LALE CULTURE “Everyone talks about the famous handwoven Turkish hamam towels so why isn’t anybody selling them?” The answer to this question was the impetus for a quest that began in July 2009 for Jennifer Gaudet, a Canadian business woman and owner of Jennifer’s Hamam. Her search for a niche in the Turkish business market evolved into a life’s mission to prevent the extinction of a traditional art form.
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urkish peştamels and peşkirs were easy enough to find, but not hand-loomed from organic, natural fibres. Believing that tracking down weavers would be a simple task; Jennifer’s spirits were high when she started driving from village to village across the country. Her mood darkened six days later because she had found only one artisan still working old-style shuttle looms. At this point in time, weavers were abandoning their craft because they could no longer make a living.
Burn Test: A single strand of pure silk will only burn while held directly to the flame (Photo: Liza Slay) The culture of traditional textile weaving in Turkey was such that mothers were home weavers who taught the skills to their children. Daughters grew up beside their mothers until they married and became the next generation of home weavers and teachers. Sons became weaving apprentices in commercial settings. Forty years ago, movement began from hand-woven to machine-woven fabrics. When consumer choice shifted towards inexpensive items flooding the market place, home weaving was left behind. “A small factory machine is capable of producing 5,000 peştamels in a week with one person supervising 20 machines”, explained Silk Worms: Voracious silk worms are gently covered with mulberry leaves piled 15 centimeters high, which they devour in as many minutes (Photograph: Jennifer Gaudet)
The culture of traditional textile weaving in Turkey was such that mothers were home weavers who taught the skills to their children (Photo: Jennifer Gaudet) Jennifer. “A competent weaver working an eight-hour day can produce a maximum of 10 small, very basic peştamels”. The quality of hand-loomed products was also plummeting as weavers could no longer afford the trips to source quality threads. This gave rise to a new profession of traveling salesmen offering inferior mixed or synthetic threads at expensive prices. To add insult to injury, small factory producers had been copying their original designs for years and the weavers were no longer able to compete. Looms were placed in storage or sold for scrap and the art of hand-woven textile production went into decline. Jennifer realized that “the only way to save the art of weaving was to use threads of the highest quality and invent new designs to separate ourselves from the small factory producers”. Canadian business woman and owner of Jennifer’s Hamam (Photo: Jennifer’s Hamam)
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