The Levant, which gets its name from the French word “to rise,” refers to the land of the “sunrise”: Mediterranean coastal countries including Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey. It’s a region with a heritage of craftsmanship that’s as rich and densely layered as the Arabesque motifs that pattern the region’s tilework, carpets, and tea cups. Such artisanal traditions are at the heart of The Levant Shop, a new homeware label and journal from founders Süreya Köprülü and Naz Muessel. As of today, they say marhaba, or welcome, to the shop.
As New York City natives who met in high school, Köprülü and Muessel were introduced to the deep-rooted Levantine cultures at home—Süreya is half-Turkish, and Naz is half-Iranian. The two bonded over a passion for all things Middle Eastern before turning it into something more. “The Levant Shop started after many conversations,” says Köprülü. “Dreaming and brainstorming and chatting about our desire to share a non-obvious perspective on the area—whether that be from a design aesthetic perspective or culture and stories.”
On their website, which is as much about storytelling as it is about merchandising, you’ll find the full array of The Levant Shop’s wares, which are all hand-made using processes and techniques that are centuries old from artisans across Lebanon and Turkey. You’ll also find the Artemis collection of linens: tablecloths and napkins adorned with hammered silver embroidery produced by artisans in Baalbek, Lebanon, using historic Tarq methods dating back to the Ottoman Empire. (Draped over a table, the silver elements subtly glint and become even more sumptuous by candlelight.) Then, there’s the Caligraphy collection of glazed terracotta plates—made in Lebanon’s Chouf Mountain region and inspired by historic Nishapur earthenware—that are painted with abstracted versions of Arabic letters. In the glassware department, there are goblets and tumblers hand-blown in Beykoz, a hilltop village in Istanbul.
It all comes together to form an evocative medley of textures and colors. And while The Levant Shop represents thousands of years of craftsmanship history (Köprülü and Muessel can wax poetic on the Silk Road’s influence on Levantine decorative arts—their Iznik collection is based on Iznik ceramics which is Turkey’s answer to the Chinese blue-and-white ceramics craze of the 15th century), their pieces don’t look like souvenirs. They’re carefully edited and crafted to fit into modern households far beyond the Levant.
“We worked with each artisan’s hand and eye,” says Muessel of the design process, which was a collaboration between every craftsperson. “It really depends on the artisan, but we have learned not to necessarily always come to them with an exact design.” For their Iznik collection of ceramics hand-painted in the Turkish city of Iznik, however, design inspirations had to be exact. “Iznik artistry is almost mathematics,” she continues. “It’s really Islamic in the sense that they’re mathematicians in the way they approach their technique. So we have been incredibly specific about this flower being half a centimeter from that one.”
When it came to sourcing these artisans, the two admit it was a far less structured process—using Instagram and press clips to locate potential collaborators. They’d arrive in Lebanese and Turkish villages with nothing more than the name of an artisan they had seen in an interview on YouTube, or they’d be having a conversation with someone over Turkish coffee who’d point them in the direction of a cousin who happened to be a glassblower or a ceramicist. “It’s been very organic, but difficult,” says Muessel. “There have been moments where Süreya and I have been in the middle of nowhere, thinking, ‘Gosh, we came all the way here to talk to somebody that we found via Instagram, and it didn t work out and it feels like a bust.’”
Throughout all their adventuring, they’ve also been documenting their learnings and discoveries—from Lebanese hotels worth visiting to Turkish fig and labneh recipes to stories from the makers of all of The Levant Shop’s pieces. “This all started because we wanted to spend time with the things that we love, are drawn to, and are fascinated by,” says Köprülü. And in true Levantine spirit, such things are meant to be shared.
