Kamil Pasha

My hairdresser in Nisantasi is right behind the Tesvikiye Mosque, a neo-baroque edifice with tall white columns completed in 1854. The mosque yard is the only oasis of serenity in the entire district, which bustles with well-heeled shoppers and is threaded through with bumper-to-bumper traffic. When Kamil’s sister Feride lived there in the 1880s, Nisantasi (Nishantashou in the novels) would have been a quiet suburb of Istanbul with villas like Feride’s set in gardens along the boulevards. Now seven-story apartments line the roads like cliff faces, their ground floors housing shops and the upper floors expensive apartments or more shops. There are several grade schools in the area and, when I left the hairdresser, the streets echoed with the ruckus of uniformed children on their way home. Slender women with expensive, gorgeous flowing hair wearing chic designer clothes teetered across the uneven sidewalks on high-heeled shoes. (It takes a special talent; I wore flats and still twisted my ankle.) Men in chic suits and Miami Vice stubble lunched at outdoor restaurants with women in large sunglasses.

Nisantasi is like a Russian doll. Behind the boulevards with their Prada and Versace stores are nested minor streets crammed with purse and shoe shops, small boutiques, eateries. Running like tunnels through the buildings and connecting the streets are passages that contain even smaller shops. And inside the buildings themselves are warrens of shops no bigger than rooms, supplying the other shops. For instance, one sold only ribbon, another only wrapping paper.

The Hak Pasaji, leading between Tesvikiye Caddesi and a back street, is a haven for increasingly hard-to-find, old-fashioned Turkish style and craftsmanship. Its shops cater to refined or eclectic tastes, rather than fashion. There you will find two of the last traditional Turkish slipper makers, selling well-made conservative styles, or slippers of brocade or silk with exquisite stitching, or brightly colored suede mules decorated with felt flowers. There are also silver shops, eclectic jewelry, a tiny but excellent purse shop, and a shop specializing in toy soldiers and historic documents. The shops in the passage are expensive, like all the others . Nothing is cheap in Istanbul these days (especially for Americans), but it’s a pleasure to still find workmanship and style. Every year, there is less of it. The Turks are buying Chinese too.

Tags: Culture, Fiction, Istanbul //