Morocco’s Traditional Dresses And Belts

[Amira]

Moroccan Bride

 

[sherbert]

Thank you all for those beautiful pictures. The dresses are absolutely beautiful. So rich and colorful, they seem to represent the culture of Morocco. Thank you for all the information about them too. The bridal dress is beautiful.

 

[Angie]

The princesses wear beautiful dresses . It's nice to see them in traditional wardrobe.

 

[gusto]

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[maryshawn]

I know so little about this family, it would be unseemly for me to comment on anything except to say all of their clothing shown is so very beautiful and elegant. What a lovely way to be able to dress like that, even if one does have to learn a certain way to hold the dress while walking.....far preferable to seeing some royals (european mainly) wear tight short dresses which show way too much when getting in and out of cars.........

 

[pepep]

i like those dresses but I don’t think i would know how to walk in them. I would step on dress and completely embarrassed myself.

 

[Amira]

French festival director Melita Tosca du Plantier attends a reception at the Marrakech Royal Palace.
</SPAN>

 

[rosa]

French festival director Melita Tosca du Plantier attends a reception at the Marrakech Royal Palace.
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the caftan is indeed a very beautiful dress, but I wonder why the Moroccan princesses don't wear the Berber dress from time to time, it is a very beautiful dress, and the Berber designs are sublime, they would be able to adopte also the silver jewelleries, it is an extremely elegant garment and that gives proud style to the woman who carries it

 

[rosa]

exemple of berber dress and jewelery

 

[amina1]

I am berber too, I have ecxactly the same jeweleries and dress, but the jeweleries are really heavy!

 

[rosa]

I am berber too, I have ecxactly the same jeweleries and dress, but the jeweleries are really heavy!

I can’t find photos of Berber dress embroidered, these embroideries reproduce the Berber signs, they are indeed very beautiful, it is a style different of the caftan but just as elegant to carry
Concerning the jewelleries, those of the photos are effectively heavy but I know that some models exist more light and modern
Personally, I think that sometimes to change Meryem and her sisters could adopt this style

 

[abir]

Personally, I think that sometimes to change Meryem and her sisters could adopt this style

Yes, I agree with you. The moroccan princesses are half berber and their father Hassan II and MRF are originaly from south of morocco which is can be also considered as part of south moroccan berber.
But I notice that during princesses wedding, they wear a dress on the top which I found similar to the dress women wear in the south of morocco and in the moroccan desert. The makeup of meryem is similar to the makeup of berber women and the tiara of asmaa looks like berber jewerly. I don't know what do you think?
Often moroccan woman in her wedding, wears her origin costumes, and the moroccan princesses did. salma wear the same dress like king sisters. I prefer if she had a costume from her native city Fez. Maybe she had to do so because she married a king.

 

[rosa]

You are right, the day of their marriage, the princesses were dressed in Berber, I find that this style suits them
I saw one day, a parade of fashion of a dressmaker original of the region of marrakech, he had presented the Berber dresses modernized, it was indeed magnificent, the colors, the shape of the dresses, the jewelries all was superb, at a time authentic and modern.

When the princesses move in a region of morocco, why they doesn't carry the garment of this region, for example in the festival of marrakech, they could chosen a garment inspired of marrakech
If the princesses carry this kind of dresses, the women of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie will also make it, and it will enable to the craftsmen of these regions to develop their art

 

[Layla27]

Sorry, but that is a Jelabah, not a Caftan. They are totally diffrent.

A young woman dressed in gray caftan and scarf, her lower face covered with a black embroidered veil, walks along a narrow crooked passageway in the old section, the Old Medina, of Tangier, Morocco. Other pedestrians pass, carrying bundles. Painted wooden doors, their transom windows protected by bars or ironwork, line the street. October 1963.

 

[Layla27]

One more time, that is a "Gandurah", not a Caftan.

Full length portrait of actress Shelley Winters outside wearing a caftan. (Photo by Cynthia Macadams//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

 

[Layla27]

Many thanks Justine for additional information. Much appreciated. I wonder how long it takes for one hand-made, festive, regal caftan to be made? What kind of threads/materials are in use for embroidery? Is it common for the precious stones to be fasten on the fabric (in a most elaborate version of course)? Thank you. :flower:

Caftans and/or Tak****as can be made from several types of tissues depending on their usage. If they are going to be worn on wedding parties and official ceremonies, they are usually made from silk and other nobel materials.
If they are going to be worn as 'stay-home', they can be made from less nobel material.

The stones you see in the fabric are usually fastend to the tissue before it is tailored. Women usually buy the tissue already embroded. The tailor then makes the Caftan/tak****a and adds 'sfifa + aakad' (i.e., golden stripes and buttons u see around the neck area and the sleeves).

 

[Layla27]

Because each berber tribe has its own traditional gown. So if a princess wears a gown from tribe A, tribes B,C,D,E,...Z will feel offended that she didn't chose their outfits .

Better stick to the Caftan, it is worn by everyone.

the caftan is indeed a very beautiful dress, but I wonder why the Moroccan princesses don't wear the Berber dress from time to time, it is a very beautiful dress, and the Berber designs are sublime, they would be able to adopte also the silver jewelleries, it is an extremely elegant garment and that gives proud style to the woman who carries it

 

[Layla27]

In all these pictures the princesses are wearing what we call "takhlila". If you look closer you see that there is a tak****a underneath it.
This type of dresses is quite common in weddings and has nothing to do with the bride's orgine.

Yes, I agree with you. The moroccan princesses are half berber and their father Hassan II and MRF are originaly from south of morocco which is can be also considered as part of south moroccan berber.
But I notice that during princesses wedding, they wear a dress on the top which I found similar to the dress women wear in the south of morocco and in the moroccan desert. The makeup of meryem is similar to the makeup of berber women and the tiara of asmaa looks like berber jewerly. I don't know what do you think?
Often moroccan woman in her wedding, wears her origin costumes, and the moroccan princesses did. salma wear the same dress like king sisters. I prefer if she had a costume from her native city Fez. Maybe she had to do so because she married a king.

 

[abir]

In all these pictures the princesses are wearing what we call "takhlila". If you look closer you see that there is a tak****a underneath it.
This type of dresses is quite common in weddings and has nothing to do with the bride's orgine.

Yes, it's called "takhlila", the bride wear it on the top of the traditional dress. Normally the bride in a village wear its traditional dresses; it's only in the cities where the bride wear all moroccan traditional dresses ... 4 to 7. I guess the morcoccan princess didn't. They wore only takhlila.
What I was saying is that "takhlila" may have berber origine and berber women and women in the south wear it as a daily and regional traditional dress. No women in the rest of the country wear "takhlila". I post here hasna in her wedding and some pictures where you see berber women with white takhlila and souther women with a dark one.

 

[rosa]

beautiful and elegant berber dress

 

[abir]

I think so, caftan is more common even with middle east and far east, I read somewhere caftan origins is from china

We can not beleive it, but it can be true. Thousands of years ago, people were moving around the world and hopefuly some could keep their traditions. Books of history say that Berber were probably related with the Egyptians in very early times and lived in the area from Middle East and actual Arab gulf to the Atlantic. I heard also they may come from the old German. Their costumes and jewelleries have similarities and characteristics. Some Berber tribe's costumes in Egypt-Algeria-Libya-Morocco look the same. It said also the burnous is a Berber costume. In North Africa, the Berber lived in the mountains this why I think they keep their tradition easly and wasn't influenced a lot by the arabs.

 

[rosa]

Because each berber tribe has its own traditional gown. So if a princess wears a gown from tribe A, tribes B,C,D,E,...Z will feel offended that she didn't chose their outfits .

Better stick to the Caftan, it is worn by everyone.

To say that every tribe has its costume, is inexact, every region has its traditional garment as in all countries of the world
If the princesses in their displacements through Morocco carry the specific dress of the region, I think that will make pleasure to the citizens
To wear always the caftan, gives the impression that there is only one Moroccan traditional garment, and that is reducing in view of the wealth cultural of this country

 

[Blueice]

Article originally posted by Rosa - part I (English translation):


History

"La thesis of the close relation-Eastern origin of Berber cannot be admise" any more; The origins of Imazighen are North-African. African... Considering the debate which the open letter of Miss Djama caused, we publish an extract of the work of Malika Hachid who treats in particular origins of Imazighen, a point of view to which adheres, of course, our Drafting. So for a long time, we were confronted with several assumptions on the origin of Imazighen, today scientific research and the last discoveries as regards archaeology and prehistory enable us to see more clearly and to eliminate certain assumptions which do not seem founded any more. Among these assumptions that which makes come Imazighen from the Middle-East. It is obvious that this assumption is useful enormously holding them of the ideology arabo-Moslem woman.

Introduction

Protoméditerranéens of prehistory, Libyans and Garamantes of Antiquity, Berber of the Middle Ages, finally, Imazighen current: such is the extraordinary permanence of the history of the Berber people, as expresses it with accuracy Gabriel Camps which, assisted of a team of collaborators, devotes a masterly Berber encyclopaedia to him. The true name of Berber is Amazigh, in the plural Imazighen. Its root is built on a radical made up of letters Z GH or Z Q and goes up at least with Antiquity. It is found at Maxyes d' Hérodote, Meshweswh of the Egyptian inscriptions, Imouhagh of the Tuaregs, Imagighen of the Air, lesImazighen of Rif and the High Atlas. "At the semantic level, of many researchers thought and writes that Amazigh meant "homme free, noble" (what is remainder the case of much of names of ethnos groups in the world) [... ]. It is not however certainly founded... "(Chaker S. 1987, p. 566-567) and the precise direction of this term... thus remains to discover. In a preceding work, we outlined the appearance of Berber of the central Sahara, more precisely in the prehistoric art of Tassili of Ajjer, with Protoberbères Bovidiens (Hachid M. 1998). To reconstitute the prehistoric settlement of the Sahara was one of the objectives of this work, to emphasize its contribution to the progress of humanity, the discussion thread. A long time, of the Eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, impossible to circumvent fertile Croissant was regarded as the only center founder of the age of the Old World. Starting from the Middle East, the fundamental changes generated by Prénéolithique and the Neolithic era - in particular agriculture - were transmitted to Europe, by the ways of the basin of the Danube and that of the Western Mediterranean. Of course, it is in all last place which one considered that the African continent was going in its turn to profit from it.

 

[Blueice]

Article originally posted by Rosa - part II (English translation):


Such is certainly the case for Europe, but not for Africa. The fertile Crescent was not the only pole of civilization. The central Sahara was another. If to think Africa, it is to join the search of the origins of the man, to think the Sahara, it is to join that of the civilisationnelles origins. The economic and cultural innovations which were born to with it, sometimes front even those of the Middle East, like the invention of the pottery, for example, and of a whole funds symbolic system and mythological, played the part of a civilisationnelle matrix which brought progress and spirituality to the men both to Africa and on banks of the Mediterranean. Today, more and more, it appears that funds cultural African, in the center of this vast Sahara, was not without influence on its outlying areas, and in particular certain cultures of the valley of the Nile. This work is in chronological and historiographic continuity precedent; it defends the same developing principles of rewriting of the history. It tells primarily the history of the first Berber ones of the Sahara, since their appearance in the last millenia of prehistory until the day before of Islam while passing by Antiquity. They are initially Protoberbères of prehistory, these elegant pastors and hunters, then, Paléoberbères, Libyens and Garamantes of Antiquity, riders and highly skilled drivers of tanks. Their successors of medieval and modern times, the large camel drivers Sanhadja, the future Tuaregs, supplement the long historical advance of this group which will resist all the adversities. More testing was that to survive the roughness of the desert where the choice to remain free, often, guided it. In the Sahara, the reconstitution of this long historical advance owes almost all with archaeology, and in particular with rupestral art, like the monuments of these old Berber. It also owes it with invaluable testimonys of the art and the chronicles of predynastic and Pharaonic Egypt, of the graeco-latin authors, with historical elements emanating from the Middle East, the Aegean world, the Carthaginian and Roman empires. The first Berber ones of the Sahara did not live not insulated in their rocks: they were not unaware of the tumult of the Mediterranean world and often took part in it, going sometimes until endangering powerful Egypt of the Pharaons and to chair the destiny of this empire. We could not describe Protoberbères of the Sahara without us to find confronted with the fundamental question of the appearance of Berber, knowing that the oldest traces of these people are in the Maghreb. Today, the broad outline of a synthetic theory of the origins of Berber takes shape by the convergence of three disciplines to which we will have successively recourse: human paleontology, historical linguistics and archaeology (the future will require that a third way is exploited, that of the genetics). The data of these disciplines contribute more and more to show that the berberity emerges in the Maghreb, there are approximately... 11 000 to 10 000 years! If, as we will see it, the close relation-Eastern origin which one lengthily lent to Berber is null and void today, that of their identity and their culture is undoubtedly indigenous. For our part, we will defend a more moderate position: the most remote ancestors of Berber are of pure African stock, but they are already mixed. The ones, Mechtoïdes, are strictly autochtones of the Maghreb; the others, Protoméditerranéens Capsiens, arrived on banks of the Mediterranean at one time if moved back of prehistory that to put the question to know if they are foreign or not loses all its direction. These two groups will interpenetrate anthropologiquement and culturally so much so that one can affirm that the berberity as an identity and a culture was forged on the ground of North Africa and nowhere elsewhere.

 

[Blueice]

Article originally posted by Rosa - part III (English translation):


The covering of the identity in its deepest roots is a work of memory before being a duty, a work which the historian must undertake objectively and with responsibility. To make a synthesis of this memory, to discover how this one, by certain aspects, can continue to function in the present in some places of this vast Berbérie, were a exercise which revealed us many surprised as well on the ground as feather with the hand. In a world where the markets reign as Masters, one forgets that the true richness of a nation is measured with that of its level of knowing, and this knowledge passes by its memory. However, this memory could not be a "barricadement" identity because North Africa, as of its enthralling prehistory, was already a multi-cultural, rich ground of its ethnic diversity, as shows it the Saharan Neolithic era, for example, where Noirs, Blancs and Mongrels, language and religions various, were côtoyaient without there being world war. Today, that would be called a nation. Within the framework of our work, the rewriting of the old history of Berber was inevitable: we will approach the reasons for which certain ideas, certain designs as well as a terminology, old and especially directed, cannot have course any more, because they underlie a subjective approach of the history of the people of southern banks of 1a the Mediterranean, too often underestimated compared to that of the banks north. The civilisationnelle diffusion systematically directed north towards the south, this writing victim of the historical and europeo-centric North-South dialogue cannot be allowed any more. The change can only fall under a new, more precise terminology and just, in a rewriting expressing knowledge through criteria and designs objectives.

 

[Blueice]

Article originally posted by Rosa - part IV (English translation):

IT there A L 000 to 10 000 YEARS, the FIRST BERBER ones Of AFRICA HUMAN FOSSILS
The thesis of the close relation-Eastern origin of Berber cannot be allowed any more Like it very precisely underlined Olivier Dutour, doctor and anthropologist: "It is indeed on a very reduced number of human fossils which knowledge of the physical aspect of the populations of septentrional Africa at higher Pleistocene puts back * (see glossary), a number which is reduced to zero for the Sahara, except the valley of the Nile" (Dutour 0. 1997, p. 411). The report is alas extremely true, but it should not prevent us from exposing the little of knowledge which we have on this subject. In North Africa, at the end of Paleolithic * - more precisely called Épipaléolithique * in the Maghreb - then with the Neolithic era * (table I), there exists, according to the classical theory, two modern varieties of Homo sapiens sapiens. Oldest is that of Mechtoïdes, of the name of Mechta el-Arbi, in the south-west of Constantine, one of the two sites north-Algerian, with Afalou Bou Rhummel, in the east of Béjaïa, where this human type was identified. It is the equivalent of the Man of Cro-Magnon in Europe from which it differs only by some physical characters (and perhaps they, both are not, which varieties of a more old African form). Mechtoïdes are the authors of the culture known as "ibéromaurusienne" which one can go up today up to 22 000 years LP (21 900 more or less 400 years LP in Taforalt in Morocco) (see LP and BC with glossary). The populations mechtoïdes of the Maghreb mainly lived in the areas of the littoral and Tell, but their presence is attested more in the south, in the High Plains and the Saharian Atlas in Algeria, like in the Top and Average Atlas in Morocco. The term "ibéromaurusien", evokes contacts between Spain and the Maghreb, as thought it P. Pallary which identified this facies in 1899, but it is known that it of it is nothing.


Online translation: http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr

 

[Layla27]

To say that every tribe has its costume, is inexact, every region has its traditional garment as in all countries of the world

I don't know if you ever visited Morocco or not but saying that each region has its traditional garment is incorrect. Try to go visit the area around ouarzazate and u will understand what I am talking about. Each tribe ( or group of tribes) over there has its own way of dressing though they all live in the same region.

If the princesses in their displacements through Morocco carry the specific dress of the region, I think that will make pleasure to the citizens
To wear always the caftan, gives the impression that there is only one Moroccan traditional garment, and that is reducing in view of the wealth cultural of this country

Rosa, when the princesses go on official trips inside morocco, they usually wear modern clothes (i.e., suits). Kaftans are only worn at galas and night ceremonies, and those are usually organized in the cities where most women wear Kaftans for such events. Plus Kaftans are considered to be a 'united moroccan' outfit regardless of the origin of the person wearing it.
Also, and I might be mistaken here, people from 'Dar al Makhzen' (royal bloods and people working for them) have a certain tradition of dressing and they don't change it.

 

[abir]

i guess it's the same in other royal or presidential palaces, the guards and servants cloths are different to what normal ppl wear

Hi Zineb, as you said royal family/guards/servants/ traditional costumes can differ (a lot or not that much) to what normal people wear today. We see this in many countries. I beleive they are costumes with old style, as it was in decades or hundreds years ago.

 

[rosa]

I don't know if you ever visited Morocco or not but saying that each region has its traditional garment is incorrect. Try to go visit the area around ouarzazate and u will understand what I am talking about. Each tribe ( or group of tribes) over there has its own way of dressing though they all live in the same region.


Rosa, when the princesses go on official trips inside morocco, they usually wear modern clothes (i.e., suits). Kaftans are only worn at galas and night ceremonies, and those are usually organized in the cities where most women wear Kaftans for such events. Plus Kaftans are considered to be a 'united moroccan' outfit regardless of the origin of the person wearing it.
Also, and I might be mistaken here, people from 'Dar al Makhzen' (royal bloods and people working for them) have a certain tradition of dressing and they don't change it.

What you call difference, for me these are not differences because the cut of the dress is the same, what changes is details and not the general aspect of the dress
on this photos these are ladies of " Dar El Makhzen " all wear caftan, I think that it the day of the throne, every year it takes place in a different city, why when it happens in Marrakech, the princesses don't wear the dress of the region of Marrakech, when it takes place in Agadir the dress of the region of Agadir, I don't say that the princess must abandon their tradition, but from time to time it would be nice to dress otherwise

 

[Monalisa]

Q.Rania in some great evening dresses from Elie Saab,100% inspiration from moroccan "takchitas"(2pieces)

full view from the coronoration dress a guinine moroccan takchita!

full view of takchita,exactly the same cut in profile.

moroccan takchita for the coronoration of queen rania,a white one for the wedding of P. nour,and a brown one from Elie saab for asma assad!

a white one for the wedding!