Object History
This item was gifted to the Zay Collection by Sheikha Hamda bint Mohammed Al Nahyan, maternal aunt to the late Sheikh Khalifah bin Zayid Al Nahyan.
Sheikha Hamda was and continues to be, a great supporter of Dr. Reem’s work and efforts in preserving and documenting aspects of UAE heritage and history. She was instrumental in opening the doors to meet with and record the oral histories of many women in al Ain, which culminated in the book (Sultani), Traditions Renewed; Changes in women’s traditional dress in the United Arab Emirates during the reign of the late Sheikh Zayid Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, 1966-2004.
Object Features
Before the 1980s, it was common to employ contrasting colours and techniques within the components of UAE traditional dress. Women used to wear an overgarment (thawb) that contrasted with the tunic dress (kandurah) underneath. Soon this evolved into matching sets known as (thawb_wa_kandurah), where the two garments were made of the same or matching fabrics and colours. By the late 1990s, this evolved further, as the two separate articles were merged into one and became attached at the neckline, utilising the inner tunic as lining and creating a combination overgarment tunic (thawb_kandurah).
This garment is of great importance to the Zay Collection as it is one of the earliest known examples of the combined overgarment tunic dress (thawb_kandurah). It is also an example of the onset of a trend, that started in the late 1980s when two formats or textures of the same print were used in one outfit. The light sheer chiffon silk with gold brocade (bu_ghwani) or (bu_bchat) in large floral motifs, used for the overgarment thawb. While an opaque silk satin version of an identical print, without brocading (zari), reserved for the inner tunic dress (kandurah).
The shared neckline and central axis (bidhah) continue the nineties trend of a larger open neckline that allowed for more cleavage, to accentuate western-style jewellery, and the central axis is broader and extends lower to crotch level. It is adorned with a dense base of machine embroidery in metallic gold (khwar_zari), embellished with scattered floral and leaf forms in metallic green, blue and brown inspired by the motifs of the printed fabric. Clear iron-on crystals (fsus) are then sprinkled over the design to give it the desired extra glitter.
Keywords: mzarai
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