Handmade carpets that are getting old will now decorate the rooms as vintage
One of the products that comes to mind when you say Sultanahmet is undoubtedly one of the most important building blocks of Turkish art hand carpets. The most special gifts that tourists can bring to their country are still Turkish Carpets. However, the recent developments and the decrease in hand workmanship paved the way for making old carpets not aging. Fatih Halı is one of the brands that do this. In addition to the new production, it takes the old carpets that cannot be done again and puts them back under our feet. Let’s hear more from the brand founder Muzaffer Akçay.
Could you tell us about your recent works as Fatih Halı brand?
As Fatih Halı, we are preparing large base vintage carpets. Again, we use old and inert carpets. We make high value-added products and non-standard products. We also sell bamboo carpets which are again trendy. In this sense, we have prepared a collection with a manufacturer in Gaziantep as Fatih Halı. We continue our activities mainly in the wholesale sense, especially with these two products.
What do you think about Bamboo and Vintage Carpets? Can we say that trends in carpet are shifting here?
If modern production is made in hand-made carpets, an intensive sales trend can be caught. We tried to catch this trend by turning old used carpets into vintage. In this way, dormant carpets were brought to the economy. Since the same cannot be done, we think this is a very important job. Inspired by our carpets in Gaziantep machine made carpets and materials made of 100% organic bamboo carpets. In addition, by adding craftsmanship to the carpet, it improved its quality. Gaziantep has made innovation in the carpet sector with bamboo products. It is also receiving great interest in the world market. I think the next few years will sell a lot more bamboo carpets.
Carpet stores in Sultanahmet and Grand Bazaar are working in parallel with the tourism sector. Could you tell us about your recent tourism sector and your predictions about 2020?
Certainly the tourism sector is working together with the retail carpet market. For the last 3-4 years the tourism and carpet industry has gone through low seasons. As of 2019, the increase in the number of tourists affected the carpet sector positively. In 2020, I believe that we will have a more lively season both in terms of the number of visitors and the quality of tourists. In addition, I believe that ship tourism will have an impact on this vitality with the opening of the port of Galataport.
What is the contribution of sectoral fairs? Can we listen to your evaluations about these fairs you attended?
Fairs are very important meeting areas for the carpet sector. As Fatih Halı we have been in international fairs for years and we will take part in that. However, in the last few years, efficiency in fairs has decreased. Online shopping has increased. It is now an important platform for our industry in online sales as far as fairs. As carpets, I think we should give more importance to e-commerce.
