We recently had the chance to connect with Allie Arpaci and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Allie, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
This summer I launched my newest Turkish towel collection called Getaway. It’s been five years in the making, an evolution that started with my very first solo towel design, Take Me With You (no collab, just me and my craving to create something beautiful for the world)! That design morphed into Poolside, which let me stretch myself creatively, and finally into Getaway: all of my design growth bundled into one perfect towel.
Shortly after the launch, I traveled to San Diego with my middle child for Little People of America’s national convention and, of course, packed one of my favorite colorways from the collection: Lemonchello. She’s a stunner: yellow and white vertical stripes, short flirty fringe, and a double-sided gauze fabric that’s ridiculously soft. I was ready to strut her around the pool deck like the proud designer mama I am.
But the moment we walked out, it was like I had slipped into another dimension. Everywhere I looked, pool chairs, umbrellas, wrapped around bodies, were yellow and white striped towels. I thought I was about to be the cool new thing, but nope. It looked like I’d just come prepared for the party. The kicker? Right next to me was a giant robot vending machine dispensing only yellow-and-white striped towels. I couldn’t stop laughing. Honestly, though, instead of feeling deflated, I felt proud. It was proof that my instincts were right on trend. Sometimes the universe winks at you like that!
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Allie — Creative Director and co-founder of Together Textiles (est. 2017), and I make textiles you actually want to live in. My co-pilot in life and business, Güven Arpaci, and I spent two years living in Türkiye, deep inside his family’s weaving community, learning handloom techniques that have been passed down for generations. We brought those skills home to Clintonville, Ohio, where our kids go to school and we try to sell every single thing we dreamed up overseas.
What we do is simple and a little stubborn: marry old-world, small-batch weaving with modern, wearable design. Think Turkish towels reimagined as soft, double-gauze essentials (hello, Getaway collection) and wool “house coats” — yes, the indoor wool jacket you slip into after coming in from the cold, pockets included, dry-clean only, and made to be the ritual piece someone reaches for every single day. Everything is woven with care, designed to last, and made by hands that know the craft.
Why care? Because our pieces carry stories: Güven’s family looms, my stubborn design instincts, our immigrant-and-family roots, and they show up in your life as warmth, color, and a little bit of joy. If you like textiles with personality (and a cheeky wink), you’ll love what you find on our looms.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
If you want the moment that rewired how I see the world, it wasn’t a single scene, it was an entire season that pressed me into a new shape. In 2022 we moved to a retired fisherman’s village on Türkiye’s Aegean coast with three kids under five. We were carrying a lot: we’d lost our firstborn, I’d given birth four times in five years through a pandemic and two international moves, received a family member’s physical-disability diagnosis, and we were growing our family business. It should have felt impossible. Instead, it became quietly transformative.
We matched with a young woman named Zeynep to live with us and help care for the kids. She’d worked in flower fields her whole life, had followed her heart to marry despite family objections, and sent almost everything she earned to her husband working in Spain so they could build a life back home. She entered our chaos with an enormous, messy, devoted love: cooking, sleeping near the kids when anyone was sick, showing up with patient steadiness every day. Her Turkish was oral, my Turkish barely conversational, and we survived on gestures and Google Translate — which, spoiler, is mostly kitchen and market vocabulary.
Sharing the day-to-day with her: laundry, school runs, grief, tiny victories and loud, ridiculous laughter — taught me something visceral: humans aren’t built to do this alone. Watching Zeynep and her husband eventually build their house with their own hands, celebrating their baby’s milestones, showed me bravery as persistence, not fireworks. She couldn’t come with us when we returned to the U.S.; we still miss her. Since then we’ve rebuilt that third pillar with an au pair, friends, and other nomadic family members. Our home has become an intentional revolving door of people who need a soft place to land and who give back in equal measure.
That season changed my baseline. I stopped romanticizing independence and began designing for interdependence. It reshaped Together Textiles: everything we make is meant to be shared, to withstand real life, to feel like a small, durable luxury; towels you pass around the pool, a wool house coat with pockets that actually hold your life. Grief taught me tenderness. Community taught me resilience. And now, when I design, I design for people who need both!
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Short answer: yes — absolutely.
Longer answer: we flirted with giving up many times, but we somehow kept saying, “one more try.”
Moving back from Türkiye at the end of 2023 felt nearly impossible. We were hustling on low income, trying to grow revenue and slow our burn faster than felt humanly possible. Trusted counsel even suggested we consider closing — a sentence that still lands in my throat like an unexpected lemon seed in my water. No small-business owner wants to hear that. For a hot minute, I could smell the end of the thing I loved: the looms, Güven’s family weavers, the towels I’d dreamed into being.
But here’s the twist: almost losing it rewired us.
Instead of making every decision from fear, we learned how to make them from possibility. We kept the wheel spinning with late nights, strategic pivots, a little stubbornness, and a lot of creative hustle. We leaned harder into the story and craft that made Together Textiles interesting; the small-batch weaving, the durable details (yes, pockets are non-negotiable), and the textiles people actually want to live in.
Now? We’re doing this from a place of play again. We’re choosing fun over terror. We’ve become shockingly okay with the idea that at any moment it could all change.. and that odd acceptance freed us to be bolder, kinder to our process, and more magnetic to the right customers and collaborators.
So was there a time I almost gave up? Hell yes. Did I? Not even close. Instead, we turned close calls into our fiercest fuel.. and that, is the secret thread!
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
Oh, I used to cling to a very Victorian belief: that fashion, no matter how uncomfortable, was just part of the price you paid to look cute. Translation: I thought the midday swamp-sweat, the emergency shirt changes during school pickup, the tiny travel deodorants tucked in every bag were just my fate. I blamed my “Viking blood” (I’m >70% Norwegian, so dramatic cold-blooded vibes felt plausible) and carried on.
Then I accidentally stopped wrapping myself in plastic. I swapped out synthetics for real fibers: cotton, linen, wool, and my whole life opened. Suddenly I wasn’t changing shirts three times a day. I stopped carrying spare deodorants like contraband. Ha! My skin actually felt like skin again: it could breathe, cool, and behave like a human body instead of a sauna room.
Here’s the blunt truth I was naive about: polyester and its cousins do you no favors. They trap heat and moisture, they hold odor, and they make your body work harder to stay comfortable. For a long time I assumed that was just how I was wired. Turns out I was wiring myself into the problem every morning with my outfit choices.
Now? I live in natural fibers. Cotton is my soft, everyday sweetheart, breathable, forgiving, and comforting. Linen is the cool, crisp lover for hot days and dramatic exits. And for winter, hello wool house coat: a robe-jacket that actually keeps you cozy without the synthetic drama. Designing for comfort and longevity is part of what I do at Together Textiles, because loving your body feels as good as wearing something gorgeous!
Curious about the nitty-gritty differences between cotton and linen (and why your body will thank you)? Take the deep dive on our blog: togethertextiles.com/blog. Trust me, your skin might write you a thank-you note!
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
When I picture the story I want people to tell after I’m gone, it’s short, saucy, and a little tender: “She was unapologetically herself — fierce, messy, kind, and wildly curious.”
I want to be remembered as the kind of woman who built a life that matched her messy, stubborn heart: co-founding Together Textiles with my co-pilot Güven, learning from his family’s looms in Türkiye, coming home to Clintonville with kids and salt on our shoes, and still insisting that everyday objects, towels, wool house coats, throw blankets, should feel like small acts of love.
I’m not fully that person yet (therapy helps, my support system keeps me honest, and my kids, with their relentless belief, push me forward), but I’m headed there on purpose. I want my legacy to be practical tenderness: a business that supports real livelihoods in Türkiye and here, products made to be shared and used and passed down, and a life that modeled resilience, curiosity, and compassion.
So tell them I was unapologetic, but not reckless. Bold, but gentle. Flirty, yes, but fiercely responsible. And that I spent my days making the world softer, one thoughtfully woven piece at a time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.togethertextiles.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/togethertextiles
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandraarpaci/
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/togethertextiles
- Other: Sign up for our Newsletter: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/62f0d190e5ea6b3d8aea480d
Wholesale Catalog on Faire: https://www.faire.com/direct/togethertextiles
Image Credits
Steph Sheldon
