Fashionable Turkey

When I was in Dallas at Thanksgiving, I got to do one of my favorite things, which is look at fashion magazines. While I'm not personally all that fashionable, I do enjoy the pretty pictures -- and the idea that one day I could be that fashionable. Well, maybe. Of course, there are a ton of Turkish fashion magazines, including the Turkish versions of InStyle, People Style Watch and Vogue, but I like my American versions (i.e., the ones I can read without constantly consulting my doorstop-size dictionary). Since the US versions are much too expensive here, they've become an extra-special treat when I go back to the US.

So I was leafing through Lucky and InStyle at home in Dallas, and I was suprised and amused to see multiple references to Turkey in the issues. Since Istanbul has always been both exotic and accessible, my guess is that this is actually nothing new -- rather, it's just something I notice now that I have a link to Turkey. (Before I came backpacking in Turkey, I had never met a Turkish person in my life -- and then when I was home on one visit, I was perusing the racks at Banana Republic, and the lady standing next to me was speaking in Turkish on the phone. I had to stop myself from talking to her -- because that would have been weird. But I really, really wanted to. But my point is, there was probably more Turkish around me than I ever knew, but since I didn't know anything about Turkey, I had never noticed anything about Turkey.)

Anyway...In the December 2012 issue of Lucky (the one featuring Britney Spears on the cover in that awful wig), there were actually two Turkish references. Two! On one page, there was an expensive evil-eye necklace, while on another, there was a half-page article by regular columnist Jean Godfrey-June on the amazingness of pestemals, the thin cotton hamam towels made in Turkey.

In the November 2012 issue of InStyle, there was a full-page article on Narciso Rodriguez's new collection for Kohl's, which drew from Istanbul for its inspiration. In the blurb, he's quoted as saying, "I wanted to merge the color of Istanbul with the graphic elements I use in my own collection to create something fresh." While I wasn't terrible keen on any of the items on the page, it was still nice to see Istanbul featured so prominently.