WOVEN POETRY FROM ANATOLIA WITH BEYZA ÖZLER

At Wild Heart Free Soul, you will find vintage kilims hand-woven by nomadic women in the Turkish mountains

Wild Heart Free Soul, a vibrant Turkish carpet store located on Kastanienallee in Mitte, offers a refreshing escape from the scorching summer heat that’s enveloped Berlin lately. Inside, it’s pleasantly cool and quiet, with warm colours that evoke the cosiness of an autumn afternoon. Throughout the space, you’ll encounter an array of Turkish kilims in rich hues of red, orange, green, ochre, and purple. These exquisite rugs are everywhere: they adorn the walls, cover the floors, rest beneath tables, and form messy piles in the corners. I remove my shoes and feel the soft wool beneath my feet. 

Beyza Özler, the owner, greets me with a broad smile and a warm hug, handing me a cup of coffee as we settle into comfortable chairs in the corner by the window. For the past decade, she has travelled across Turkey with a local partner, sourcing vintage kilims from trusted dealers, families, and collectors. Hand-woven by nomadic women in the Turkish mountains until the 1970s, these rugs undergo meticulous cleaning and repair before arriving in Berlin. The process is extensive: first, they are stored in Istanbul, then brought to Antalya to be washed and laid out on a “kilim field,” where they bask in the sun for three months, which acts as a disinfectant and natural stain remover. After this, the carpets return to Istanbul for further restoration before finally reaching their destination in Berlin. If the task sounds arduous, it’s because it is. But it’s all worth it for Beyza Özler, who has a clear goal: to celebrate and preserve the Anatolian kilim artistry and tell a story of cultural heritage.

Though this career wasn’t her initial plan, it quickly became an important part of finding her true identity. She was born in Stuttgart in the 1980s to Turkish guest workers, who “came to Germany to live more freely, away from the traditions and political climate they were used to,” she begins.

“That’s the setting I grew up with. I thought that Turkish culture was very limiting to women, and from that perspective, I didn’t want to be Turkish. I didn’t feel connected to my roots at all. It took me a long time to understand that there is so much more to the culture.”

Beyza’s parents owned eight fashion boutiques, so by the time she was 12 years old, she spent afternoons helping them at the stores, learning the ins and outs of business along the way. Set on following her own path in fashion, she studied textiles and then worked as a marketing and sales manager. Despite the lucrative salary and the opportunity to travel, the concept of fast fashion didn’t align with her values. “Seeing the production places in India, how harmful the textile industry is to nature and people, and the absolute waste of resources, I realised that that’s the opposite of what I want for myself,” she explains.

In 2010, Beyza became pregnant with her first daughter, and her priorities naturally shifted. Craving a slower, more meaningful life, it was the perfect time for her to pay attention to the doubts she’d been having about her career and take a break to refocus. “I realised that if I don’t learn anything about my Turkish roots now, I can’t pass [this knowledge] on to my daughter. Growing up in Germany, she can only have access to the culture if I give it to her. Otherwise, this chain will just stop with me.”

Beyza enrolled in Turcology lessons at Freie Universität in Berlin, attended seminars with “baby Rosa,” and immersed herself in Turkish literature and language. Then, in the summer of 2012, she travelled to Kaş, a little Turkish town on the Mediterranean coast, to visit a friend who had also recently become a mother. What was meant to be a two-week holiday turned into a two-year stay. “It was really a beautiful, nourishing time, a completely different lifestyle from Berlin,” she reminisces.

“My life moved at a slow pace. People didn’t care about the brands I wore or what I did for a living; they were simply interested in me, Beyza.

Our way of life there was deeply connected to nature and family, which was incredibly healing for me as a mother and as a woman.”

 And then, one day, as she walked into a quaint carpet shop to find a rug for her terrace, her life changed. “It was like something happened to me at that moment,” she recalls. “I got goosebumps because I felt the energy of the kilims. It blew my mind, really.”

This experience marked the beginning of a new journey. Inspired by the stories the shop owner shared with her, Beyza soon travelled from village to village in Anatolia, collecting kilims with the hope of bringing them back to Germany. In 2014, she organised her first bazaar in Berlin, which was a complete success and led to the creation of Wild Heart Free Soul. As her business grew, so did her responsibilities, prompting Beyza to delve into in-depth research on the history of weaving and the cultural significance of Anatolian rugs.

Thousands of years old, the kilims were woven by nomadic women using hand-spun sheep’s wool and goat hair. The symbols and patterns varied by region, each carrying different meanings. “For example, Mut Kilims,” Beyza, who has since gained a decade worth of experience, gestures to a rug hanging in front of us, “come from the Taurus Mountains. Over here,” she points in another direction, “is a prayer rug from Malatya. And this is a kilim from Denizli in Anatolia—you can tell by its stripes.”

At the centre of many designs is the Elibelinde motif, an abstract symbol of a hands-on-hips female figure, the powerful “mother goddess” that represents motherhood and fertility. “She’s literally creating the universe out of her womb. I resonate with that so much.”

Traditionally, kilims were woven for different occasions: dowries, birth celebrations, or as a gesture of condolence. The nomadic woman, closely attuned to the rhythms of nature, would carefully tend her flock of sheep and goats, shearing them at the optimal times in the season. She meticulously sorted, cleaned, and combed the wool before spinning it into yarn, which was then dyed with natural materials like roots, plants, leaves, minerals, shells, and even insects. The timing for collecting these ingredients depended on seasonal changes. Once prepared, the yarn was intricately woven for months, sometimes years, into kilims—a laborious process requiring patience and mindfulness.

Unlike modern production methods, this ancient craft reflects a deep connection to nature and the value of handmade artistry. However, the future of weaving appears less promising as its cultural importance fades in the face of cheaper, machine-produced carpets. “The vintage kilims will soon die out, and there will be nothing left,” Beyza says, noting that she has only 500 vintage rugs left in Germany and around 1,000 in Turkey. Her plan is to shift the focus toward raising awareness about this issue.

Last October, she partnered with London-based rug producer Christopher Farr and Kirkit Workshop in Uşak, Turkey, to curate an exhibition titled Women Behind the Loom: From Bauhaus to the Bosphorus, featuring 14 unique works of art by the Kirkit weavers. The women were given no predetermined patterns for this project; instead, they were encouraged to craft 1m² pieces using leftover yarn, guided only by broad specifications. The exhibition aimed to give these women a voice.

 “It’s a male-dominated industry. Weavers are always anonymous; they don’t have a face or a voice. They are the lowest earners in the whole supply chain, but without them, there would be no industry. We need to improve the conditions for the weavers so that they are motivated to continue their craft. Otherwise, there will be no more hand-woven carpets in the future,” Beyza warns.

As of late, she’s been toying with the idea of creating her own kilim collection for meditation, which would blend traditional design elements with modern influences. She hopes to encourage weavers to contribute their personal ideas but is still figuring out how to do it sustainably with a long-lasting impact. “It doesn’t help them if I order ten kilims a year; they need many orders to sustain their craft,” Beyza explains.

Though still in development, the idea has taken root in her mind, and she believes it is more necessary now than ever. “In a world where we are constantly under pressure and overwhelmed with information, we need to sit down and reconnect with ourselves and the earth around us,” she says. “With a kilim, you always have your own sacred space that you can take with you.”

Beyond her own ambitions, Beyza is interested in creating a platform where weavers from across Turkey can connect, share their skills, showcase their products, and eventually sell them. She envisions herself as a bridge to the market, enabling people from around the world to access and purchase these unique, handcrafted items. Building trust within her community is deeply important to her.

“Sometimes, when I’m in Istanbul, people come and say, ‘I know who you are, you’re doing an amazing job, we’re proud of you. You’re not just selling our kilims but introducing their value and culture to Europe,’” she beams. “When this happens, I’m like ‘Wow, I had no idea that people know about me.’ This makes the hard stuff worth it.”