May 24, 2022

Story of Founder!

As a child, I spent summer holidays sitting in a chalet that overlooked the vast forests and hardworking people of the Black Sea. I had red braided hair that distinguished me from others and shielded me from prying little eyes. I wasn't born in the Black Sea region, but I always felt I belonged there – it was good for my soul, and it nourished me. And in fact, being born somewhere isn't enough to belong there. Unless you are intertwined with your birthplace, you lack a connection to it and cannot produce any benefit. The contrast of metropolitan life and my summers in the village opened new horizons for me with in their contradictions and differences. Maybe that's how it should be, because it is these journeys, these contradictions, observations and experiences that make our stories powerful and unique.

When my life journey was flowing so slowly – and maybe when I needed him the most – I reached a breaking point, losing my father without saving a lot of memories. Like any daughter, I had a deep bond with my father, and I faced the only shocking truth in life at a very early stage of my life. My father, like me, lost his father early and he was the one that bore the burden of the entire family. I've always been inspired by his sociable spirit, his intelligence, the way he handled things, his ability to solve problems, his business acumen, and his ability and ideological approach to stand alone. My story begins with the most important value I inherited from him: his entrepreneurial spirit. Inscribed in my codes, this gave me strength. When I was a kid, I used to say, “I’m going to be an engineer when I grow up”, and I had achieved my childhood dream as a high-level industrial engineer. Then I returned to my country after carrying out my foreign trade training in America. In 2007 I stepped into corporate life and, believing that my seven years of white-collar experience was enough for me, I decided to go on my own brand journey, the one that I had always dreamed of.

In 2016, I founded P E S H C E, the apple of my eye, inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit hidden in my genes. This greatest legacy from my father and my interest in genetics, combined with my engineering education, produced a business model that was grounded and detail oriented. The dozens of countries I visited, and my experiences and observations in these countries, reinforced my idea of creating a brand that would carry a local value to the world whose goal is purely export. This search led me to the peshtemal, a piece of fabric used for many purposes in the chalet where I stayed during my childhood. In fact, the story went back to where it first started, and my inspiration was my hometown.

I, Zekiye Erenay, aim to become a GLOBAL brand by establishing strong ties, transforming this local treasure into a global brand journey, adding value to the land to which I belong, and producing it together with the talented women of this land. I know that my father is watching me from somewhere, and I hope he is proud of his tenacious, red-haired daughter and her struggle for life.

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