Gamal Nkrumah wonders why Egyptians decline to adopt a national dress Click to view caption In many countries traditional costumes are symbolic of rank and wealth. Indeed, it is now considered the height of fashion to effect the ethnic look. Gucci is said to be planning their new winter collection entirely inspired by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's cloak-and- swagger wardrobe. But, in Egypt traditional dress is frowned upon. This was not always the case. The men of Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom wore wrapped loincloth and by the New Kingdom wore pleated kilts of starched white linen. Women on the other hand were enveloped in body-hugging sheaths of transparent white or natural-toned linen. But such decadent costumes will not suffice with the contemporary Egyptian Islamic-oriented conservative dress code. For many a people, national dress is a question of national pride even where the substitution of nationalism by consumerism is clearly evident. The exquisitely beautiful sheath dress with mandarin collar and side slits is still a common sight among ethnic Chinese women in places like Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Thai women have their pha sin and Koreans their han bok. Ghanaians have their distinctive kente, proudly worn in Roman toga-like fashion on special and stately occasions. Nigerians, too, have their voluminous flowing robes, the agbada. Indians have their saris, Indonesians their sarongs, and the Japanese their kimonos. The Scots have their tartan and kilts, and British royalty has its distinctive Balmoral tartan. Closer to home, the kings of Morocco, and their subjects, don the traditional Moroccan caftan, an ample hooded robe on official occasions such as coronations or royal weddings. The Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula have their ogal. And even the closest of Egypt's neighbours, the Sudanese to Egypt's immediate south, have their colourful thoub for women and the glistening white gilbab and matching turbans for men. Yet, the very people whose celebrated ancestors invented the notion of national dress with all the full splendour of their distinctive regalia, do not have a contemporary traditional attire. Why? Historically, the Turco-Circassian aristocracy of Egypt adopted Western dress when the socio-economic and political foundations of modern Egypt were established not long after the French invasion of Egypt in 1798-1801 and the reign of Mohamed Ali (1805-48). This historic period coincided with the integration of the Egyptian economy into the global capitalist system. Egypt was transformed into a net exporter of raw materials to Europe and a dependent importer of European manufactured goods and luxury items. By 1914, and the onset of World War II, cotton -- from which traditional clothing was manufactured -- constituted 90 per cent of Egypt's exports. Trade policy was based on free trade which favoured metropolitan Britain whose products undersold those produced locally. The traditional merchant class declined and with it their distinctive traditional outfits. They dealt mainly in Sudanese, Arabian and Indian goods and were therefore influenced by the costumes of these countries. The gibbah and koftan became the preserve of religious clerics. And the ebaya is still occasionally seen in traditional quarters such as Islamic Old Cairo. The fact that Egypt was driven by external forces instead of the internal logic of its own development mechanisms meant that the ruling elites mimicked their European counterparts and fast acquired a taste for the most obvious appurtenances of Western culture, including style of clothing. The middle classes soon took to the Western-style formal dress already embraced by the elite at the turn of the 20th century, this style soon becoming one of the signature styles of the epoch. The emergence of a ruling elite composed in the main of large landowners of mainly, but not exclusively, Turco-Circassian origin, followed. The Egyptian peasant was meanwhile systematically dispossessed because of debt. Peasants fled the countryside and left for the cities in droves. In the city peasants forsook the traditional gallabiya in favour of Western dress. The presence of large Greek, Italian and other Europeans in the great and cosmopolitan urban centres of Cairo and Alexandria further encouraged Egyptians to abandon their traditional costumes. The rise of a new Egyptian urban middle class called effendiya, first generation urbanites from notable rural families who took advantage of expanded education and employment opportunities, further eroded the position of the gallabiya. The effendiya adopted Western dress, with the quaint addition of the tarboush, a red headdress. The effendiya donned ifrangi (literally Frankish or Western) attire. The gallabiya is the dress of the fellahin, the peasants. A suave and urbane Egyptian would not be caught dead in a gallabiya, disparagingly dismissed as the wretched garb of the country bumpkin. The Western suit soon emerged as the hallmark of civilised Cairene officialdom. First Egyptian men, and later women, embraced Western dress. Women were, to begin with, relatively more sheltered from the onslaught of the Western cultural invasion. On the other hand, to the Western mind, the veil was seen as a symbol of female oppression in the Muslim world. On March 1919 some 500 upper class Egyptian women in veils staged a demonstration against British occupation. Feminist Huda Sha'rawi's daring act of defiance, unveiling herself at Cairo Railway Station in 1923, had trend-setting repercussions on female dress in Egypt. The return of the veil, with a venom, in contemporary Egypt speaks volumes. Western visitors mistakenly assume that the female Islamic dress code is the traditional dress of Egyptian women. While historically, the Islamic dress code has influenced fashion in Egypt, there is no such thing as a universal Islamic uniform. Head-covering, the hijab, as a form of resistance to Western cultural hegemony is a relatively new phenomenon. It gave an entirely new meaning to identity politics. The niqab has also become a symbol for communication, or lack of it. An increasing number of urban women now shroud themselves in shapeless gowns in muted colours or severe black. It is interesting to note that under the Shari'a law there is no prescribed punishment for the failure to observe the female Muslim dress code -- unlike say stoning for adultery, or flogging for alcohol consumption. Each Muslim woman decides how she interprets the Islamic dress code. This creativity is widely displayed on the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities. Muslim women's attire has become heavily politicised in many parts of the Muslim world, Egypt included. To its supporters, the hijab confers an aura of respectability. Women, its advocates argue, are not seen as sex objects and judged simply for their beauty or lack of it. The hijab wards off unsolicited sexual advances and sexual harassment. Today the spread of the veil has even been associated with increased and unacceptably high levels of pollution in cities. The History of Costume by Braun and Scheider is an interesting pictorial guide that depicts, among various other nationalities, the inhabitants of the late 19th century Egypt in their traditional costumes. Carefully detailing class, gender and regional differentiation in dress, The History of Costume sheds some light on the diversity of dress in Egypt at the time. The pictorial guide also took cognizance of the subtle variations in the apparel of different professions or trades such as water seller, fruit vendour, servant, tambourine player, and clearly shows that at the time Western influence on Egyptian attire was minimal, and especially among the labouring classes. The book, however, failed to reveal that by that time the Turco-Circassian aristocracy that nominally ruled Egypt had begun the uneasy process of reinventing themselves in the image and likeness of their Western colonial overlords and benefactors. Today, regional variation in traditional dress is most noticeable among the least Westernised of the Egyptian populace such as the Bedouins of both the Eastern and Western deserts, and the Sinai peninsula. Other groups such as the Nubians, with a strong sense of regional identity, also have their distinctive white robes and turbans. The Nubian women, like the women of Upper Egypt, or the Sa'id, are traditionally draped in uncompromising black. The traditional black tob of the Nubian and Sa'idi women is an outer garment worn over more colourful dresses. In the Delta, dresses are even more brightly coloured and are often more indiscreetly revealed underneath an optional black outer garment. The peasant women of Lower Egypt traditionally wear the ebaya which need not be black, in fact until quite recently loud and eye- catching colours were preferred. But, increasingly the drab urban hijab and khimar have come to predominate as the consecutive waves of religious conservatism permeate all facets of social life. Footwear, like the bulgha, a pointed toe leather slip-ons, has become extremely rare. It has largely been replaced by Western shoes, slippers and sandals. But the traditional headress has survived the onslaught of Westernisation. Men in Lower Egypt often don the ta'iya, a distinctive Delta peasant headdress. In Al-Monoufiya, a Delta Governorate, it is exaggeratedly elongated. In Al-Gharbiya it is short, almost a skullcap. Some Delta fellahin occasionally imitate their Sa'idi compatriots of Upper Egypt and in winter wrap the ta'iya with a shawl in turban-like fashion. Shawls, the traditional kufiya, are popular in most parts of the country. In the Delta they are worn in winter as a talfiha. Men usually wear more muted coloured shawls while women favour the more vibrant tones or the black muslin tarha, or veil. The bedouins of Sinai and the Eastern and Western deserts have their distinctive clothing. Black is the predominant Bedouin dress colour for women. The Bedouin women's characteristic garments are richly embellished with fine hand embroidery -- mostly in red, pink, orange, yellow and turquoise -- worked in cross stitch. The intricate dress designs are artistically embroidered across the front and back of the bodice. Married women wrap a black cloth known as asaba around their forehead. The once celebrated melaya laff, a veil of suggestive see-through black material that urban women daintily draped themselves in, has sadly all but disappeared.
