This is the entrance to the famous Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. This is my husband and I in the photo. On that day we were showing some relatives of ours, my mother's siblings' children, who had come from Mexico around, we were sightseeing and of course we took them to Topkapi Palace. You can see that I am wearing a fur coat. My husband had given that coat of castor fur to me as a present. This was part of his business actually and he had a couple of coats made for close relatives and friends, like my dear friend Lina Mizrahi. My husband had personally chosen the animals for this particular castor fur coat I was wearing. It was a coat that was very much liked among my friends. I was also wearing a green felt hat.
Cinemas and theatres were a big part of our social life. We would buy season tickets for the cinema, as this was the fashion then. On Saturday nights, some singers would sometimes take the stage before the film started. I remember some singers who are very famous today taking the stage at the Konak Cinema before the film started for PR reasons. Ilham Gencer and Ajda Pekkan are examples of such singers. [Ilham Gencer was a famous pop musician and Ajda Pekkan was a celebrated diva] Felt hats, leather gloves, and coats sewn by the best dressmakers had become outmoded and members of the Jewish community had started following the day's fashion step by step. Especially wearing the clothes bought from the journeys abroad to the cinema evenings had become a symbol of wealth and the jet set. The tables prepared at the friends' gatherings played an important role. In these gatherings, which were described as "fikso" [meaning, "a fixed day or night"], besides playing cards, many viscera, fried and sweet dishes were prepared which are out of favor today. Such big tables are not prepared any more, because we all have cholesterol or high blood pressure. In other words, we have gotten old.
I did not work. My house, family relations, neighbors, and "fikso"s, like many other women of my age, played an important role in my social life. [fikso is a day when people gather to socialize with each other. The most important thing was that these gatherings were held on the same day, and people came and went at a fixed time.]
