"Blue is the colour Iznik is the name"
In the early 90's I was travelling to Turkey quite often whether it was Istanbul to make contact and review 'bedding mills' - cotton sheets and duvets or Adana near to the Syrian border for furnishing fabrics or denim cloth.
I did the tourist bit on the 'free' days and remembering visiting an exhibition in central Istanbul that was dedicated to Iznic pottery that were the wonders of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries, Iznik being about 100miles north east of Istanbul.
The thing that struck me at the time and is forever present in my mind particularly when the press highlight the rationale of whether it would be right or not to return the Elgin Marbles is that virtually every example of Iznik pottery in this exhibition was on loan from museums around the world and particularly those In the UK !!
The Turks were developing pure green cotton in vast areas between the Euphrates and the Tigres rivers on the most fertile irrIgated land with no need for all the pesticides and unnecessary fertilisers.
The plot was that the cotton bales were then to be transported by truck to Europe they being fitted with the most advanced catalytic converters to their exhaust systems. We were working with Nova Cotton in Denmark where the cotton was then dyed and then exhaustively washed through a series of cleaning treatments in 'baths' the length of olympic swimming pools.
My business partner at the time Jeff Banks then introduced a clothing range of green/ethical garments under the brand Good Goods to Tesco to enable them for a publicity stand point to show that they were aware of developing trends and shifts in the consumers' thinking.
Interestingly some 20 years later Katherine Hamnett introduced a line with Tesco with a similar approach.
The problem way back in the 90's was that the 'green cotton' element created a 30% price premium to the norm and flew in the face of the supermarkets general mantra of being value you for money and cheap!
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