Traditional Turkish rugs can cover anywhere, including the glass ceiling. Beautiful rug patterns, although initially handwoven by Turkish women to convey thoughts, dreams and desires; carry outdated hidden meanings. While artisan women were confined to the domestic space, traditional rug patterns couldn’t deliver themes other than marriage or giving birth.

But women’s fight for equality is changing the pattern. It’s time for outdated rug patterns to change accordingly and tell new stories.

As Cache İstanbul, we bring the hidden treasure of a geography decorated with Ottoman/Seljuk architecture, which we pass by every day and perhaps we aren’t even aware of. It’s the unique handicrafts of artisan Anatolian women that reveal this hidden treasure. Handwoven carpet and rugs represent one of the oldest traditions of Anatolia; produced solely by women’s imagination and labour. Colorful rug patterns may seem random at first glance but they have many meanings. Each represent aspects of the weaver’s life, her hopes and dreams. But these symbols reflect “stereotypical thoughts” on women, just like the society has been doing for centuries; confining them to the domestic space. In order to change these oldfashioned patterns and point the “true” place of women in society,we found hidden rug patterns representing the male-dominated ideas and transformed them into new meanings. Almost inventing a new language, we crafted a brand new rug design.

Changing this culture through a traditional art is a big challenge. Anatolian rugs are widely embraced, mass produced and sold throughout the world. Throughout centuries, Turkish women were defined solely as “mothers” and “wives” by male-dominated society. Rug patterns naturally reflect the same idea. Declaring the rug tradition with deep roots as “outdated” triggered a vast conversation about conservation.

Traditionally, many motifs in handwoven Anatolian rugs have meanings like giving birth, marriage, a husband and raising children. But women’s dreams and their role in society is beyond these patterns. It was time for these archaic thoughts to change. Therefore, we decided to make Anatolian traditional weaving culture able to narrate women’s lives and their success.

In our country, some traditions are passed down from generation to generation without ever being questioned. Anatolian rug and carpet weaving is one of these traditions. But unfortunately, many of the patterns in the rugs weave confine women's place and presence in society to certain stereotypes. Based on this fact, we have designed our strategy as adapting our traditional values to today's modern society without disrupting them. We wanted to raise awareness about stereotypical gender taboos. That's why we targeted everyone, regardless of demographic definitions.

First we analyzed existing symbols. Then we reassembled the shapes and transformed their forms. We gave the new symbols brand new meanings. The chest motif, which means “marriage” became the “compass” to represent women’s independence. Fertility symbol “hands on hips” turned into the symbol of success. In short, we created many new symbols to represent modern life for women; leadership, education and equality. With these symbols we created new rugs. We stated the fact that women’s dreams go far beyond marriage and raising children. As a result, new rugs will be part of a much deeper new tradition, and beyond that; a more inclusive future. We created key visuals and a case video to introduce our project to more people.

We found patriarchal symbols hidden in the rugs and gave new meanings to each of them with the small changes we made. With new rug designs bearing meanings such as "Leadership, success, equality, education, creativity, independence", we expressed that women's dreams are much more than getting married and raising children. With organic appearances in leading sectoral publishers and content creators, the campaign went far beyond the boundaries of its small scale. The rugs were quickly sold out. Site traffic increased 260 percent. The brand received 9 times new followers. The campaign immediately started the conversation on outdated traditions. People embraced the new meanings and considered the patterns as a brand new representation of contemporary culture.