Westerners snatch up Turkish peştemals

DENİZLİ - Anatolia News Agency

Finalists at the 2011 Best Model of the World beauty contest pose in peştemals. Hürriyet photo

Turkey generates some $3 million each year from the sale of traditional bath towels, known as peştemal, mainly to the United States, Canada, Italy and Spain, according to the head of the local chamber of commerce in Buldan in the western province of Denizli.

Peştamal is a thin towel used in traditional Turkish baths, or hamams.There are handlooms in almost all the homes in Buldan, a historic center of peştemal and other textile products production since the Ottoman period, said the chamber head Halil Baştürkmen. However, today’s peştemals have been redesigned to meet modern society’s needs, he told Anatolia news agency.

The 100 percent-cotton product is famous for quickly soaking up water. However, the sector needs professional marketing support to reach further markets, Baştürkmen said.

“We are lucky that we are closer to the European market when compared with rival countries such as Pakistan and China. In addition, the quality of our products is higher. We design new products with innovation,” Baştürkmen said. The bathroom is not the sole address for peştemals as the towel has also become a trendy beach accessory.