Master of his craft

By MAJORIE CHIEW

There’s a leopard in the room and it’s sitting quietly in a corner. It’s such a beautiful creature that you want to hug it. This wild beast is not dangerous.

You can actually pull the cat by its ear and it won’t roar. Nor will it sink its fangs into you!

Sedat Abayoglu: “I chose the leopard because I felt it is a universal emblem and everyone knows it.”

Turkish furniture designer Sedat Abayoglu, 56, pulls the docile beast by the ear and opens the … cabinet. The animal is a carving whose ear works like a door knob – something that Abayo (he prefers to use his shortened surname) wouldn’t have on any of his cabinets!

“Look,” he gestures as he proceeded to demonstrate how his design works. In fact, he dislikes the conventional door knobs or handles on cupboards, preferring subtler features (a bunch of grapes or even lilies) for the same function – to open doors.

Next, he gives the door a push and it closes gently with no slamming sound. It appears to have a hydraulic effect.

The leopard is a favourite theme of Abayo’s furniture designs and his customers love it. He has carved an entire leopard on a huge cupboard and fully decorated a bedroom with the leopard theme.

This wild cat is always the show stealer of Abayo’s furniture designs under the Sedatti brand.

“I chose the leopard because I felt it is a universal emblem and everyone knows it,” he says. The leopard appears to be the brand’s unofficial mascot if not Abayo’s signature of fine craftsmanship.

At Sedatti’s showroom the bespectacled Abayo excitedly shuffles two side tables to show that they are not the same. Each one has different sculptures of lilies.

“No two pieces are the same,” he says. Ali Muncu, Sedatti’s production manager and a friend’s son who works for him, interpreted for him.

A cupboard featuring a carving of a leopard – ready to spring into action.

Such exquisite furniture comes with handsome prices. Then again, there are buyers who can easily afford them.

For example, a large carved table is priced RM12,030 while a set of eight Z-chairs (named after a customer called Zeki) goes for RM10,640.

The popular Lily dining set of a table and eight chairs, a cabinet and a console with mirror comes with a price tag of RM44,340.

With 30 years of experience, Abayo is riding on his wave of success as an accomplished furniture designer in Turkey. He is also considered to be one of the finest yacht furniture designers in Turkey.

He has two factories with a work force of 70 in Istanbul and various showrooms abroad. He designs furniture for homes, hotels and restaurants and to date has completed decorations for about 700 different interiors.

Business partnership

One-and-a-half years ago, he teamed up with a Malaysian to set up a joint-venture business in Malaysia. The factory in Sungai Buloh began operations a year ago and has six Turkish craftsmen and five local workers.

“I met up with Dr Vixs Neo who convinced me that my furniture designs would sell well in Malaysia,” says Abayo.

An odd shape cupboard.

Dr Neo, 52, a textiles businessman from Batu Pahat, Johor, says: “I was in Turkey to look for textiles machinery when I came across Abayo’s furniture designs.”

He had a gut feeling that Abayo’s handcrafted creations would fulfil a need for high-end furniture in Malaysia. After all, he has friends who ordered furniture from Italy or Spain for their new bungalows.

Convinced that there was a business potential, he sought out Abayo. That fateful meeting between both men went on well and they shook on a business partnership deal.

Several bungalow owners in the Klang Valley have kept Sedatti busy with contracts to furnish their new homes.

Several businessmen have also approached Dr Neo to start an outlet in Texas in the United States. And things are looking brighter as Sedatti furniture from Malaysia will be shipped there next year.

Following his heart

As a boy, Abayo loves to fill his books with sketches on furniture. He could not explain this fascination of things inanimate. But when he grew up, he knew his calling.

Steering himself in the right direction, he graduated in furniture and interior design, from University of Fine Arts, Istanbul, in 1972.

Once, while holidaying in Assos, a seaside town overlooking the northern Aegean Sea, he met a carpenter. “I went to his workshop and made my first cupboard. I later paid the carpenter and took the furniture home. I still have that cupboard in my room back home,” he says with nostalgia.

Abayo has a son, Ali, 25, a sculptor and a daughter, Ayshe, 24, a stage and costume designer.

His son appears to be walking in his footsteps.

“Sometimes, he comes to my factory in Istanbul to work on his sculptures,” says Abayo, who travels regularly. He tries to make a monthly trip home to Turkey where his wife, Serbnam, helps to oversee his business there. Abayo also travels regularly to international furniture fairs for exhibitions as well as to broaden his customer base.

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Original article was published here