Amy Tipper-Hale and illustrator Benjamin Filby, the comic extended Findikoglu’s political and occult imagery into an illustrated narrative. It remains a discrete cultural project within the label’s early history, not a publishing division.
