The period
around the New Year in Turkey was one of considerable political upheaval, with
the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan embroiled in a corruption
scandal and frequent demonstrations in the streets and squares of
Istanbul and other cities. In Moda, on the Asian side of Istanbul, one graffiti
sprayed on bank windows and cement barriers during a nighttime demonstration read
"This filth will be cleaned up by the people." And indeed, early the
next morning a city worker was painting over the signs as others swept the
debris of barricades and fires off the streets.
The people work a lot in Turkey. A six-day work-week is commonplace, and a seven-day one only moderately less so. Though many Turks own their own businesses, these are often one- or two-person operations requiring the owner’s constant presence.
The people work a lot in Turkey. A six-day work-week is commonplace, and a seven-day one only moderately less so. Though many Turks own their own businesses, these are often one- or two-person operations requiring the owner’s constant presence.
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| A four-storey building in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul houses no fewer than three tailors ("terzi"). |
Tailors are a
prime example. Istanbul has what seems like a surfeit of them; each
neighborhood has several, and some buildings even house two or three. This is
partly the legacy of an earlier period in the city's history, when specialty
shops tended to be concentrated on a single street or neighborhood (as in New
York's one-time garment district). One can still see blocks or streets in
Istanbul lined with engraving shops one after the other, or clusters of kitchen
supply shops, lighting shops, gown salons and sundry other commercial venues in
clusters.
The number of tailors in Istanbul is also surprising given the extent to which the trade has declined in other parts of the world. The widespread availability of inexpensive, off-the-rack clothing has made the cost of having clothes mended or altered seem impractical when new ones are so affordable. Ready-made clothing is no less available and no more expensive in Turkey, yet a great many tailors still make a living—however precarious—from their trade.
The number of tailors in Istanbul is also surprising given the extent to which the trade has declined in other parts of the world. The widespread availability of inexpensive, off-the-rack clothing has made the cost of having clothes mended or altered seem impractical when new ones are so affordable. Ready-made clothing is no less available and no more expensive in Turkey, yet a great many tailors still make a living—however precarious—from their trade.
Over the period spanning December 31, 2013 to January 6, 2014, I conducted seven interviews with tailors working in different parts of Istanbul: in Kadıköy and Üsküdar on the Asian side, in Beyazıt near the famous Grand Bazaar, and in the old city center of Beyoğlu on the European side. The questions were not about politics or current events, but about work, and although the interviews were recorded, as all were conducted in Turkish, the recordings are not appended here. Instead, I have sought to summarize and relay highlights from the interviews to offer an impression of the working lives of Istanbul's tailors, how they are changing, and how these men and women view their trade.
Most of the tailors I approached were working when I entered their shops and kept at it
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| Two tailors at work at Bizim Terzisi, Kadıköy |
This was no small feat in several places, as a tailor's workshop in Istanbul tends to be a tiny space in the back of a residential building, up a flight or two of stairs, and not infrequently windowless. Unlike in the US, where their work is often combined with dry cleaning and occupies the same space, in Turkey tailors have shops of their own. Sometimes these enterprises are marked with a sign on the street "Terzi" (Tailor), but often you would only know there was a tailor in the building if you somehow already knew there was a tailor in the building. To get to Mustafa Altıntop's Model Tasarım Terzisi, for example, you have to pass through a curtain at the back of another shop, Hey Müzik ve Tekstil.
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Ali Öner of Özlem Terzi in Beyazıt
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Most of the
tailors I spoke with were men whose origins were in eastern Turkey and who had
been working as tailors for at least twenty years. Rıza Akbaş, who has a shop
in Beyoğlu that specializes in making men's suits and jackets, told me that to
be a good tailor a minimum of twenty years experience is necessary. Young
tailors are now few and far between. Akbaş has an assistant, Mahmud Yavuz, who is
twenty-three: "The youngest tailor in Turkey," Akbaş repeated
twice during the interview. As I was preparing to take photographs, Yavuz stopped
his ironing and came over to carefully straighten the measuring tape that was hanging
around his boss's neck.
Though Yavuz is unusual in that he is still quite young, most tailors started learning the trade before they reached their teens, with apprenticeships of between six and eight years duration. Ali Öner of Özlem Terzi ın Beyazıt spoke about how he ran away from his home in eastern Anatolia at the age of thirteen and came to Istanbul, where he lived in a tailor's shop while working there as an apprentice. Kerim Erdoğan (no relation), who owns a shop in Beyoğlu, started his apprenticeship at age eleven. Coming from a very poor family, he added, the profession was chosen for him.
In fact, although
very few came from tailor families, most also did not choose the profession for themselves. A notable exception is Mustafa Altıntop, who had been doing
piecework for a large clothing manufacturer in the eastern Anatolian city of
Trabzon when he fell in love with a girl who worked as a tailor and decided to
become one himself. "The love didn't last, but the trade did,"
he laughed. Like many practicing tailors in this city of 14 million, Altıntop
works six or seven days a week. I spoke with him on New Year's Eve and he told
me he would also be in the following day at around 11a.m., "What if
someone needs something?" Like the others, he was clearly proud of his
work and made several references to the "precision" he brought to the
craft, and how customers are often referred by others who were satisfied with his
work.
Müğe Deniz is atypical. She is a woman and young (like Yavuz she is just twenty-three), but like others in the business she started working in her mother's shop, Terzi Mukadder, at
age twelve and works long hours. In addition to helping out
in her mother's shop in Üsküdar, she also teaches kindergarten and does
secretarial work for a construction company. Her mother, Mukadder
Yılmaz, who came in while I was speaking with Müğe, said nine-hour days, six
days a week were the norm for her, and that she only ever dared to take
vacations of three to four days for fear of losing customers. Though they
feel that as women they bring a certain care to their work that men often do
not, when asked what a typical tailor is like, both women pointed to a man in
his late sixties with a mustache and a measuring tape around his neck who
worked for them—and in fact did not cease working for the duration of my stay
in the shop—and laughed.
Though Yavuz is unusual in that he is still quite young, most tailors started learning the trade before they reached their teens, with apprenticeships of between six and eight years duration. Ali Öner of Özlem Terzi ın Beyazıt spoke about how he ran away from his home in eastern Anatolia at the age of thirteen and came to Istanbul, where he lived in a tailor's shop while working there as an apprentice. Kerim Erdoğan (no relation), who owns a shop in Beyoğlu, started his apprenticeship at age eleven. Coming from a very poor family, he added, the profession was chosen for him.
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| Mustafa Altıntop of Model Tasarım Terzisi, Kadıköy |
Müğe Deniz is atypical. She is a woman and young (like Yavuz she is just twenty-three), but like others in the business she started working in her mother's shop, Terzi Mukadder, at
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Mukadder Yılmaz and Müğe Deniz at Terzi Mukadder
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Though the tailors in Beyoğlu similarly work long hours and six-day weeks, their situation is markedly better than that of tailors in other parts of the city. Their vacations are more leisurely, ten to fifteen days long, and their shops are large, consisting of two rooms—one for cutting and another for sewing. Both specialize in making clothing from scratch and their clientele tends to be wealthy and cosmopolitan; not everyone can afford to have a bespoke suit. Akbaş proudly showed me the business card of one of his clients, an official at the US consulate in Istanbul.
Tailors from other parts of town generally designate Beyoğlu as the district where the best
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| Çağlar Kumaş (fabrics) across from Kerim Erdoğan's tailor shop in Beyoğlu. |
The tailors in Beyoğlu are also among the few in the city who still specialize in making
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| Rıza Akbaş in a three-piece suit he made himself (his assistant, Mahmud Yavuz, is in the background) |
A further distinction between the tailors of Beyoğlu and the others was the decor in their shops. Whereas most tailors in other areas had images, clippings, and often a Turkish flag or a photograph of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (or both) on their shop walls, the decor in
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Mustafa Ağınlı's shop inside the Grand Bazaar (Kapalı Çarşı) in
Beyazıt features several common attributes of Istanbul
tailors' decor: a Turkish flag, a photograph of Atatürk, and an empty
glass of tea.
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Because his shop is in an area with heavy tourist traffic, Ağınlı encounters a lot of foreigners, but relies on friends to help him communicate with them as he speaks only Turkish. The location makes him less dependent on the cycles that otherwise affect tailors working in the city. For them, winter is the slowest time and late summer the busiest—with the start of school, the abundance of weddings, and moving Muslim holidays such as Kurban Bayram and Ramadan.
The hardest thing about being a tailor in Istanbul, Yılmaz told me, is the time pressure, "customers want things right away and it means we are always in a rush." I had a chance to see for myself what she meant. At Ali Öner's shop, a customer came with a pair of pants, which he altered on the spot; Öner measured the man's leg and sewed the hem in a matter of minutes. Another young man came in with a shirt. "Can you come back in two hours?" Öner asked. The customer said he had to go somewhere, so two hours was talked down to half an hour and for the remainder of the interview, Öner was cutting the seams on the cuffs as we spoke. Kerim Erdoğan initially told me he had no time to do an interview, but when I said I was unlikely to pass that way again, he pointed to a stool across from where he was working. "Ask," he said, and for the whole of the interview he sat there, one leg propped on a footstool, bent over a pair of pants that he was stitching with needle and thread for a customer who was leaving for Germany the next day.
There exists a union for textile workers in Turkey called TEKSİF. The Istanbul branch is
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a customer who was about to leave for Germany.
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Though it was clear the trade had changed a great deal since these tailors started working in it, Akbaş concluded with a heavy sigh that soon the kind of work he does will no longer be practiced by anyone because everyone will be buying suits off the rack. Erdoğan felt the most marked changes were in the fabrics and the customers: the fabrics had become thinner and the customers more difficult. Akbaş similarly waxed horrified about the proliferation of cheap, low-quality "Chinese" fabrics. English fabrics remained the best, he said.
Yılmaz believes that the most essential characteristic of a good tailor is patience and being able to listen to customers and understand what they want, which is not always easy. Above all one has to be available to them all day, more or less every day of the year. Yılmaz is noticeably proud to have plenty of business and no shortage of work, but confessed that she sometimes found it difficult to work so much without a break. "I would have liked to travel, see the world" she said, "but it wasn't meant to be."
