page_title: Culture of Tunisia
section_title: Feminine clothing
hierarchical_section_title: Culture of Tunisia / Traditions / Traditional clothing / Feminine clothing
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Petite fille participant à la henna s'ghira, fête d'un mariage traditionnel à Djerba (Tunisie)
context_page_description: Tunisian culture is very diverseTunisian culture is a product of more than three thousand years of history and an important multi-ethnic influx. Ancient Tunisia was a major civilization crossing through history; different cultures, civilizations and multiple successive dynasties contributed to the culture of the country over centuries with a varying degrees of influence. Among these cultures were the Carthaginian – their native civilization, Roman, Vandal, Jewish, Christian, Arab, Islamic, Turkish, Europeans, and French, in addition to native Amazigh. This unique mixture of cultures made Tunisia, with its strategic geographical location in the Mediterranean, the core of some great civilizations of Mare Nostrum.
  The history of Tunisia reveals this rich past where different successive Mediterranean cultures had a strong presence. After the Carthaginian Republic, the Roman Empire came and left a lasting effect on the land with various monuments and cities such the El-Jem Amphitheater and the archaeological site of the ancient city of Carthage, which is classified as a world heritage site. El Jem is just one of seven world heritage sites found in Tunisia.
context_section_description: Women's clothing is much more diverse than that of men. In the towns, the vast majority of young women have adopted the European style but women of a certain age, even in urban areas, often wrap a sefseri, white veil of silk or fine wool that covers the head with a blouse and baggy pants. These figures of women wearing sefseri is engrained in the traditional culture of Tunisia as much as the blue and white houses of Sidi Bou Said. In rural areas, women still wear brightly colored dresses, often in the Berber style and made of blue or red cotton, representing their region or their village. The fabric is opened on the side and is held at the waist with a belt and at the shoulders by two clasps. Women of all ages typically wear a massive amount of jewelry with the clothing and it is common to see women with tens, even hundreds of gold sovereigns, necklaces and other trimmings around their necks and from the sides of the headdress.
  The festive ceremonial costumes differ somewhat across regions. In the Sahel, the centerpiece of the ceremonial dress is a dress draped in wool or cotton, drawn to a bodice embroidered with silk and silver, a velvet jacket decorated with gold, lace pants and a silk belt. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the brides of the wealthy aristocracy of Tunis often wore a Kaftan cut in velvet, brocade or silk and richly embroidered with gold and enriched with precious stones. Nowadays, some marrying in Sousse and Hammamet still wear a kaftan with elbow-length sleeves, an open front, and varying in length from the knee to the mid calf. The richness and originality of the costumes are typically based less on the cut or the fabric as they are on woven patterns or embroidery.
  Wearing the hijab is not widespread in Tunisia although the country has seen a relative increase since the early 2000s. Indeed, the state prohibited it in schools and in the government offices.
caption: A young woman in a marriage in Djerba
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D70", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:08:25 23:58:27", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "360", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1118", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4531", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:08:17 18:42:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:08:17 18:42:31", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "43/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Shade", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "70", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R03", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "992", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "105", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}