Last month, a group of AMFI teachers and more than 50 second-year Fashion & Design students paid a visit to Instanbul. The purpose of the trip was to inform the students about garment production in this city, and to give them inspiration for the design assignments in their own programme.

Two production companies were on the AMFI itinerary: Hey Tekstil and Vakko.  Student Mirna Everhard on Hey Tekstil: “They can cut 70,000 pattern parts a day, 20,000 of them by hand. Every pattern part gets a number, so that they know which parts belongs together.” Another visit was to Umit Unal’s shop, to see the Turkish fashion designer’s latest collection. Other inspirational visits were made to the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace and the Istanbul Modern art museum. Noëlle van Ruiten on an artwork by Pae White Smoke at the Istanbul Modern: “At first sight it looks like a photograph, but it’s two by three metres and is actually made of woven material.”

There was time, too, for the students to explore on their own. Student Shanita de Vries: ‘The antiques bazaar was especially inspiring, with all kinds of rubbish  mixed up with really valuable things. Everything was hundreds of years old. At the spices bazaar we just followed our noses – the smells were overpowering.” Some students went to the Asian part of the city to visit the large, very modern Şakirin Mosque; others went to the luxury shopping mall Canyon, or to one of the neighbourhoods full of little secondhand shops around Çukurcuma Cadessi.

Text by Ineke Vijn (teacher Fashion & Design department)