Tatreez & Tea: Books to Read about Palestinian Embroidery
Words by Wafa Ghnaim
Palestinian dress history and embroidery (tatreez) traditions are a vital part of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the Palestinian people. The art of embroidery in Palestine, inclusive of the practices, skills, knowledge and rituals, was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021. While the embroidery techniques, dressmaking traditions and adornment practices are centuries-old, they've been largely preserved within the indigenous context of oral history. Much of the written publications on the art form is incomplete, and oftentimes includes errors and mischaracterizations. This obscurity and confusion has expanded online, contributing to a great deal of misinformation passed from one post to another even within the Palestinian community itself. To prevent cultural erasure, we must carefully preserve the art form in the way it was originally intended: via our Elders. Every student of Palestinian embroidery must privilege the written publications of Palestinian dress historians, as well as Palestinian institutions, as they provide foundational knowledge that cites oral history as evidence. Here are my top publications, written by Palestinian women or supported by Palestinian institutions, who I've extensively referenced in my research.
Wafa Ghnaim is better known to many as @tatreezandtea @thetatreezinstitute
Threads of Identity: Preserving Palestinian Costume and Heritage
Widad Kamel
“Threads of Identity is a history of Palestinian women told through aspects of popular heritage, focusing on traditional dresses but also including textiles and rug weaving, rural and urban customs, jewellery, cuisine, and festivities. The interviews with women who lived through the traumas and changes of the 20th century are a contribution to oral history, augmenting standard historical accounts. While most writing about the Middle East concentrates on politics, her book focuses on the dignity of ordinary people, and women in particular, bridging the gap between the major events of history and everyday life. With this book Widad Kamel Kawar pays homage to Palestinian women.”
Via Palestine Museum US)
Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution
Hanan Karaman Munayyer
“A stunning, 560-page volume, in which Munayyer painstakingly documents the history and intricacies of Palestinian fashion, specifically the legacy of tatreez. Perusing the volume is akin to strolling through a museum, as page after page displays vivid and colorful photos of Palestinian thobes, headdresses, and jewelry—some dating back to ancient times … More than the historical documentation and the importance of tracing Palestinian culture back across centuries, Traditional Palestinian Costume is a project of resistance in itself and quite simply a feast for the eyes. The quality of the photographs and the vibrant colors make it difficult to put down. It is a book to keep close to hand, proof of the beauty and artistry of Palestinian women, from Ramallah to the Galilee, to al-Khalil, to Gaza.”
Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing
Iman Saca and Maha Saca
“This companion volume to the exhibit, Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing, held at the Oriental Institute from November 11, 2006, to March 25, 2007, is an overview of the colorful and distinctive clothing of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Palestine. The richly illustrated text discusses the construction of traditional dresses, the materials and dyes employed, and clothing and embroidery in the years following 1948. Garments from many regions are illustrated and described. The volume includes a glossary of Arabic terms and a checklist to the exhibit.”
At the Seams: A Political History of Palestinian Embroidery
Rachel Denman
“Driven by archival and academic research, primary fieldwork, and interviews with embroiders across Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan, At the Seams hopes to shed new light on embroidery from Palestine, exploring its history and contemporary significance side by side. Clothing is made by the hands to be felt on the body in the most intimate of ways, but has at the same time the ability to reflect, extend and manifest political realities and social urgencies.”
Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora
Wafa Ghnaim and Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim
“Palestinian tatreez embroidery is a centuries-old folk art, traditionally passed from mother to daughter over a cup of tea. In Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora, Wafa Ghnaim brings traditional Palestinian embroidery to life by resuscitating its roots as a powerful, provocative, and profound storytelling tool used by Palestinian women for hundreds of years to document their stories, observations, and experiences — including those from her mother, Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim. With 47 cross stitch patterns; six complete sets of dress patterns; tea, coffee, and quince jam recipes; detailed traditional Palestinian embroidery techniques and rare northern Palestinian Arabic tatreez terminology — each design, history and meaning is documented and preserved. Tatreez & Tea is far more than a book about traditional Palestinian embroidery designs and meanings: it’s an oral history documentation of the Nakba survivors in her family that captures the essence of tatreez stitching circles as they once were and how to recreate them in exile, as well as a way forward to resurrect tatreez as a source of identity—one that guided Wafa as she created a home in the Palestinian diaspora.”
Via Tatreez and Tea
Embroidery Techniques from Palestine: An Instruction Manual
Tania Tamari Nasir, Omar Joseph Nasser-Khoury, Shirabe Yamada, with Widad Kamel Kawar
“The first technical manual to be published on Palestinian embroidery techniques, this book catalogs a wide range of embroidery techniques used in the dressmaking in the Historic Palestine and aims to revive the stitches that have fallen out of use today, such as Tahriri (couching) and Manajel (binding). Each Palestinian embroidery technique is provided with background information collected from older embroiderers in Palestine and the Diaspora, and step-by-step, illustrated instruction for easy learning. The book also features essays on historical, contemporary, and technical aspects of the embroidery in Palestine, and photographs of the traditional costume collection at the Birzeit University Museum in the West Bank. Made through years of museum and field research, it is also an unofficial sequel to Tania Tamari Nasier and Widad Kamel Kawar's 1992 publication, "Palestinian Embroidery: Traditional 'fallahi' Cross-stitch.”
Via Sunbula
