Source: Hurriyet Daily News

Creating international waves one celebrity at a time, Turkish jewelry designer Milka Karaağaçlı has begun turning heads with luxury products that have caught the attention of a number of Hollywood stars.

“Each model is born like a baby. I wear them at first, experience it and then put it up for sale,” she said.

Karaağaçlı has been making the jewelry for the past five years but aims to become a brand with worldwide repute within the next 20 years.

Many celebrities, including Hollywood stars, have bought her designs from her selling points in Turkey and abroad, Karaağaçlı said.

Choice of celebrities

“Madonna, Kimberly Perry, Pink, Anne Hathaway, Britney Spears, Allison Williams and Karolina Kurkova are among my regular customers,” the jeweler said. “Most people know about my brand and choose our stores to buy products. For me, it shows the point where a Turkish brand will reach in future.

Sometime ago, when actor Orlando Bloom came to Turkey for an advertisement shoot, he said he wanted to buy my jewelry for his model wife, Miranda Kerr. He bought a necklace for her from my ‘Life is a Miracle’ collection.”

Karaağaçlı said she worked alone for the design process before receiving assistance from a team of seven for the production process.

The producer said a collection that she creates might be a source of inspiration for another collection and added that she produced a new model every week.

She said she had more than 50 selling points abroad and that she exported her designs to 11 countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, France, England, Switzerland, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Cyprus and Kuwait. The top sellers, however, are Kuwait, Britain and the United States, she added.

In TV series

Karaağaçlı also said the director and the styling official of the hit Turkish TV series “Aşk-ı Memnu” (Forbidden Love), which starred Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ and Beren Saat and became very famous in many countries, had sought her out to use her collections in the series.

“I waited for some time and then saw that Behlül [Tatlıtuğ] gave my necklace to Bihter [Saat] as a gift. They chose me from among many sponsors. Of course, these designs had a great impact in the promotion of my brand and my sales because some people were watching this series just because of people’s dresses and jewelry,” she said.

Karaağaçlı said she has taken part in the New York and Paris fashion weeks since 2010 and that she aimed to open stores in Europe and the U.S. in the long term.