Over spring break, I traveled to the ancient city of Istanbul through the Rutgers Journalism Department. The city itself is beautiful, with countless historic buildings to explore and the vast Bosphorus River to admire. While I was walking to and from all of the places I had made my mission to visit, I noticed the incredible fashion sense of the women from this city.
On colder days, I saw many women wearing long, dark-colored trench coats with pops of red. The typical color palette for outfits seemed to be black, gray, beige, and white, with accessories used as colorful accents.
This outfit below is a good example of something casual a woman might wear in Istanbul: a black trench coat, black shoulder bag, blue denim jeans, and a pair of black ankle boots. Although this happens to be a very simple outfit, it is still very elegant and sophisticated. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/2885187257066483/
Women walking the streets liked to wear simple, yet elegant purses that could be held securely on their arm or attached with a strap across their bodies.
You might see women wearing color-coordinating accessories like in the photo below, where a woman paired bright turquoise accessories with a light gray trench coat.
Muslim women were wearing beautifully patterned satin scarves tied securely around the backs of their necks as a pop of color in their otherwise neutral outfits. Sometimes the scarves were intricately patterned.This style was very distinct from scarves I had seen on women back home; it was less flowy and very tightly fastened onto their heads.
In terms of makeup, Turkish women seemed to wear subtle winged eyeliner with bold red or berry-colored lipstick. Otherwise, their makeup was mostly light coverage foundation with blush for some added dimension. Generally, I noticed that it was not very popular to make yourself look tanner with bronzer.
Overall, women in Istanbul tend to have a sense of style very influenced by European fashion as well as the way women dress in other parts of the Middle East. Like the city itself, the fashion is a culmination of years of interaction between people from different parts of the world.