Which question do you get asked most frequently?
Your name? Your last name? Your birth date?
Up until 1992 those were the three questions for me…
However, after that date the most frequently asked questions changed.

Wherever I may be, at a panel, a conference, a convention, an interview, a gathering with friends, a plane trip, a dinner, wherever you may think of, every where, whenever someone finds out my relationship with “Silk & Cashmere”, after the brief meeting stage I am asked the same question with the same slight bafflement:

“How did you think of this concept?”

At first I would answer them in great detail; with stories from my past, the influence of my education and the impact of my work experience, in other words the pieces of the puzzle.  Finally I would illustrate the story that became our brand in a meaningful and chronological order...
But later I understood this was not what they expected.
They wanted a shorter, clearer answer.  And actually, that was the right thing to do.

“It takes a long time to make a story short” said one of our teachers from school.  And so now I have been trying to think for a long time of how to explain our story in short…

Since 1988 the desire to create a brand was somewhere within me…  Much more than the few brands of the time in Turkey, the globally successful brands attracted my attention.  The brands which spread around the world with a niche, creating a difference, designating what a certain group of customers desired and providing the right price and quality… This idea seemed very wise and prestigious to me, and for some reason it did not seem out of reach…

I believe that a good idea can be brought to life if it is well executed.  During the creation of our brand, I did not lose my passion in cashmere.  I found my self in Inner Mongolia, petting goats.  Of course, alongside me a very brave and precious small team who had faith in our project.
This is how Silk & Cashmere was born.  10/10/1992 at 10:10 AM...

How we have come to these days could be summarized like this:
By providing the highest quality raw materials available in our sector, by creating a global yet original collection, by staying loyal to our brand concept, by maintaining the cashmere quality and customer service and by having the luxury to be selective.
We believed in expertise.
We were focused.  We aimed to be the best at what we were doing.  Instead of short term calculations, it was the long term dream of becoming an established brand which excited my team and I…
When a job is done right and well, when you form a bond with the people and when you always reach for the better with determination and genuineness, you definitely become successful. 
In our own sector, we are a brand-new, well-known brand; for in the cashmere sector the brand created just before us has a 50 year-old past…
Silk & Cashmere was mentioned as “the cashmere company beginning to conquer the world” in the International Herald Tribune. 
Up to this date we have been studied and written about in 6 books.  We have been granted 12 awards for entrepreneurship and brand creating.  In universities we are frequently the focus of many PhD’s. The University of Istanbul included us in their academic program as a case study.
We are honored much more by these accomplishments than commercial success.  As a matter of fact, we believe that for continuous commercial success, these accomplishments are needed.
As the brand expert, Fianna Gilmore, whom I very much respect said:
“While normal companies try to beat their competitors and want to get a bigger share and even conquer the market, the only thing that brand names want to conquer is the heart of the customers.”
“This view has definitely been proven in Silk & Cashmere’s past.
During our initial years in our Akmerkez shop, after hearing my name, an 80 year-old Istanbul gentleman leaned over to me while waiting for the camel colored pure cashmere shawl he bought for his wife to be wrapped and whispered:
“I don’t have to awkwardly ask people to bring back cashmere shawls for my wife from overseas anymore as from now on I am buying everything from you.  Where have you been all these years!”
The arduous difficulties of business, the tiredness brought upon me by the long trips to Inner Mongolia, our 24/7 effort to become a brand 365 days of the year had all been conciliated with that one phrase.
I was smiling as I left our store. Crying?  I’m not sure…
But I remember mumbling to myself: “Just for that phrase it was worth it...”
I really cannot help myself, we have stores around the world and of course we have sales and I am aware of that; yet even today at a fancy evening when I see an elegant woman or man wearing a Silk & Cashmere sweater, scarf or shawl I feel the same happiness I felt that first day and I want everyone to see and know.
We have a great advantage: nowhere in the world has there been such great interest in a brand placed abroad from the citizens of its own country. For example, Turks who see our Silk & Cashmere store in Barcelona go in every time and introduce themselves to our Spanish representative expressing their pride that our brand is Turkish; or Turks who visit St. Moritz for their ski vacation, who stop shopping to help gift wrapping when seeing how crowded the shop is.  Wherever we open a shop across the globe, the genuine praise we receive from Turks living there is something which I believe brands of other countries have not experienced…
To our valuable team who has given their heart and soul to Silk & Cashmere’s magical journey stretching from 1992 to today, to our customers who have supported and encouraged us and elevated us in our journey towards becoming a brand, to the media who have not published a single untruthful or negative comment I offer my sincere thanks…
Silk & Cashmere is going to be a century-long brand and no effort is going to be left unrewarded.  Of this I am absolutely certain…