Defne Koz was born in Ankara in 1964 and raised in Italy. She graduated from the Domus Academy in Milano and was trained at the design studio of Ettore Sottsass where she worked in the 1990s. The time spent in the Sottsass studio influenced the native Turk's approach to design. In her works she combines elements from the Turkish and Italian cultures.
Defne Koz founded her own design studio in Milan. Later, she moved to the United States and was co-founder of Koz Susani Design in Chicago. Together with her partner Marco Susani, she designs innovative household objects, home decoration, luxury handcrafts and high-tech products. Also branding strategies and UX-design are offered by the studio. Among the newest projects of Koz Susani, there is a vision for the future of town traffic, a range of loading stations for electrical cars, an innovative calendar app, branding and packaging of water and refreshing beverages, a tablet app for integrating social networks with TV contents and concepts for connected kitchen devices, helping for both food management and well-being.
When developing her products, Koz takes especially sensorial and emotional quality of materials, high-quality design and innovation into account. Research on use culture and the aesthetics of a culture takes a high significance in her work. Among her clients in the field of lighting there are famous companies like FontanaArte, Leucos and Foscarini. For Foscarini Defne Koz designed the Circus light of blown glass and metal that has now reached the rank of a Foscarini designer classic and shines with a simple aesthetics.