Hand-loomed, Organic Cotton Turkish Towels: Behind the Scenes

One of the most common requests I hear is for photos of our artisans weaving our Organic Cotton Turkish Towels (also known as pestemal - the Turkish word for traditional Turkish Towels). Each and every one of our pestemal is hand-loomed on traditional, shuttle-style looms by artisans who's families have been weaving for generations. Hand-looming is a dying art in Turkey, and part of our core business mission to preserve this incredible tradition while offering our customers incredibly well-made, beautiful textiles they can feel good about buying (and giving!).

Setting up each color on the loom is time and labor intensive. As additional colors are used in a Turkish Towel, the more complex and labor-intensive the weaving process becomes. The material is woven in long lengths, as shown below, with lengths of threads between each pestemal. These rolls of material are then cut and the threads at the end of each pestemal are hand-twisted (or tied, depending on the pestemal style) to create the pestemals' distinctive fringe.