SILK IN BURSA, CARPET IN HEREKE

Sericulture has a thousand-and-a-half-year history in the Anatolian territory.
 Those who write the adventure of cocoon in Anatolia must start their story in Bursa. 
This is the place where the egg turns into cocoon and cocoon to silk.

In 1860, there was only 37 silk reeling factories in Bursa. In the same year, over 5000 silk weaving counters operated.
 In 1888, the Bursa Silkworm Research Institute was established to produce silkworm seeds in the modern sense.

In this sense, Bursa is the place where cocoon is born, developed into silk, but Hereke is the place where it has turned into color, texture, and carpet…

The carpet story of Hereke begins with the factory called “Fabrika-i Humayun” which was established in 1843 to meet the silk upholstery, drapery and fez needs of the Ottoman palaces. A carpet section was incorporated with Fabrika-i Hümayün in a period when Ottomans started to take a step towards Westernization in Abdülhamit period, which was 40 years later.

From that day to today despite the decline every year; according to the latest research, as of 2017, silk carpet weaving is still being carried out on approximately 15.000 looms in more than 300 villages in across Turkey. The number of the family business where silk carpet weaving is done is about 20.000 and when we take the additional production activities such as silk reeling, spinning, and painting, the number of employees, working the carpet business is over 100.000.

We contribute to maintaining traditional hand-made silk carpet industry by continuing the silk painting business without any profit-making purpose.  We still operate with our artisans and their traditional methods and raw materials in this journey that was started by our founder in 1960’s.   Our artisans put so much effort and labor into each knot of thousands of silk carpets woven with hand workmanship in villages.

As Batmaz Tekstil family, we take pride in ourselves to be a part of the effort to protect one of the most important handicrafts of Turkish culture while trying to pioneer the future in Textile industry.