Tag: fashion

Trendyol helped create 1.1 million jobs in Turkey

In its 10th year, Trendyol, the largest e-commerce platform in Turkey, has announced the results of an independent study “Trendyol’s impact on the Turkish economy”. According to Trendyol founder and CEO Demet Mutlu: “In 2020, 98 thousand businesses, mostly SMEs, and 1.1 million individual sellers sold 347 million products on Trendyol. By digitalizing the commercial activities of SMEs and local merchants, Trendyol helps them grow their business and expand their customer reach. As a result, we were able to make a measurable impact on the Turkish economy and this study estimates that we have contributed to the creation and retention of 1.1 million employment.”

In its 10th year, Trendyol, the largest e-commerce platform in Turkey, has announced the results of a study, “Trendyol’s impact on the Turkish economy”, conducted by the independent research organization PAL.

The study shows that Trendyol has made a measurable impact on Turkey’s economy. 98,000 businesses, mostly SMEs, and 1.1 million individual sellers sold 347 million products on Trendyol in 2020.

90% of the sellers increased their turnover and 82% employed more people

According to PAL, after joining Trendyol, 90% of sellers increased their turnover and 82% hired more employees as they upscaled their businesses. The study also shows that 80% of sellers increased their know-how on consumer preferences and market trends. Trendyol is also credited by 77% of sellers for helping their businesses minimize the economic impact of Covid-19.

Trendyol contributed to the creation and retention of 1.1 million jobs and is estimated to help create, 2.4 million jobs by 2023

Sales on the Trendyol platform have a positive knock-on effect on related sectors, such as manufacturing, packaging, marketing, delivery and customer service. Trendyol’s strong performance contributed to the creation and retention of 360,000 direct and 708,000 indirect employment. Study findings estimate that Trendyol’s impact on employment will reach 2.4 million jobs by 2023, a significant increase from the current 1.1 million.

43% of sellers on Trendyol are from provincial cities

Trendyol supports regional development by connecting local SMEs and merchants from provincial cities with customers in regional hubs. In 2020, the number of sellers outside three major cities (İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir) reached 42,000, and 93% of these sellers have accessed new customers through Trendyol. Mutlu states: “We are committed to digitalizing our merchants and providing financial support to help grow their businesses.”

During the pandemic, 17,000 women entrepreneurs started selling on Trendyol

Mutlu states: “We believe it is our responsibility to increase the role of female-headed businesses in the economy. This is reflected in our company values: 42% of the Trendyol team and 41% of the management team are women, considerably higher than most global technology companies. During the pandemic, 17,000 women entrepreneurs started selling on our platform. 25% of all our sellers are female-led companies which is a significant achievement for Trendyol given that only 10% of employers in Turkey are women.”

Trendyol’s second-hand platform, Dolap, has 400,000 women sellers who work from home raising their children and caring for their families. Trendyol is leading the way in providing an additional channel of socio-economic engagement to stay-at-home mothers which benefits the household economy and encourages entrepreneurial activity within the home.

98% of sellers on Trendyol are Turkish companies

“Trendyol is proud to champion domestic production. Turkish companies represent 98% of our marketplace and 72% of the products are locally produced. Increasing the brand recognition and the footprint of Turkish products in the global marketplace is the focus of our e-export operations, as is increasing the number of Turkish companies that can e-export from Turkey” Mutlu said.

Active customers reached 19.3 million in 2020

In 2020, 19.3 million active customers made at least one purchase on Trendyol platforms, compared with 9.2 million in 2019. In the last quarter of 2020, Trendyol delivered an average of 1.1 million packages per day.

Trendyol allocates 28% of its total budget to Research & Development

Mutlu states: “Trendyol has attracted $335 million FDI into Turkey and used this investment for the development of the digital ecosystem. Trendyol also allocates 28% of its total budget to R&D and offers competitive job opportunities for top talent from Turkey and Europe.”

Trendyol will continue to deliver positive impact on local economies

Mutlu states: “At Trendyol, we see it as our responsibility to strengthen the digital ecosystem and to create value for our customers, sellers, and our country as a whole. By digitalizing and supporting local businesses, we enable Turkey’s entrepreneurs and business owners to invest in their families, their communities and in Turkey.

We will continue to work hard to grow the positive impact we have for our country and all our stakeholders. ”

October 16, 2011
World Fashion Focus: Istanbul : The Observer

By Patricia Serrantonio

STAFF WRITER

Istanbul — Being the only city bridged between two continents, Europe and Asia, the city of Istanbul, Turkey, is quite phenomenal. From the numerous oceans that surround Istanbul, which was once Constantinople, everything is extremely historic, from numerous mosques to one of the seven wonders of the world: the Hagia Sophia (google it!). Within these buildings of beauty, patterns of color are thrown upon walls and ceilings in the most decorative and precise manner, something that absolutely amazes the eye.

Aside from the friendly aura and the splashes of culture, there lies a total fashion gold mine right in the middle. This would be the Grand Baazar. After spending over six hours in it, I have cemented it as a fashion lovers playground and total world of creativity. Bazaar’s are markets and in Turkey, they are extremely common. The Grand Baazar, however, is quite the site to see, and unimaginably holds over 3,000 shops.

In the Grand Baazar, you can find everything. Saying it is huge is an understatement. Yet, everything sold inside, not only commercial things, but true culturally influenced pieces, are enticing; something I’d like to acknowledge as real fashion.

Yes, Istanbul has its gigantic high fashion and fabulous couture area, but it was the fluidity and the true uniqueness that made the Grand Baazar so attractive.

For example, patterned harem pants and handmade crochet ballet flats were just everywhere. I can almost promise that replicas of these are nonexistent. Originally designed bags, beaded scarves, and jewelry boxes covered in bright glitters were iconic pieces of many shops. The turquoise earrings along with rare beaded necklaces covered walls for the ladies. You can buy costumes, perfumes, luggage, and adorable slip-on shoes in bright colors with poms poms atop, a pair I could not resist. Men can even et their favorite jerseys as well as sneakers and presents for their mother!

The best yet, is that everything is generally cheap and open for a good bargain with the amiable shop-owners and product designers.

And it does not only revolve around fashion, but the glass lamps are stunning, golden and jeweled animal sculptures are bright, and the fresh tea as well as the glass tea-cup sets are delicately designed. Not to mention, the trope of the market, the evil-eye, covers souvenirs specifically to ward off bad spirits.

The entire market was just stunning. From the aura to the merchandise, the Grand Bazaar was the thrill of a fashion lifetime and undoubtedly the bearer of the most interesting and unique items ever created. Definitely a site to embrace and, well, shop in!

via World Fashion Focus: Istanbul : The Observer.

April 13, 2011
On the catwalk in Islamic fashion in Turkey

Designers capitalize on growing market for Islamic fashion in Turkey.

Jodi Hilton

Models display scarves by Turkish designer Balse Esarp at the Islamic Fashion Expo in Istanbul on March 3, 2011. PHOTO BY: Jodi Hilton

ISTANBUL, Turkey — When styling hijabs became all the rage among Islamic women in Turkey a while back, Zehra Kamacioglu, a hairdresser, began crimping and sculpting bridal headscarves into cascades of flowers.

Then she got the idea to make ready-made sculpted hijabs so that a woman getting married or attending a special event could skip the salon altogether.

In 1995, Kamacioglu founded Zehrace and in this year’s Islamic Fashion Expo, she showed fuchsia mod caps with built in hijabs, and hood-shaped sport hijabs, in addition to her evening wear.

“Islamic women want to wear different things and want more fashionable things,” Zehrace’s export manager, Gamze Ozturk, said. “Especially young Islamic women.”

Turkish garment producers, who for years have dominated mainstream production for Europe in jeans and t-shirts, are finding a large, new market in the modestly dressed Muslim woman.

At the Islamic Fashion Expo, now in its third year, vendors showcased elegant and finely manufactured clothing, including flowing black kaftans accented with an inverted purple “V” by Beyzanur, colorful 100 percent Chinese 10-color designed silk scarves by Sarar, and Islamic swim and sportswear by Hasema.

“We looked around the world, and around Turkey and there is no exhibit like this,” said Onur Goksel, the exhibition’s project director.

As a deejay spun dance music, disco lights illuminated the catwalk around which families gathered. Children played with red balloons while their mothers, many wearing headscarves, sat on school desk-chairs. Men wearing suits set up video cameras on the far end. The emcee, wearing a silver suit and pointed shoes entertained with jokes while the crowd waited.

Finally, leggy Bosnian and Russian girls from the Star Model agency wearing trench coats and headscarves strode out on five-inch heels. Pouted augmented lips and thrusting their hips at jaunty angles they modeled incongruously moderate Muslim swimwear, kaftans and hijabs.

Bosnian model Tamara Cvijanovic, 21, on a month-long modeling tour in Turkey, said that during the previous week in Istanbul she modeled transparent bathing suits and skimpy underwear.

Modeling Islamic clothes, she said, “is so strange for us and all the girls because we don’t wear those clothes at home.”

Turan Kisa, export manager for Hasema, said 20 years ago the company was the first in Turkey to produce covered swimwear acceptable for Islamic women.

“The first models were not so fashionable,” she said. “Now we are producing really fashionable design.”

The swimsuit is shaped like a wetsuit, with a built in hood, over which a woman wears a sort of zip-up windbreaker to mask her shape. One navy blue model is embroidered with nautical motifs.

Sports-models made of lycra matching pieces cover the arms, legs and head in a pajama-like shape. More skimpy short sleeve models with thigh-length pants are geared toward women who exercise in female-only pools. Bright pinks and blues are popular with girls while middle-aged women tend to go with classic colors like browns and black, Kisa said. Hasema also produces knee-length bathing suits for Muslim men.

At a nearby booth, Yesmin Yedil modeled plus-sized topcoats to a potential buyer. Yedil and her colleague Hukase Arslan design clothing for Professional Tasarim. Single and double-breasted trench coats in beige, navy and lavender are accented by contrasting color trim and ribbon.

“For the new trend we use new colors,” she said. “The special thing [is] the accessories on the clothes.”

Still, Yedil said, “everything goes on the classic system.”

Filiz Yetim, dressed in a fitted black blouse and loosely tied, burgundy headscarf, produces custom-made wedding and special-event dresses.

Her lacy party dresses draw inspiration from the Ottomans and French. Offering rose-flavored Turkish delight and a spritz of lavender, she said her designs (under the mark Hayalen, which means, “dreaming” in Turkish) are for open-minded people.

“I would like to make something special for them,” she said.

Source: globalpost

March 13, 2011
Yildirim is a Phenom

Here is an article about famous Turkish designer Hakan Yildirim published on New York Times:

Their Feet May Be Stars in Japan
By ERIC WILSON
Paris

Every season, for more than a decade, their numbers have grown. And we are not talking about new designers, but the photographers who stand for hours outside the Paris show sites just to take pictures of the arriving editors and models.

The scene outside the fashion tent in the Tuileries before the Dior show on Friday was especially comical, as one young Japanese woman after another would photograph Carine Roitfeld (who wore what looked like cashmere pajamas under a leopard-print coat after her big 90th anniversary party the night before) and document her outfit on a preprinted card that showed a woman’s silhouette, with spaces designated for “dress,” “coat,” “bag” and “shoes.”

“We mostly want models,” said Kimi Mori, who works for a Japanese street-style magazine called Spur, before Stella McCartney’s show on Monday. She had focused her lens on an unfamiliar face because she liked that the woman was already wearing the new maxi-length skirt that designers are promoting for spring.

Some editors have discovered they are becoming famous in Asia because of such publications, or at least their feet are, since many photographers only take pictures of their shoes.

“Japanese style is not the same as the style in Europe,” said Manabu Matsunaga, who sends about 100 photographs to Figaro Japan each season. “But maybe the Japanese want to wear more European styles.”

And just who, among the European editors, is most sought after by the Japanese?

“Emmanuelle Alt,” said Mr. Matsunaga’s colleague, Shoko Sakai, of the fashion director of French Vogue. “She’s so cute!”

At 39, He’s a Phenom

Buzz is a mysterious thing. Only a season ago, editors who were in the know could be overheard asking one another if they had seen the collection of that new Brazilian prodigy who had been taken on by the public relations powerhouse KCD at the then-ripe age of 19. This week, the whisper campaign was centered on a Turkish designer who lives part time in London and is 39.

What is it that makes everyone in fashion suddenly stand up and pay attention and clamor for tickets to a designer they had never heard of before?

“Sometimes I think I don’t understand this whole thing at all, because it happened so fast,” said Hakan Yildirim, this season’s breakout star, during a meeting at the Hôtel Costes the day after showing his Hakaan collection. (An extra “a” in his label was added for effect.) Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova and Ms. Roitfeld attended his show; Mariacarla Boscono and Karolina Kurkova walked in it. Leonardo DiCaprio turned up at his after-party, smoking a cigar.

Mr. Yildirim is an established designer in Turkey, where he has worked for more than 15 years and has a signature collection founded in 2002. But he made the leap to the international stage only a year ago, after an introduction to the photographer Mert Alas led to the idea of a new label, for which Mr. Alas consults as a creative director. After showing in London last season, Mr. Yildirim received an emerging designer award from Andam (the French equivalent of the Council of Fashion Designers of America), enabling him to show in Paris. What he delivered was a collection of strong minimalist looks, in papery shades of white on fabrics that were textured with ridges or cutouts, some over visible bras that looked like Frank Gehry architecture.

Backstage, Mr. Yildirim was overwhelmed by the response, including from editors he knew previously only by their photographs. “I was face to face and cheek to cheek with Grace Coddington,” he said. He wore a polo shirt with a gold safety pin attached to the sleeve. It bore a charm to ward off the evil eye.

“I know I have to work very hard,” he said. “I need to be more creative. After a while, people will be bored by this, so I must continue with surprises.”

October 5, 2010
Hussein Chalayan’s east-west fusion

By Peter Aspden

Hussein Chalayan in the Lisson Gallery this week, before the installation of his new show

You don’t have to be a regular at the Serpentine Gallery’s achingly cool annual summer party to know that the worlds of art and fashion collude in ever more explicit, and prosperous, ways. Galleries lead the urban regeneration of run-down neighbourhoods that become the new centres of bohemian mischief. Catwalks acquire the kind of audacious conceptual playfulness that would make Duchamp’s experiments look like Constable landscapes. London has led the way in the promiscuous flitting of designers whose chief imperatives are to be loved, to be new and to be seen.

Now at the Lisson gallery comes an exhibition from one of the most daring figures from this twilight world: Hussein Chalayan, purveyor of sci-fi fabrics, wooden skirts, the fashion designer for whom the phrase “ready-to-wear” has never seemed entirely appropriate.

Chalayan’s avant-garde credentials are impeccable, right from his justly famous 1993 graduation show from Central St Martin’s, featuring garments that he had buried in the ground to observe the chemical interaction between the ephemeral and the earthly-elemental (the collection was bought en masse by Browns), to his 1998 “Between” spring-summer display that showed models in various states of undress, covered successively by parts of a chador.

The video of that not uncontroversial show makes riveting viewing, and could easily have been part of a gallery installation, festooned with portentous labels over Chalayan’s genuine interest in east-west dialogues, rather than part of a simple fashion collection.

But then the words “simple” and “fashion” rarely come together in descriptions of the Turkish-Cypriot designer’s work. “I have always been ideas-led,” he tells me over coffee in Clerkenwell. “I have never thought of a garment differently from the way I think of, say, a film. I give them both the same attention. I used to think of fashion as an industrial process, whereas art is supposed not to be. But art is going that way too.”

Perhaps surprisingly, but not to those who follow his unpredictable ways, his new piece at the Lisson is not directly related to fashion. “I am Sad Leyla” is an installation that features a performance of a traditional Turkish folk composition by Sertab Erener, one of Turkey’s most successful female singers, accompanied by an Ottoman orchestra.

The work mixes audio, film, sculpture and musical notation. Hussein says he is interested in picking apart the various cultural influences – Persian poetry, Greek orthodox chanting, central Asian motifs – at play in the work. A de-construction of his ethnic heritage? “That’s too obvious a word. I like the image of a piece of music as a body. And I am disembodying it. It is such a layered piece, you can detect 10 to 15 different cultural things going on.”

It is also a reminder that being Turkish “is a political, not a racial definition”, he says. “The piece comes from hundreds of years of migration, cross-breeding.”

Chalayan is more than familiar with the strife that ethnic cross-pollination can bring. He was born in Nicosia in Cyprus in 1970, moved to England with his parents, but returned in 1975, by which time the city had been divided in the wake of the previous year’s Turkish invasion of the island. “We only grew up with the smell of it,” he says of those clamorous events, “but it was very much in our lives.”

I ask if the Lisson installation refers back to some of those childhood memories. “They are innate,” he replies. “I was inspired by what I remember of Turkish culture back then – how everything was imbued with this institutional feel. It was to do with the Kemalist state, everything was geared towards this sense of nationalistic precision. There was something Soviet about it.”

He describes it as a “stripped-down show”, not overtly related to his fashion work, but not without its visual moments either: “It is almost as if each moment should be enjoyed like a piece of jewellery.” He leaps to another analogy: “It is a framing device, framing something that already exists. How you choose to frame something: that is what a lot of my work is about.”

London is both the perfect home from which to explore these issues, and the perfect venue for the show, he says. “Being here helps me dissect where I come from. It is like crossing to the other side of the road to see an amazing building.”

His adopted city also hosted Chalayan’s most important exhibition so far, last year’s expansive survey of his work at the Design Museum, which also toured to Tokyo and is currently on show at Istanbul Modern. He seems a little bit in love with the city that bestrides the Bosphorus (“it’s the best city”), and a little disenchanted with London (“it never seems to hang on to its own talent very strongly”).

I ask how he combines the worlds of art and fashion, and his rapid-fire response suggests it is a question that plays permanently on his mind. “Well, you have touse clothing. So something can be conceptual, or narrative, or visually charged, but it also has to be an item that you can use. But right from college, I didn’t just want to do nice tops. I wanted to work in a more monumental way.”

But the imperative to sell consistently surely made fashion a more challenging environment?

“The business side of fashion is super-difficult,” he confesses. “You have to rely on the loyalty of buyers. If you don’t sell one season, the next one is difficult. And the worst part of it is that fashion’s existence is based on the seasonal calendar, which is absolutely absurd.”

For someone like him, who loves to experiment with fabric technology (he is currently creative director of the sport and leisurewear company Puma), “you can’t keep coming up with entirely new things twice a year. There are techniques that you will use for a few years. If you want to take techniques further, you just can’t jump around that fast.

“I think our lives are a lot harder than [those of] artists. We have to constantly produce, we have financial restraints, we have to fund the production. It’s really tough.” Chalayan has already had to liquidate his company voluntarily once, when he split from a previous partner. “If you are asking me if I get a return, culturally speaking, the answer is ‘yes’, but as a business we are relatively small. It depends what you want from life.”

He is, in any case, perfectly happy with the blend of his activities. “I must be the only person who can sell a film to a collector, and then put the money into a new [fashion] collection” – both of which have brought him acclaim. He was British Designer of the Year in 1999 and 2000, and represented Turkey in the Venice Biennale of 2005. He attributes his cross-disciplinary approach to his education in London. “Central St Martin’s was a proper art institution, fashion just happened to be one of its departments. It was a fantastic place in which to understand the body in a cultural context. We were like body artists, but we also had to learn how to make our clothes sell. It’s like someone who wants to be a film-maker but has to go into advertising to survive.”

Of the worlds of art and fashion, he says they are “as cliquey as each other. I used to put the art world on a pedestal, but it is so market and money-driven now. You meet more interesting people in the art world, because fashion people tend not to question the world around them that much. But they are as power-driven.”

There is a rare pause as he considers his upcoming exhibition. “You know as far as my fashion business goes, if it can just run itself I am happy. But I do just love doing these projects.”

‘I Am Sad Leyla’ by Hussein Chalayan is at Lisson Gallery, London, September 8 – October 2. www.lissongallery.com

, August 27 2010

August 28, 2010