There are two ways to walk through the Grand Bazaar. The first is the way most people walk: along the wide, sun-bright spines, where the rugs are stacked taller than you are and every shopkeeper says hello in three languages. The second way is sideways. You turn into a small tiled corridor that you would otherwise miss, follow it for thirty paces, and arrive somewhere quieter.
It is in the second kind of place that I find the silks for Penah. They are not on display. They are in folded stacks, behind other folded stacks, sometimes wrapped in tissue paper that has yellowed with the years. The shopkeeper, more often than not, does not know exactly what is at the bottom of the pile. We unpack it together, like reading a diary.
There is a particular feeling that arrives when the right fabric reveals itself — a small physical jolt, almost embarrassing. The silk for Zerâfet was found this way, on a day I had given up and was only walking back to the kettle. It had been folded, untouched, since the 1970s.
“It is in the small, dim corner stalls — the ones you would otherwise miss — that the most interesting silks have always been kept.”