Heritage, Connection, and the Story Behind The Bow Jewelry
Having been born to Turkish parents who immigrated to Canada in the early 70's, I grew up in a nuclear family of four who would visit our very large extended family in Turkiye every summer as a child.
I was born in Canada and grew up as an 80's child when Toys R Us and Radio Shack were at their prime. Music was becoming edgier, and many of the artists who would become icons were rising. Every technological advancement was considered exciting (like microwave ovens and home computers). We were the kids of PAC-Man, Cabbage Patch Dolls and screeching internet connection sounds. My world in Canada was one that was evolving fast, technology and newness was the trend.
Summers in Turkiye were very different. As soon as we arrived, we would head straight to our grandparents' house where the entire family would be waiting for us. Like many houses in Turkiye, my grandparents lived in an apartment where doors were left open and neighbours would come in and out throughout the day. Our arrival was like a parade of sorts, going from a nuclear family 9 months of the year to spending 3 months of summer surrounded by my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents was quite exciting and magical.
During those summers, I would watch women sit outside in gazebos knitting, embroidering and taking out wool from hand-stuffed pillows and comforters to let them sit in the sun before they restuffed them for the next winter. Water did not flow all day from faucets and when it was on it was a family event to load buckets all over the house with water for the next time it got cut off.
In the morning there would be someone, usually a teenager, that would walk around the neighbourhood with a tray of Turkish versions of a bagel called simit stacked on a tray he held on his head, yelling in a call "SIMITCI", then people would call from their windows how many they wanted. Either a child from the household would be sent down to pick up the simit or they would send money down with a basket connected to a rope and the young boy would take the money and put the simit into the basket to be pulled back up. This form of exchange via basket was the norm, and actually still is.
The same familiar merchant faces would come around every week with fruits and vegetables they harvested in their own fields often on donkey- or horse-pulled wagons with the vegetables open in the back. Milk would be brought to the door, I remember he carried this giant canister on his back filled from his own freshly milked cows that morning. Eggs were the same way. I still remember the faces of many of the merchants from those days. Every transaction had a connection, it was beautiful and I never realized how much these moments had impacted my own business choices until later.
If I had not lived in both worlds, I might have thought this was simply how life is everywhere. But by going back and forth, I could clearly see and feel the difference.
This is the duality of The Bow Jewelry. The pieces are forward thinking and innovative, pushing the boundaries of what jewelry is, but the creation process is slow where each person involved has a name, a story and a connection to each other.
When The Bow Jewelry began in 2017, I was wax carving every design by hand and bringing them to a local, family-run casting company here in Montreal, to be transformed into brass or silver depending on the piece. To this day, I still work with that same family-run casting company and hand carve each design. I buy most of my gemstones from a local gem shop owned by a husband-and-wife duo. The larger bronze pieces (ex. torn bustier) are cast at a family-run sculpture foundry a few hours outside of Montreal. Some of the setting and laser soldering is done by another husband-and-wife metalsmithing shop. These are people I have known for years, a web of connection woven into each piece. Each step of the process carries a name, a face, and an energy of friendship and camaraderie that becomes part of the story of the work.
That intimate connection is then passed on to the wearer. Over the years, this has meant emails and DMs exchanged, photos sent of you adorned in the pieces, meetings over coffee, and even welcoming people who flew in from outside of Canada to be part of the creative process for their special-day commissions.
When you enter the world of The Bow Jewelry, you step into something I have never considered mine alone, nor the wearer a customer, but part of a shared story, a community, and a journey. It is the wearer who completes the piece and gives it life. To me, the entire process is a beautiful story where we are all an integral part, and I am just the writer of the first chapter.
This is really the story I wanted to share, prompted by my 12-year-old son asking me to tell him a story about my childhood and remembering those days in Turkiye. Although we look ahead to innovate and create newness, we can still stay grounded in community, connection, and the threads that bind us to one another. My hope is that each piece carries this energy, from me and my allies in the crafting process, to you.