Every year in Istanbul, apparently, they have the Istanbul Shopping Fest. It’s billed as “Forty Days and Forty Nights of Shopping!” which has a nicely biblical ring to it, doesn’t it? Stores and malls stay open late and have big sales and promotions. On Istiklal Cd, there are musicians and performers under special Istanbul Shopping Festival tents, to entertain and delight the wandering shoppers. I’m not a big consumer, but I like this holiday. We have it in America, too, but isn’t it refreshingly honest to call it “Shopping Fest” instead of “Christmas”?
Anyway, this is how it’s panning out on Istiklal:
The stores have these placards in their windows.
And then there’s the giant shoe made of shoes by day, (see the ghost of the photographer) and by night.
Istanbul Shopping Fest in lights, all the way past the vanishing point.
wasconstantinople 