Me and my elder sister were grown up with mom-made clothes. We were rather itty-bitty girls, so it came from a necessity as well as my mother being a super-talented professional tailor. It was such a common practice during my childhood to alter, modify and tailor any clothes from skirts, dresses to shirts or even swimwear, that I have not realized how lucky we were until my twenties, when I started to pay for my own clothes at some point!

 

In the meantime, my journey into tango and milonga has been started a long while ago, as a young university student with a load of enthusiasm for music and dancing. In a short while, I literally became addicted to tango and it started to become a part of my life. But how can one know that deeply rooted maternal talent would shape her future towards a dream-business based on her life-long passion?

 

By the time I’ve reached my thirties, life had already tossed me from the bridge between Europe and Asia to Mediterranean and finally up to the west coast of Latin America. While working at international cruises for almost five years, I met and make friends with people literally from all corners of the world and got a huge knowledge of various cultures, traditions and values. Thanks to my experience in international service industry, in the course of time I became familiar to responding different needs, demands and desires of people with different backgrounds, histories and practices.

 

After returning back to my hometown -dazzling İstanbul- I revisited my long-time passion, tango, and just realized that I did not have any decent tango clothes to dance at the milongas. I had to beg my “good old mom” to make a couple of dresses and skirts for me. She reluctantly accepted, but I had to give her a promise that this would be a “one time opportunity”, because she got retired and wanted to have a full rest. I explained her what I need for the comfort of my dress: stretchiness, the place of the slit and length... In a week we prepared two dresses, two skirts and a top. At the milonga with my new dress, I was surrounded by many tangueras asking the same question: “Wow Evrim, where did you get this incredible dress?” I confess them, actually we have created the dress together with my mum. They fall in love with the story. Instantly, I found myself dreaming about designing chique tango dresses. At that point, took the leap to turn my passion into a full-time job, by bringing “Tango” together with “Fashion Design”. 

 

Started from scratch in 2013, Chique now has its own design and sewing atelier supported by an amazing team, creating special collections for classes and milongas as well as special performance costumes for tango masters.

 

In almost seven years by now, while travelling around the globe to participate spectacular tango festivals, workshops and events, I have spontaneously built an intimate network within tango world on our common interest. My enthusiasm to this world enables me to invest all my personal potential in grasping the particular needs of each customer and to endeavor to find the optimum solutions for every one of them. All this work has ultimately made me their life saver on dance floor, of which I am gratefully proud and happy to be a part.

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