After double face, fur trim and tweeny skirts . . .
For seven years, double-face leather garment sales in Turkey have been breaking records and enjoying an extended vogue. So much so that most producers are loathe to admit that, one day, something might ruffle the back of this ‘golden fleece’ of fashion.
But Russians buyers, who generate the biggest demand for double-face garments, are providing the stimulus for the next market upswing. As elsewhere, demand for fur from Russia is re-inventing trade and retail patterns.
Turkish-based producers like Tanatar have long garnered the shearling market
and Istanbul-based Harmanli were pioneers in transforming sheep’s wool dreadlocks into silky wool fibres dyed to colour-coordinate with fashion leather garments. But all Turkish leather producers are now into the fur-trim phenomenum - on cuffs, hems, on necklines and for linings.
Turkish producers know sheepskin best of all and use some fox and mink trims but their familiarity with other types of fur is still limited. Chemical
companies are also tapping the potential of fur treatments and refining dyeing specifications.
On a fanciful whim, one Istanbul-based producer recently popped some short and furry ‘tweeny’ skirts in his display window. These were snapped up by a leather retailer from Turkey’s Mediterranean city of Antalya, where, reportedly, Russian women happily parted with $750 for them.
