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January 26, 2022
Unique designs with horseshoes
Murat Seyok, a great horse-lover from Turkey, has found a unique way of utilising used horseshoes and creates unique designs which can be personalized gifts or decoration components for both interior and exterior designs.
He was born in 1966 in Düzce, which is a city in the north of Turkey. This region has a high population of Circassian people for whom horsemanship plays a very big part of their life and tradition. Murat has had a love for horses since his early childhood, as his family have bred horses and they attended local horse races which were organized by the Circassian people.
After a career as an Industrial Engineer, Murat together with his wife decided to turn his dream into reality by bringing horse-riding and the restaurant concept together in his own hometown, Düzce and so, opened their farm in 2003. At that time, there were not many restaurants in the region and people preferred going to neighbouring cities and towns for the weekends. They believed that their farm would attract both citizens from their hometown as well as people from the surrounding cities. As they predicted, their farm became a popular destination in their own town enabling visitors to enjoy their outdoor restaurant and ride horses.
As the concept was horse riding, Murat, utilised the horseshoes to create modest designs within his farm and nailed them on the doors. In Turkish superstitions, as well as in many places around the world, it is believed that horseshoes bring good luck. When an Irish guest, who was on a business trip in Düzce, visited his facilities, Murat learned from him that in Christianity, there is also the same belief, the only difference being the positioning of the horseshoe. In Turkish tradition, the open part of the horseshoes points down whereas in Christianity, it is the opposite.
Following his conversation with the Irish man, Murat researched into the superstition about horseshoes and discovered that as in the history, blacksmiths were believed to be holy, as their work enabled humanity to protect themselves. Horseshoes were then and have since remained a symbol of good luck. As a result, Murat and his wife Ebru decided to pursue their ideas and started creating beautiful designs using horseshoes.
They collect used horseshoes from blacksmiths. Each horseshoe is unique as they were used by horses of not only different sizes but working in different conditions and terrain. Murat prefers using those scrap horseshoes even though it takes more time to work on them compared to new ones. However, he says that most important thing is that his final products are unique as well as being beneficial to the blacksmiths who find a use for their scrapped metal shoes.
Murat and Ebru are boutique designers but have not marketed their products much yet. However, they have sold several of their products mainly as personalized gifts, through their own network of friends and by word of mouth. With the help of social media, he has access to customers in Germany, Italy, Dubai and Kuwait. Now they are working on developing an e-Shop where people will have access to their personalized designs under the name Binef Art.
Duzce is an important shotgun manufacturing city and because of this so is Gravure. Taking advantage of this, in addition to their handcrafted products, they are also working with gravure masters to create on-demand, personalized gifts too.
