Egyptian Traditional Clothing
Egypt had a range of traditional costumes. The farmers (fellahin) basically wear gallibayas. In the cities the upper classes adopted the clothes of their conquerors - Ottoman Turks from 1500s, and later European from 1798. To the south the Nubians have their own distinctive costume and across the desert the Bedouin also have a separate style of clothing.
Egypt - Women
Peasant women would wear a gallebaya outdoors but in the city gallibaya tended to be worn only indoors. For public wear a woman would wear a wide woman's dress called a tob sebleh.
Wide trousers were worn as underclothing (tshalvar or shintijan) gathered below knee and falling to ankles.
The woman's kaftan was called a yelek. This was lined, with the neck open to breast and buttoned or laced along side seams for shaping. It had high side slit over trousers. Girded with shawl. Women would wear a shirt under the yelek, and a djubbeh or binnish over it.
In Alexandria and Cairo, women would also wear the melaya luf - a large rectangular wrap worn for modesty, warmth, and used to carry things.
City women often worn a bur`a - a long rectangular face veil either of white cotton or open weave - and a headscarf (sometimes over a skullcap - taqiyah). Another headcovering was the mandil (headscarf) sometimes decorated with pom poms. Among the fellahin a bag like hattah was sometimes worn.
Egypt - Men
The basic traditional Egyptian garment for men is a long shirt (gallibaya). Tilke also distinguishes one with a looser fit under the arms (eri) and very wide version of the gallibaya called a kamis which was worn by fellahin. While working fellahin would hitch up the skirt of the gallebaya and wrap it around their thighs.
Trousers (sserual) were sometimes worn under the gallebaya.
Over the gallebaya a kaftan (often striped) was worn. A kaftan is a full length garment like a coat with long wide sleeves open in front and often bound by a fabric belt (hizan). Over the kaftan was a binish - a cloth overcoat with wide sleeves - often slit below usually dark grey and unlined. Alternatively, a djubbeh which had was more complex cut than the binish could be worn especially by Turks during the Ottoman occupation. The `ulama also wore a jubbah over stripped kaftan. The jubbah was a long, wide sleeved gown which reached to feet and was buttoned half way down.
However, from the 1800s European dress replaced traditional dress among the Ottoman court and this was taken up by members of the elite. Therefore, senior civil servants and members of the ruling intelligentsia could be seen in Egypt in European style clothing.
However European headwear was not adopted. Instead Sultan Mahmud Khan II decreed that checheya heargear would be worn. In Egypt this was called "tarboosh". Later Mohammed Ali was to incorporate the tarboosh as part of the military uniform. This was abolished as headwear after the 1952 revolution. For further information on the layers worn see Male Headewear
What was not worn by Egyptians was the Arab kufeya and `igal - except possibly among some Bedouin.
Nubia
Nubia straddles the south of Egypt and the North of the Sudan. After the building of the Aswan dam many Nubians were relocated in Aswan. Nubians belong to five main tribes - two of which (Kanuz and Fadija) are in Egypt. The Kanuz people are the northernmost.
The Kanuz women wear dresses formed by horizontal lengths of fabric each of which is longer than the one above giving a dress with almost a flounce at the bottom. For special occasions - such as weddings a semi-transparent layer is added over the dress. Fadija women wear a wrapped garment a little like a sari.
Men wear trousers, shirts, vests and turbans.
PAINTING ANNEALED GLASS
In producing spite of the scarcity of the forests of wood, the work of wood is strongly enraciné in the craft industry; the Tunisian inheritance conceals famous masterpieces carried out in various gasolines of this material illustrating various techniques.
The Tunisian craftsman did not only excel in the sculpture of wood. Other techniques, such as turning and painting are familiar for him.
Nowadays, the development of manners and the contact with other civilizations, made fall several branches from this craft industry in disuse. Thus, “Hanût Hajjem”, and the trunks are supplanted by modern pieces of furniture manufactured in series or by senior cabinetmakers who married the spirit of times. The old pieces of furniture become rare, nonfunctional and only decorative parts for the modern interiors.
The history of the Tunisian jewelry goes back to the paddle of the punic era from which it borrows several signs symbols and forms which are found today still in the current jewels.
Khomsas, Kholkhals rings of ankles, the additional fibules of support of Melia, Khellas attest the variety and the wealth of these characteristics but yield gradually to the generation of very snuffed jewels: bracelets out of gold, rings in the form of rhombus encrusted with semi-precious stones or enamels, collars modernized and loops with the European one.
Glass is a very old practice deeply anchored in the cultural history of our country. The Punic ones inherited this practice their ancestors Phéniciens, to adapt it and develop it in Carthage and Kerkouane.
The formerly flourishing trades of leather, include the art of saddlery and the embroidery on leather, the manufacture of the traditional shoe (balgha) and various other utility purposes in leather working.
Forming until the beginning of our century one of the most important corporations of the souks of the médina, the saddlers animated in Tunis the gravers of the souk sarrajines.
Kairouan is the first center of manufacture while employing more than 23.000 people (especially young women) on a working total of 28.000 in the sector of the craft industry.
The art of the pottery and ceramics is thousand-year-old in Tunisia which knows two types of pottery: a pottery turned by the men and another modelled by the women: the latter meets only in rural environment; it is primarily utility. Modelling, the cooking and the decoration of these potteries are remained primitive. The lines, the points, the ciliés features, the teeth of saw, the crosses, the rhombuses are as many reasons which point out tattooings and rural fabrics of wool.
When with the turned pottery, it seems that they are the potters of Jerba which were the first to use the turn since the most moved back times. They hold their improvement of this art of old Egypt, Phénicie, Greece and Rome. In fact also the potters of Guellala (Jerba) are at the origin of the creation of other centers potters in the Tunisian littoral. Tunis, Nabeul, Moknine them must have given birth to there an of the same production invoices than that of Jerba.
Ceramics Fatimide and Zirîde (IX ème century is characterized by a representational art devoting the representation of human figures and animals. This art was spread in the of the same Maghreb countries Q' in Andalusia and Sicily.