The Great Clothing Bazar

Now anyone who has visited Istanbul has heard of the Great Bazar, or the Spice Bazar. Places where you can find lots of carpets and other novelty items mixed in with clothing, furniture, and a bit of everything else. It's less expensive than stores, but if you look foreign you'll probably be finding your deals a bit more believable after some truth comes to light. But this isn't about the Great Bazar, it's about a crazy press of Turks every Saturday taking full advantage of the fact that Turkey produces a staggering amount of designer clothing in it's textile factories.
The whole thing is a loop of one block, facing a fairly busy street, I noticed it before when I was taking a cab back from Beshiktash one day but I never ventured into the crowd. The number of people packed into there was insane, and you couldn't see more than ten meters ahead, not only because of the crowd, but merchandise was hung in the narrow channel to the point where I was ducking to pass some of it! This was anarchy, the merchants were up standing on chairs, tables, wherever they could be seen as merchants, many were partially stripped down because of the heat and yelling out their prices, "hepsi, hepsi! iki buçuk! IKI BUÇUK!!!" meaning everything was two-fifty, this guy was standing on a table, throwing cloths in the air like they were tossed salad! I saw a man with a tray of sandwiches, wrapped in cellophane, balanced on his head, weaving through the bedlam, selling them to people as they bumped into him. Absolute chaos, underwear stretched out on hoops, suggestive phrases on the crotch, milk crates overflowing with perfume bottles, bathing suit and towel merchants, a chinese couple selling knock-off hello kitty merchandise along with a bunch of more traditional items and bath products. There was one very sullen looking merchant without a single customer. His entire stock consisted of shirts, purses, and backpacks with what looked like Queen Barbie printed on them. Poor guy must have thought he had the next big rage.
The crowd was mostly women trying to get at the latest and greatest finds from the merchants. Now Turkish women might be a bit short and even a bit scrawny, but, as my companion that day pointed out, "they eat only meat and bread, they're butch." And she was right! I had a respectable looking old lady elbow me in the kidney when I wasn't moving fast enough for her tastes and was shoved out of the the way more than once, yikes!
But the deals were worth the stifling heat. Most of the clothing was women's (understandable considering who was doing most of the shopping there) but I found a few stalls selling men's fashion. Now, most of Turkey's textiles are shipped to places like America and sold at the nice high prices we're used to paying or they show up in stores in Turkey, where they are sold at noticeably lower prices, but some of them find their way through various channels to places like this. Isn't much point in making knock-off Levis when the factory is up the street, eh? But I wasn't there for jeans, not in this weather! I found some great summer dress shirts at about a tenth of the price they would be in America. I'll be heading back next Saturday for a couple, or several, or half a dozen, more.