page_title: Palestinian costumes
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Palestinian costumes / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Doll in Ramallah style dress. Made by YWCA Jalazon RC project circa 2000.
context_page_description: Palestinian costumes are the traditional clothing worn by Palestinians. Foreign travelers to Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of the costumes worn, particularly by the fellaheen or village women. Many of the handcrafted garments were richly embroidered and the creation and maintenance of these items played a significant role in the lives of the region's women.
  Though experts in the field trace the origins of Palestinian costumes to ancient times, there are no surviving clothing artifacts from this early period against which the modern items might be definitively compared. Influences from the various empires to have ruled Palestine, such as Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and the Byzantine empire, among others, have been documented by scholars largely based on the depictions in art and descriptions in literature of costumes produced during these times.
  Until the 1940s, traditional Palestinian costumes reflected a woman's economic and marital status and her town or district of origin, with knowledgeable observers discerning this information from the fabric, colours, cut, and embroidery motifs used in the apparel.
context_section_description: Jerusalem: The Jerusalem elite followed Damascus fashions which in turn were influenced by those of the Ottoman court in Istanbul. Fabrics were imported from Syria with several specialist shops on the Mamilla Road. Wedding dresses were ordered from Aleppo and Turkey. From the beginning of the 20th century the upper classes began to wear European styles.
  Galilee: Collections reveal that there was a distinct Galilee women's style from at least the middle of the 19th century. The standard form was a coat (Jillayeh), tunic and trousers. Cross-stitch was not used much, the women preferring patchwork patterns of diamond and rectangular shapes, as well as other embroidery techniques. In the 1860s, H.B. Tristram described costumes in the villages of El Bussah and Isfia as being either "plain, patched or embroidered in the most fantastic and grotesque shapes". Towards the beginning of the 20th century Turkish/Ottoman fashions began to dominate: such as baggy trousers and cord edging. Materials, particularly silks, were brought from Damascus. Before the arrival of European colour-fast dyes the Galilee was an important area for the growing of indago and sumac which were used for creating blue and red dyes.
  Nablus:Women's dresses from villages in the Nablus area were the least ornate in the whole of Palestine.
  Bethlehem: Wadad Kawar describes Bethlehem as having been "the Paris of Central Palestine". Both it and neighbouring Bayt Jalla were known for their fine Couching Stitch work. This technique was used extensively in the panels for malak (queen) wedding dresses. The malak dress was popular amongst brides from the villages around Jerusalem. So much so that the panels began to be produced commercially in Bethlehem and Bayt Jalla. Amongst the wealthier families it was the fashion for the groom to pay for the wedding dress so the work often became a display of status.
  Ramallah: great variety of very distinguishable finely executed patterns.
  Lifta (near Jerusalem), and Bayt Dajan (near Jaffa) were known as being among the wealthiest communities in their areas, and their embroideresses among the most artistic. 
  Majdal (today a part of Ashkelon) was a center for weaving,
caption: Doll in wedding-dress typical of Ramallah area  popular before 1948. Made by YWCA project in Jalazone RC. c. 2000.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0", "Image DateTime": "2012:04:16 14:28:14", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "276", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "994", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15849", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/10", "EXIF FNumber": "33/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:04:11 17:22:02", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:04:11 17:22:02", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "7/2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Tungsten (incandescent light)", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "70", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "70", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "70", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "EXIF RelatedSoundFile": "", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "52", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}