PALESTINIAN COSTUME
Shelagh Weir
Interlink Publishers, New York
First Published 1988
New Edition 2009
pp. 288
ISBN: 978-1-56656-727-5
Reviewed By MARYAM JAMEELAH
Next to his soul, the closest thing to a man’s body is the clothing he/she chooses to wear, all of which has tremendous powers of purification or corruption. According to Islam, male and female dress should be a direct expression of the human being as representative of the Divine on earth and nowhere was this truer than the traditional clothing worn in pre-1948 Arab Palestine. As a vibrant branch of traditional Islamic civilization, the indigenous garments worn in Arab Palestine were the most eloquent reflection of Islamic values and ideals.
Based on a lengthy period of extensive personal research among elderly refugee informants, and benefiting greatly from archival material stretching back before the dawn of the 20th century, Weir describes the symbolic meaning of a wide range of articles of traditional Palestinian apparel from the late Ottoman period almost to the present day. Far from mere static Biblical relics, Palestinian dress had a long history of constant internal change and development in response to historical events.
At once, a mere glance could identify the wearer as a city-dweller, a villager or a nomadic tribesman. Each village, tribe or region had its own distinctive style.
Marriage and circumcision ceremonies were the most important events of village life, all requiring special dress – each wedding the result of a most careful negotiation between families – extramarital relations unthinkable. Individualism was nonexistent, the women and girls, in particular, thoroughly integrated into the all-embracing clan or tribe. Yet chaste women and girls were highly valued and enjoyed an honourable place in their society.
The British Mandate brought great changes with the beginnings of industrialisation, factory-made cloth, money economy, wage labour and motorised transportation. At first, this increased prosperity appeared beneficial to rural Palestinian culture, resulting in even more beautiful women’s dresses than ever before, as abundantly illustrated in this book. But soon after the First World War with growing urbanisation, Western dress gained increased popularity among the males of all classes as well as modern-educated women seeking the prestige of upward social and economic status.
Today almost all Palestinian males wear Western dress – bare heads, jeans and T-shirts most favoured by the youth.
As a luxurious coffee-table edition, this book is richly illustrated in full colour with most exquisite hand-woven textiles and embroidered dresses extending over a century of development. As shown here, authentic tradition is always colourful and beautiful – modernity everywhere hideously ugly.
The illustrations adorning this book are irrefutable proof of that truth.