Object Note
According to the label, this cloak (Abayat Al Amirat) is made by Nassar and Zaidan company in Lebanon.
Object History
Mr. Jabir Al-Hajiri contacted Dr. Reem Tariq El Mutwalli through Instagram, due to mutual passion for culture and heritage, and offered to help by sending a few articles as a contribution to the Zay collection, including this cloak (abayah). He recalled he had bought it sometime in the past from a traveling salesman (Lilam) or from the flea market (Suq_Al Haraj) in Doha.
Object Features
As a whole any cloak (abayah), (bisht), (mishlah), (dafah), is generally constructed from two rectangular pieces of fabric of equal length (fajatayn) sewn together horizontally.
The two outer edges of each length (fajah) are folded to the middle and sewn at the top to create the shoulder line. The lengthwise folded sides fajatayn thus leave an opening in the middle running the length of the front body section.
Two small holes are opened at the folded line, on the top corners of each shoulder line to allow the hands to pass through creating the sleeves without having to cut and add a sleeve as in most clothes.
The open edges at the center of the cloak (dafah) as it is called in this region, as well as the seams at the shoulders and the wrists, are generally delineated with a gilded cord (qitan). In this particular example silver straw (talli) is applied by hand in two alternating stitches creating a chain; four cross stitches, followed by four stem stitches then repeated, thus it is known as (Mchabah).
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