Silent Luxury

On a warm, sunny autumn morning in Vienna, in the exterior lobby of the Grand Hotel, I posed a question to Atil Kutoglu: What language is fashion permitted to speak today? At a time when the international fashion world appears to have reached an almost monastic consensus on neutral palettes, logo-free surfaces, and an aesthetic of demonstrative restraint, the question feels more urgent than ever. For while the runways in Milan, Paris, and London unite in a sea of beige, camel, and ecru, this designer reminds us that luxury can also declare its colors, celebrate its origins, and tell its stories.

Atil Kutoglu, whose name has stood for a different form of conscious luxury for over three decades, embodies a position that seems almost anachronistic in contemporary fashion discourse—and precisely for that reason carries surprising relevance. At the end of September, he was awarded the Silver Medal of Honor for Services to the City of Vienna, a recognition that honors not only his craftsmanship but also his role as a cultural bridge-builder between Eastern ornamentation and Western tailoring. 'As a fashion designer, Atil Kutoglu creates a cultural bridge between Ottoman formal vocabulary and Western design sensibility,' stated Vienna’s Cultural Councilor Veronica Kaup-Hasler in her commendation. A bridge—and thus also a counterweight at a time when globalized aesthetics sometimes means homogeneity.

The Other Side of Quality

It would be too simple to understand Kutoglu's work as the antithesis to the quiet luxury movement. In fact, both share common DNA: an uncompromising commitment to material, craftsmanship, and longevity. 'Quality in design reveals itself through endurance over the years,' Kutoglu says in our conversation. 'I hear so often from my clients: Your dress that I bought twelve years ago—I wore it yesterday, and everyone asked, Wow, is that new? That, for me, is the proof.' It is the same philosophy that drives the advocates of understated luxury—the belief in the investment piece, in clothing that outlasts trends, in consumption that endures rather than generates turnover.

Yet where quiet luxury operates through understatement, through deliberate reduction, through renunciation of ornament, Kutoglu chooses a different path: he celebrates. His designs speak of Byzantium and Habsburg, of the colors of spice bazaars and the splendor of the Hagia Sophia, of gold and silk and the centuries-old tradition of Ottoman textile art. They are loud not in the sense of vulgar, but in the sense of eloquent. They speak where others remain silent—and therein lies their particular relevance for a fashion world in danger of forgetting the contemporary in its longing for the timeless.

Heritage as Dialogue

Kutoglu's path is itself a story of bridges. Born in 1968 in Istanbul, he came to Vienna in the early 1990s to study economics—with a portfolio full of fashion designs in his luggage. The legendary encounter on the tram with then-Mayor Helmut Zilk, to whom he presented his vision without hesitation, marked the beginning of a remarkable career. Zilk enabled his first fashion show; Zilk's wife, actress and singer Dagmar Koller, became his first prominent client. A decade on the New York Fashion Week circuit followed, where Naomi Campbell strode down the runway in 2006 in one of his asymmetric dresses, making international headlines. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Karolina Kurkova, Viennese aristocracy—they all wore and continue to wear Kutoglu.

Yet this success story is not an end in itself. 'Fashion, for me, is never an end in itself,' Kutoglu says, 'but always a means of understanding—between cultures, generations, social realities.' This attitude manifests not only in his designs but also in his continuous charitable work. Together with Katharina Nehammer, wife of Austria's former Federal Chancellor, he regularly organizes benefit events for the Red Cross. At the most recent show, he presented his Spring/Summer 2026 collection, inspired by the gold ornaments of Viennese Art Nouveau at the Belvedere and the Byzantine splendor of the Hagia Sophia—a synthesis that took shape following his visits to both historic sites.

The Necessity of the Plural

In a conversation about the future of fashion, Kutoglu touches on a point that strikes at the heart of current discourse: 'On one hand, fashion has gotten somewhat out of control,' he reflects on the excess of fast fashion, the 'puppet theater' — in Viennese German called “Kasperltheater —of cheap trends. 'But I also see that the work of a true designer, of someone genuinely in love with fashion, has become more valuable. Perhaps there are fewer ladies who come to us now. But they appreciate us all the more.'

This observation is illuminating, for it speaks not of either-or but of both-and. In a world where consumption is being renegotiated, where awareness of production conditions, material origins, and longevity is increasing, space emerges for different expressions of quality. The cashmere-colored turtleneck for everyday wear, the gold-embroidered evening gown for the opera—both can be part of a sustainable, conscious wardrobe when their creation is carried by the same values: respect for craft, trust in material, belief in duration.

Cultural Authenticity as New Luxury

What makes Kutoglu's work so valuable in the current fashion landscape is its cultural specificity in an age of increasing globalization. While the aesthetic of quiet luxury rests on international consensus, Kutoglu insists on origin. His designs carry the DNA of two cities, two traditions, two aesthetic systems. They are not arbitrarily reproducible because they develop from a specific biography, from a lifelong dialogue between Vienna and Istanbul, between Klimt and Byzantium.

'When I think of the richness of forms and colors of the Ottomans, when I walk through the Belvedere and see the gold ornaments of Art Nouveau, something new emerges,' Kutoglu explains. 'It's not one-to-one Klimt or one-to-one Art Nouveau, but a touch of both becomes visible on the runway.' This synthesis is more than aesthetic eclecticism—it is a statement for the possibility of cultural coexistence, for the fruitfulness of dialogue. At a time when fashion often functions as a global uniform language, Kutoglu reminds us that luxury can also lie in the preservation and evolution of specific traditions.

The Three Pillars of Endurance

Asked about his vision for the future of fashion, about the conditions under which quality can survive, Kutoglu formulates three clear principles: 'Good fabrics. Good design. Good PR.' This seemingly simple formula is, upon closer examination, a precise diagnosis of what fashion must accomplish today. Good fabrics—that means material knowledge, supplier relationships, understanding of origin and processing. Good design—that means the balance between innovation and wearability, between the designer's vision and the wearer's needs. And good PR—that means not marketing in the conventional sense, but the ability to tell a story that is more than the sum of its parts.

It is remarkable that Kutoglu, despite all his international success—or perhaps because of it—remains humble. 'I haven't even achieved a tenth of my goals,' he says with a laugh. 'Perhaps I set my goals too high, of which I keep achieving a few. But a large part remains for the future.' This attitude, this mixture of ambition and patience, of confidence and willingness to learn, may be the most important lesson he can impart to a younger generation of designers. Fashion is not a sprint but a marathon. Or, to stay with Kutoglu's inspiration: it is not a snapshot but a palimpsest, on which layer upon layer, generation upon generation, new meanings are deposited.

Between the Whisper and the Song

When Giorgio Armani at 91 still presented on international runways, when Karl Lagerfeld sat at his drawing table until his last day, they demonstrated a truth about fashion that also drives Kutoglu: creativity knows no retirement. 'That gives me motivation,' he says. 'The more you see that there are still other markets where you've perhaps been somewhat forgotten, where you need to refresh yourself.' It is this restlessness, this permanent search for new forms of expression, for new dialogues, that keeps his work alive.

Fashion stands at a crossroads. On one side, justified criticism of a system based on overproduction, planned obsolescence, and the exploitation of resources and people. On the other side, the longing for beauty, for expression, for moments of transformation that fashion has always enabled. The answer lies not in a rigid either-or but in a nuanced both-and. One that offers space for the quiet elegance of a perfectly cut coat in camel. And one that offers space for the festive splendor of a gold-embroidered evening gown that tells stories of two continents.

Atil Kutoglu reminds us that quality has many faces. That sustainable fashion need not be uniform. That the conscious wardrobe has room for the whispered word and the song, for restraint and celebration. In the end, the question is not whether fashion should be loud or quiet—but only whether it is authentic. Whether it was made by people who understand their craft. Whether it is worn confidently by wearers who recognize its value. Whether it lives on when one season ends and the next begins.

'Creativity and exclusivity and high quality have not lost value,' says Kutoglu. 'They have become more desirable.' In this sentence lies hope for the future of fashion—a future that does not view diversity as a problem but as richness. A future where it is not about whether fashion shines in beige or gold, but only about whether it endures.

Atil Kutoglu's Spring/Summer 2026 collection is currently on view at his showroom in the Grand Hotel Vienna and will be available from February in selected boutiques worldwide.