Barbaros is a public figure in Turkey and known in Brussels milieu. He is a fashion designer, an LGBT rights advocate and an anti-war activist.
He studied Business Management at Marmara University and mastered in design and chromatics at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, before becoming an apprentice to prominent fashion designer Yıldırım Mayruk.
He made TV programmes, authored several books and lectured about the history of fashion at Marmara University and Ankara Baskent University.