Made in Istanbul

In the UK we find that designers and brands are forever complaining that because they can’t find larger scale manufacturing here, particularly in fashion, their only economical option is to manufacture overseas. 

Turkey, on the other hand, is well known for being the garment manufacturers of Europe – so surely, with all these enormous factories and a skilled workforce around you’d expect Istanbul’s designers and makers to be set when it comes to manufacturing in and around their own city?

This month I got the chance to visit Atolye, an incredible creative coworking space, (complete with a workshop) in Sisli, Istanbul, to give a talk and workshop as part of the British Council Maker Libraries project. 

The space, built within a 1902 brewery has an impressive set up. Created by Atolye Labs, a transdisciplinary design, technology and innovation studio who have taken inspiration from the array of co-working and makerspaces they have seen around the world, and are making them work for Istanbul. Giving the space time to build, with careful attention to detail has worked. From the meticulously well thought-through furniture, casually co-ordinated tea breaks, and a sense of regular member events, this is a place you’d want to work in.

When we asked designers working there to tell us what manufacturing looked like in Istanbul, we heard many similarities to Scotland. There were the typical frustrations: “Manufacturer websites are terrible!”, “They don’t phone me back!”, “You need to spend ages convincing them to work with you.” The reality of finding a local maker became clear that unless you’re coming from one of Europe’s large retail chains it can be pretty tricky to get taken seriously by some of Turkey’s larger manufacturers.  

But the difference with Turkey, is that small scale manufacturing, though not what it once was, is still thriving by comparison to the UK. Tailors, cobblers, furniture makers, blacksmiths, glassblowers, ceramicists and material suppliers are so easily found in Turkey that in fact, workshops and makerspaces have sometimes struggled to convince their local communities to DIY. “Why would you make something yourself, when there is always somebody that will make it for you?” 

The problem here is not “where are the manufacturers?” or “do we have any manufacturers left?”, but “which ones are best to use?”, “which ones will work with people (designers) like me?” Istanbul is possibly one of the best places to prototype in Europe, especially when it comes to more traditional processes like glass, textiles and ceramics. The challenge lies in finding the detail - which fabricators are reliable and who is willing to experiment. 

But it can be done.

At Atolye, all of the furniture used in the space was made in Istanbul. From the powdercoated black metal frames to the simple, well-executed wooden desks. 

Atolye’s Maker Librarian, Nur Saltik, is also a designer, and after finishing at the RCA in London she continues to have small runs of her work made, working with glassblowers in Istanbul. Yes, she painstakingly found him by word of mouth (and he still hasn’t got a website), but he does Whatsapp photographs of work in progress as she shows her pieces at design festivals around the world. 

 The team at Atolye came up with hundreds of ideas to better bring together the creative community and manufacturers in Istanbul … from giant billboards to walking tours around industrial areas. In the few days that I spent with Atolye, I was certainly convinced that there’s a lot of opportunity to connect with the manufacturing base in Istanbul to make local manufacturing easier and I look forward to seeing how Nur and her team work to develop this.