“The machine has no meaning when there is no hand workmanship. In our sector, when you reflect the hand workmanship to the product, it gains value.”
Can you tell us a little bit about when Karalı Deri was founded?
Karalı leather was founded in 1989. We started our journey as a family company in a workshop in the Süleymaniye neighborhood of Istanbul, Türkiye. Our family company produced belts in the first years and then continued with a wholesale store in Istanbul’s Tahtakale neighborhood in 1995.
We continue to sell both in the production and wholesale section with our manufacturing process since then.
Together with Ömer Karalı and my brother Osman Karalı, we are trying to fulfill this craft that we took over from our father in the best and worthy way. We provide added value in our sector by internationalizing our brands.
Can you tell us a little about your products?
In our leather goods sector product group, such as bags and belts, our main starting point started as the production of belts in two different categories, genuine leather and vegan. Later, wallets were added to our product collections. Women’s wallets were added to our manufacturing process, which first started as men’s wallets. As the products in our showroom, we usually work with stocked products. In our product group, we have wholesale and retail sales as unisex, women, men, vegan and genuine leather bags, belts, wallets, laptop bags, card holders and accessories. We provide services to corporate companies both abroad and in Türkiye. You can reach our online retail sales from our website www.karalideri.com or you can contact us via WhatsApp. We also have both vegan and genuine leather contract manufacturing in our workshop.
Can you tell us about the importance of the need for leather wallets and leather bags with the development of technological products today?
For the technological products of our age, first of all, cases and bags become mandatory to protect or preserve accessories, of course, as a manufacturer company, we closely follow the technology.
As our first product group, the belt is an accessory that people need and use. It is a fashion icon, so to speak, both to hold the pants and to use it as an accessory, it is a necessity as a result.
In the same way, products such as wallets, laptop bags, backpacks are both fashion icons that are compatible with the clothing style as accessories and also as a need, making life easier in daily use. In fact, products are products that are needed more than accessories.
Sustainability is becoming more and more important today. What are your thoughts on genuine leather and vegan?
There is as much need for vegan products as there is for genuine leather. Genuine leather is already a sustainable material in terms of its natural and texture, both in terms of health and the transformation of the waste material of the meat industry into a usable product is part of the circular eco system. In addition, in terms of sustainability, genuine leather is a material that has a longer life span and can breathe thanks to its fibers, and thanks to its flexibility, better product design can be applied. But on the other hand, there are sustainable vegan materials around the world whose waste, such as plastic, can be recycled with environmentally friendly chemical mixtures and reused. For example, we have customers who buy vegan products. We also make vegan products, so we respond to the demands of the needs in the balance of supply and demand.
We actually buy leather from Türkiye in line with the customer’s request. If our customers abroad have special demands, we use different foreign leathers. Apart from that, one hundred percent of our products, that is, from the beginning to the end of this business, the leather, the manufacturing process is completely domestic production until the last accessories. We attach importance to local accessories, local production and products.
Do you use exotic leathers in your products?
We don’t use exotic products in the store, but we take orders according to customer demands. We make a small preparation in the season and offer it to customers. But in the products we sell mainly wholesale, we usually use different types of leather in our manufacturing process.
Can you tell us about the market for leather goods?
There is currently an economic recession in the world in the need for wallets and bags, so this situation actually affects our sector directly. The reason is that when people experience an economic crisis, the first place they usually cut is accessories. In other words, they cannot cut back on their clothing or food shopping or household expenses.
In our sector, since the accessory part is actually a little more arbitrary product, our sector is more affected in that direction. Our current expectations are that the markets will open in a balanced way, but I hope there will be a sectoral change and transformation.
Do you participate in International Fairs?
Yes, we have Italy fair that we are currently preparing abroad. We participate in fairs in Italy and Germany, the capital not only of fashion but also of leather. We are focusing more on Europe at the moment. We are also participating in the fair in Dubai. We did not go to Russia, but we already have Russian customers.
In Germany, a fair is organized directly for our sector. In fact, most of the fairs around the world are based on footwear. Only in Germany and Italy, fairs are organized specially for leather goods.
You have established your own academy in your family company with your staff trained in your workshop, what would you like to add and what are your thoughts?
Today’s staff shortage is well known, unfortunately, there are no craftsmen left in Türkiye at the moment. In other words, a generation that wants to deal with handicraft is not growing. It is like a prejudice, but since they are university graduates, they generally do not want to work in such jobs. They don’t want to enter the workshop part, the factory part very much. It has become very difficult to train a master. Since we consider the employees working in our system from our own family, all of our employees have been working for more than twenty years. In other words, most of the people who come to us and work with us entered at a young age and are now forty-five years old, fifty years old and we still have employees. But unfortunately, there is no young generation in Türkiye and in the world that wants to do handicrafts.
Even in some sectors, such as the production of gold and silver rings, for example, there are no masters left. Unfortunately, our leather industry has gradually come to the point of ending.
There is actually a leather craft school opened by IDMIB, but the students there are just trying to grow up.
In other words, I evaluate the students who grow up there in terms of demand or the qualified part of the students who grow up there as follows. There may be some prejudice again, but the young student who grows up there actually grows up to do more modeling. Unfortunately, he does not want to work in a workshop again. Because the new generation wants to work in easy jobs because production work is a job that requires manual labor and requires labor. They want to be trained not to work in a workshop or a factory, but to work as a high-level modelist. It sounds a bit like a complaint, but unfortunately. The machine has no meaning when there is no hand workmanship. In our sector, when you reflect the hand workmanship to the product, it gains a value.
So what would you like to say to young people, people who are dedicated to this sector, people who have grown up in this sector?
I mean, my age is young, of course there are people with more experience than me. As two brothers, we took over this business from our father, we spent our apprenticeship in our workshop. I would prefer the younger generations to study a department where they can get a profession instead of studying business administration or international trade at a university. So what is this, an engineering department or a department where you can do handicrafts. I mean, there is fashion design in Türkiye, but fashion design, as I said, is a department based only on a drawing. So nobody wants to use it in real life, they don’t want to try it, they don’t want to go to a factory and work. Everyone has high goals. What would be my advice? At least in an atelier or a factory, I would like people, the new generation, to go through a process here for five to ten years, to be trained and to see the real world. In other words, I would like them to grow from the core there. Because the university part is a bit knowledge-based. So we actually see real life in these workshops.
Well, thank you for your interest in Magazine Leather Publishing.
Thank you, I wish you good publications.
Caption: Karalı Deri second generation Left foremost Mr. Osman Karalı in the middle Magzine Leather Editor-in-Chief Right foremost Mr. Ömer Karalı with Istanbul İstoç third headquarters offices.
