A Wonderful Woman from Gaziantep
Gaziantep business woman, dear Serpil Karuserci , at the award ceremony where she was deemed worthy of the first prize in the " Woman Entrepreneur Who Makes a Difference in Her Region " category in the " Woman Entrepreneur of Turkey in 2011 " competition organized for the first time in cooperation with Garanti Bank, Economist Magazine and the Women's Entrepreneurship Association of Turkey (KAGIDER). I knew. After that day, I wanted to get to know this very successful very special woman more. I've always had great opportunities, encounters and friendships. He was always with us in Antalya, Trabzon and Istanbul. As a member of Kagider, he came from Gaziantep and participated in our events. Serpil is a very natural, soft-spoken, hardworking and very special woman.
At the last July Kagider meeting we were together, she started her speech with a sweet style by saying, " The best speech should be short and sexy, like a mini skirt ." After Serpil finishes high school, she and her father go to Adana together to take the Adana State Academy of Fine Arts exams. While Serpil is in the exam, her father constantly prays during the exam, so that Serpil will not be successful in the exam because; If he wins, he does not want to send him to Adana. Serpil wins the Adana State Academy of Fine Arts, but after a while she has to leave the school due to terrorist incidents. But he does not give up, he is very impressive, I wrote his story below in his own narration.
Our July meeting was with Serpil Karuserci, Handan Ercengiz.
"While I was working in Gaziantep Municipality, I started going to the evening courses of the Vocational High School for Girls. I wanted to learn a trade. I wanted to learn a trade. I was interested in sewing, embroidery, stained glass, etc. Since childhood, I was very interested in design . I used to cut the old fabrics at home, match the patterns on them, and sew clothes for my dolls. Again, from old materials. I used to make beautiful flowers. While going to the courses, my teachers used to say, 'Let's open a place with you, let's earn money'".
Together with Serpil Karuserci, Fikir Batallı, Münteha Adalı and Gülden Türktan
"After I got married, I had my first son and quit my job. I had my second son and after raising him a little bit, I started to think 'I'll do something myself'. The easiest thing was to open a store. In 1988, I opened a small boutique of 55 square meters. I couldn't afford to pay a few months' rent. My aim was to sell ready-made wedding dresses that we bought, I didn't even think about production. While selling wedding dresses in a boutique, a daughter of an expatriate family came from Germany and handed me a catalogue and said, ' Can you sew this wedding dress for me? ' I said, 'I will, of course.' I brought my machine to the workplace and a very beautiful wedding dress appeared. The customer was also very happy. After this first production, we had confidence that we could 'produce it ourselves'. We started to prepare clothes for the special days of private schools in Gaziantep. We had seasonal jobs.
It was the year 2000 and I attended a fair abroad for the first time. They had a prominent place in this fair in Dusseldorf, but our wedding dresses attracted great interest and we received very high orders. We increased the number of machines and recruited new staff to grow these orders. Thus, we started exporting for the first time.
We are always together.
After a while, the European Union Business Development Center (ABIGEM) was opened in Gaziantep and I immediately applied and asked for consultancy. We had an Italian consultant. He examined us and said, 'You are exporting all your products, but Turkey is also a very good market and you should become stronger at home'. Stores from nearby places such as Mersin, Adana and Diyarbakır were already coming and buying our wholesale wedding dress models . We also expanded to Ankara, İzmir, Samsun, Konya and Kayseri. We opened both stores and gave franchises.
Then we got brand and production consultancy from ABİGEM. We had a consultant from the Netherlands. As Onur Moda, we designed the DreamON brand and started to increase exports with this brand. We have direct employment of 45 people. However, we also give jobs to houses for some of our wedding dresses, and we also provide periodic income to 100-150 women. As a female entrepreneur, I discriminate against women. 90 percent of our employees are women”.
Having completed its investment in a new production and showroom of 3 thousand 750 square meters with seven floors at the entrance of the city in Gaziantep, Karuserci plans to open a store in Istanbul as well.
Serpil Karuserci stated that they mostly export to Italy and said: “France, Netherlands, Germany and Greece are our good markets. We ship wedding dresses to 22 countries. Now we are opening up to the Middle East as well. We give out about 10 thousand wedding dresses per year to wholesale. We send over 1500 wedding dresses per year to Italy . We also trained my daughter Çağnur as a designer. He studied design in London and Milan. In addition, our Spanish designer Isis Carel Baroni Canizares comes to Gaziantep and we work together while preparing the collection. We make 250-300 different wedding dresses ; 100 of them enter the DreamON catalog that year and are offered for sale.
“A young girl's dream is to wear a wedding dress that suits her, on the most meaningful and special day of her life. She feels like a princess in a dream in this wedding dress.
“I never gave up as DreamON's roadmap continued,” says Karuserci. He has always set the bar high. He says that although he only has problems with qualified personnel from time to time, they have partially solved this problem by training their own personnel.
“I designed my own wedding dress years ago. Custom made. It was made of white silk velvet. I designed pale pink flowers for the hem and cape. It was a no-puffy, tailed wedding dress. My wedding dress was completed with a half cap made of roses and a long veil on my head,” she says.
First Women Entrepreneurs Making a Difference in 2011 and 2012 Serpil Karuserci and Yasemin Künteci, among them Fisun Usta, Aydan Baktır, Selen Erdeniz, Handan Ercengiz
Serpil says I'm just at the beginning of the road, I still have a lot to do. Her husband, sons and daughter are very proud of her, they are very happy to work with her. They have a very nice family cooperation. All of them have become new entrepreneurs, they are striving to develop, perfect and differentiate in the footsteps of their mothers. I would like to introduce them to you one by one. His sons Onur and Özgür have undertaken the export, and his daughter Çağnur is a support in design, each pursuing unique successes. I congratulate you Serpil, I am very happy to know you, I am very happy to be able to write and share you, but there are many beautiful stories to be written and told for you, good luck, lots of love.