CONSISTENCY

CONSISTENCY

The word I chose for 2026: Consistency.

Why consistency?

The ups and downs of the geography I live in, the instability of the world…
First, I ask myself:
How consistent am I in what I create as a designer?
As the founder and creative director of my brand, with what kind of consistency am I moving toward its future?
How consistent am I in what I share with my audience and in the way I communicate?
And most importantly:
Am I consistent in my responsibilities toward all living beings and nature?

What a profound word — and such a heavy responsibility it carries.

I lay all these questions on the table.
Trying to design and produce while standing firm emotionally, philosophically, and responsibly toward all living beings is not easy.
Being consistent while also making a living…
Holding all of these in balance. Or at least trying to.

In my 23-year journey of building a brand and design company, a lot has passed under the bridge — and it still continues to flow.

At the beginning, I started as both a designer and a maker. As the work grew, the business evolved into a model where I designed and small-scale artisans produced.

My collaborations with craftsmen around Istanbul and the Grand Bazaar, my work with ceramic and porcelain studios, factories, and consultancy projects gradually expanded the scale of everything.

One day, while giving design and ceramic production consultancy to a foundation in Riyadh, I asked myself:

“I studied this craft. I learned ceramic production at university. Why am I not producing myself?”

With that question, and without much planning, I set up a small workshop in 2013 and bought a ceramic kiln.

As the work and orders increased, the workshop grew, and the number of employees expanded. Then one day, I looked back and realized that I — a designer — had become someone constantly trying to manage operations, buried under responsibilities I had never known before.

Most importantly, when I realized that I was working without joy, I understood that somewhere along the way I had gone wrong — and that I needed to listen to my inner voice again.

That inner voice detached me from the city where I had lived, designed, and produced for 37 years.
It carried me back to the land where I was born — to a village house — where I could produce porcelain alone, even on a small scale.

Living, designing, and producing in the city gave me so much. I created and developed my brand in Istanbul. My relationship with the city has always remained alive and energetic, because it has always been one of my greatest sources of inspiration.

But my inner voice called me back to nature.

For the past year, I have been living between the city and the village, constantly moving between the two. During this process, I have been redesigning the future of my brand.

When I say “consistency,” this is exactly where the biggest question emerged before me:

For years, I had to use imported clay and materials in porcelain production. But from now on, I no longer want to produce with imported clay.

Within the philosophy of my brand and my approach to production, I no longer find it consistent.

I still have a small amount of clay stock left. Once it is gone, I will no longer continue producing the designs I make today in the same way.

It took me nearly two years to make this decision.

Some decisions are truly not easy to make. I understand that much better now.

And perhaps most importantly:
To define a manifesto — and to stand firmly behind it, no matter what.

To work together.
To collaborate.
To share.
To grow dreams together.
That is what I want.

I hope we meet in days where we inspire one another.

Özlem