One thing that has been on my mind because everybody has been asking me about that, is to write about the kind of clothes Turkish people wear. Especially the women, of course. There have been too many silly jokes about the burqa etc.
From what I have seen, not only the clothes, but also the mood, the religiosity, the atmosphere change from place to place. Many people don´t realize that Turkey is a huge country and that brings big differences, too. I may just talk about the places I have been to, which actually is not much so far. I might mention places that some Turkish people told me about or that I read about (because I have basically become a collector of everything Turkish in my own country).
Let´s start with the most popular one: the veil or the headscarf.
I would say that a half of Turkish women wear it and a half don´t. That could be the case of Istanbul which is soon twice bigger (talking about the number of inhabitants) than my country. What happens there is something typical for all big cities: people from all over Turkey come there to look for better life, often from villages in the east and other parts of Turkey. Because it seems to me that the east of Turkey is considered to be quite different from the rest of the country, the people´s traditions tend to be stronger and their minds closer than the others´ ones. My guess is that especially because of these people Istanbul´s inhabitants might become more orthodox, which brings the headscarf.
I have the impression that in Eskişehir, which is said to be the city with the biggest percentage of university educated people in Turkey and you can actually feel that just walking around, majority of women don´t wear any headscarf. In fact, I found myself slightly surprised every time I saw a woman wearing it, especially if it was a young girl my age.
I saw a lot of scarfed women in Bursa and I imagine there must be almost 100% of them in Konya.
What matters, is to explain you how such a "Turkish headscarf" looks like and what kinds of them you can see. It is quite simple, they tend to cover their hair and look kinda like our grandmothers from the country (although some of the women are highly chic!). Some more orthodox ones prefer to wear a long coat (something like our "baloňák") that hides everything (I could see that in Istanbul in the summer).
Now, there are no burqas in Turkey and the Turkish won´t really laugh with you when you joke about it (together with the jokes about four wives, camels and the name of their present sultan). It appears to me they rather hate it as a stupid thing of the Arabs. When you see a burqa in Turkey, it is more than probable that the woman is Arab.
The clothes in general differs again. In some cities you should be careful mainly in summer what you wear and how much of your flesh is shown. I actually got quite fed up with that in Istanbul and Ankara. You should watch your cleavage and it´s good if your skirt or shorts reach your knees. But then you come to Eskişehir, go out with your new long skirt and feel like the biggest village idiot that is completely out. And oh, dear Mersin! I could walk in biquini on the street and nobody would care (I didn´t stay in the tourist part).
One chapture that called my attention mostly in November, was the clothes of Eskişehir´s nights. Oh boy, the girls were as glamorously dressed at least as the clubbing Portuguese and moreover, they looked more daring than Czech girls! I was looking at them, fascinated, not feeling so comfortable in my jeans, telling Ahmet that nobody would believe me that was Turkey if they saw it. Still, there was this interesting detail: a lot of legs around but no showing breasts. You neither can see, as it is so often here and it gets quite annoying, somebody´s ass looking at you from their trousers.
After this, I noticed some girls in there in fact dress in a similar way also during the day. And noone cares, the guys don´t bother them, simply everybody´s cool with it. Maybe that is one of the reasons why Erman said that if Turkey doesn´t join the EU, at least Eskişehir should (I loved it).
Hum, I think this is quite enough about the Turkish clothes, but if you have any questions, ask me. I just hope my Turkish friends and boyfriend won´t say this is a complete bullshit.
You have to come to İzmir :) It depends people Petra. People can wear anything they want and I am sure that mostly on the west side. People doesn't care so much what you are into. I'm generally agree what you are writing. Really good determinations. And you know people always speak about the countries but you should come, see and experience it. And the breast thing, you should investigate more :D
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