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Metal embellished silk brocade jacket – Iraq

Local Name	Sayah
Object Category	Overgarment
Gender	Female
Place Of orgin	Asia
Region	Iraq
Object Range	Türkiye, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Kuwait, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Greece, North Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, et al.
Dimensions	Length: cm Width: cm
Materials	Silk Wool Metal
Technique	Machine Embroidered Machine Stitched
Motif	Floral
Provenance	Gifted, Buthaina Al Kadi, Iraq 2018
Location	The Zay Zay: (Arabic: costume, Pl. azyaā’), a set of clothes in a style typical of a particular country or historical period. Initiative
Status	In Storage
ZI number	ZI2018.500576 IRAQ

Object History 
This piece of garment was a gift to from her mother Buthaina Al Kadi. It was eventually added to The Initiative Collection in 2018 to further enhance it.
Buthaina Al Kadi was born in Baghdad in 1936, where she attained a diploma in Education, following which she accompanied her husband Dr. El Mutwalli on his diplomatic missions to Türkiye and the United States.
They finally settled in Al Ain, UAE in 1968, where her husband Dr. El Mutwalli was appointed the economic consultant to the then crown prince the late Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan by his father the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founding father and first president of the UAE.
Meanwhile, Buthaina was appointed as a head mistress to a number of the newly opening girl’s schools in both Al Ain and Abu Dhabi, after the Union of 1972.
They subsequently moved to Abu Dhabi in 1970 and since then the family has called the UAE their home forging intimate and lifetime relationships with the ruling family.

Object Features 
This is an ivory silk traditional Iraqi women’s jacket (),  also pronounced ‘umbaz or ‘imbaz is a long front open, unlined, lightweight silk traditional cloak either with quarter or no sleeves fastened at the waist often worn by both men and women in the Levant, Fertile Crescent, and Najd regions. 

, ), long front open, unlined, lightweight silk traditional cloak with quarter or no sleeves fastened at the waist often worn by men and women in the Levant, Fertile Crescent, and Najd regions.

) with long sleeves and a short collar. The piece is a front-open garment without any fastening.
The field of the ),  also pronounced ‘umbaz or ‘imbaz is a long front open, unlined, lightweight silk traditional cloak either with quarter or no sleeves fastened at the waist often worn by both men and women in the Levant, Fertile Crescent, and Najd regions. 

, ), long front open, unlined, lightweight silk traditional cloak with quarter or no sleeves fastened at the waist often worn by men and women in the Levant, Fertile Crescent, and Najd regions.

is constructed from a fabric with metal and silk of () weave. It has woven floral designs in metallic threads – possibly silver – running vertically down the field of the garment. Rows of similar motifs are repeated with vertical lines also woven in metal threads separating the rows.
A crocheted lace constructed of twisted silk in two different shades of brown and metal threads (kalabbdun), was added by Dr. Reem, as a design element and bonding strip on both sides of the front as well as back.
The front panels on both sides of the plackets are cut in a long godet-like triangular shape that has been attached to the collar with long slits on either side of the jacket which divides the skirt into three segments, thus making it closely resemble an (Üçetek_entari) from Ottoman Turkey. It also features two very deep pockets on either side.
The piece was lined by Dr. Reem, with a fine ivory () possibly of Indian origin, and is completely machine stitched. Dr. Reem also resized it with a plain ivory fabric beneath the arms.

More Info
Iraq, located south of Türkiye, was a significant Arab territory under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for approximately four centuries. In the northern province of Mosul, which was then under Ottoman rule, the prevalent modes of dress were heavily influenced by the fashion trends originating in Istanbul.
By the 1930s, the elites of Baghdad, as well as other urban Christian and Jewish communities, had fully transitioned from Ottoman attire to European-style clothing. However, among the urban Muslim elites and middle classes, the shift towards Westernised clothing occurred more gradually, the vestiges of which are seen through pieces like these which are essentially from a decade or two later.

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