Object History
This overgarment (thawb) was made by a female Emirati clothes maker in Dubai, who sold garments such as this to her neighbours in the local community. It was bought by a lady from that area, who wishes to remain anonymous, who in turn sold it to The Zay Collection.
Object Features
This is one of the older overgarments (athwab) in The Zay Collection, as such, shows the naivety of earlier versions. The fabric is synthetic, paper thin, open mesh, with teardrop-shaped cutouts, known locally as (damat_farid).
The primitive nature of the garment is clearly evident in the way the sleeves are formed. An overgarment (thawb) has equal size sleeve panels (jinan) that typically are attached on the left and right of the central panel (bdinah) balancing the garment. In this example, the garment is lopsided, as the right sleeve is part of the central panel bdinah while the left sleeve is rudimentarily stitched (lagt_yad) to one side.
The hand-made decorative work simply outlines the neckline and central axis (bidhah) in simple lines of straight stitch or chain stitch using silver metallic thread (zari).
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