Every Stitch Tells a Story.
Keeping endangered traditional crafts alive and passing cultural heritage on to future generations lie at the heart of Nurcan Bulat’s art and design. Bringing traditional techniques, motifs and the meanings they carry together with contemporary design, Bulat aims to help cultural heritage live on in everyday life today. She shapes her work through the bond she builds between East and West.
To keep cultural heritage alive and pass it on to future generations by bringing traditional crafts and Anatolian motifs together with contemporary design.
To become an original design brand that represents Turkish cultural heritage internationally, bringing together the aesthetic legacy of East and West.
Education
She graduated from the Textile and Fashion Design department of Haliç University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and completed a master’s degree in Apparel Retail and Fashion Management at Istanbul Technical University. In the Traditional Turkish Arts master’s programme (with thesis) at Sakarya University, she is researching the relationship between symbol and motif in kirkit-woven textiles through the concept of “power”. Her training in photography is another area of expertise that supports the visual storytelling of her designs.
Experience
With many years of experience in the textile and apparel industry, she has managed sample rooms for international companies. She is skilled in design, professional pattern making, garment construction, fittings, sewing and product development. In developing export-oriented collections, she has managed the entire process from sample to client approval and production, weighing the creative idea against fabric choice, cost, manufacturability and client expectations. She has also played an active role in training pattern makers and assistants, passing her professional knowledge on to new generations.
She works at an expert level with Lectra Modaris and Diamino, Gerber and Assyst for pattern and product development, and with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for digital design. Her training in bespoke menswear tailoring and her professional grounding in Nişantaşı inform the structure, pattern and craftsmanship of her designs.
Techniques
In her traditional art practice she draws on tel kırma, Maraş embroidery, bead and hoop embroidery, woodblock and stone printing, natural dyeing with root dyes, and shibori. She continues to explore new surfaces and forms through fabric manipulation and contemporary tapestry weaving, and keeps deepening her skills through research and practice, especially in woodblock printing and natural dyeing. Her visits to workshops in Kastamonu and her dialogue with master artisans enrich her understanding of traditional craft knowledge.
East and West
She reinterprets Anatolia’s weaving motifs and symbols by stylising them digitally, creating original pattern designs for textiles and apparel. By combining traditional handcraft with the possibilities of digital design, she carries cultural heritage into the future in a contemporary design language.
The patterns, motifs and crafts she has studied on her travels to nearly forty countries enrich her approach, rooted in a synthesis of East and West. She also shoots the professional fashion photography of her own designs, embracing a holistic practice from the first sketch to the final visual presentation. Always open to learning and growth, she continues to turn the wisdom of the past into the designs of the future.
Every Stitch Tells a Story.