Postcards from Biarritz

A Quest for Home: Biarritz

For a long time, I thought Biarritz had become another place I could call home.

But looking back, I realise something much more meaningful had happened.

It was that my understanding of home had quietly changed.

Home was no longer somewhere I had to return to. It was something I could take with me.

Wherever I went, home began to follow.

And the curious thing is, it took me years to understand that.

Perhaps that is why the peştamal stayed with me. Without knowing it, I had carried a little piece of home across the Atlantic. And somewhere along the way, that ordinary piece of cotton became the beginning of a much bigger story.

The story of Garaia.

My studies brought me to France, along with a few things I had packed from home. What I didn't know then was that I was about to discover a version of myself I had never really experienced back in Istanbul.

Surfing, spending more time in nature, living a much slower life. Days shaped by the tides rather than schedules. Somewhere along the Atlantic coast, I began to feel more like myself, even though I was further away from everything familiar.

Among the few things I had brought with me was a peştamal. Something so ordinary back home that I had never given it much thought. Yet there it was, on a beach in Biarritz, making an unfamiliar place feel strangely familiar.

For a long time, I thought Biarritz had become another place I could call home. But years later, I realised that wasn't quite what had happened.

It wasn't that I had found another home. It was that my understanding of home had changed.

Wherever I went, home began to follow.

That little piece of cotton eventually led me to research traditional Turkish textiles and cultural heritage, to meet artisans, to become curious about the stories objects carry, and ultimately, to create Garaia.

Writing and Photography by Alpin Erkanat.

PEŞTAMAL 02

2,650TL

PEŞTAMAL 01

2,650TL