Word: istanbul
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Hussein Chalayan, a Londoner of Turkish-Cypriot descent with strong cultural ties to Istanbul, often finds assumptions about the city to be wide of the mark. "It's the New York not only of Turkey but of the region," he says. "Being next to water is liberating and makes it liberal?gay and lesbian scene and all. It's a cultural soup where one minute you could feel like you are in Paris, the next Cairo, then Moscow...
Originally from the capital city of Ankara, Kocabiyikoglu and her boyfriend had been living in London but chose to return to Turkey because, she says, "I felt it was pointless to be Turkish if I was going to miss out on Istanbul again becoming a city of the world. Many things are beginning here, whereas in London it is all very developed." Her dream is to open a fashion boutique with her sister Basak, who is currently an assistant buyer at the London specialty store Browns...
...Istanbul is definitely undersold," says Ozlem Onal, 37, whose family business is hotels and who has worked as the night manager at the Mercer in New York City. "American bankers are coming here. They see all the ingredients: the clubs are full every night, we have a lot of stamina, we're anxious to pack in the world of fashion, technology, entertainment, movies. First-time visitors can't imagine how European we are, although I go to Asia every day. My gym is in Asia, so I take the boat...
...hearing he was moving "to a Third World country. But there's been a huge surge forward in terms of modernization. People who never had a landline telephone have gone straight to cell phones; their first TVs are plasma screens. Things here are changing very fast and Istanbul is the locomotive pulling the rest of Turkey forward." (Turkey is also in long-term negotiations to join the European Union...
There's energy in the arts too. The elegant Oya Eczacibasi (a member of one of the premier industrial families, equivalent to New York's Rockefellers in the 19th century) is the chairwoman of Istanbul Modern, which opened in 2004. Eczacibasi, who campaigned tirelessly for a museum of modern art, says it's important to emphasize that culture here did not stop at manuscripts and carpets. "We were very proud of our Ottoman past. Now we can be proud of our present and our future," she says...