Object Note
This tunic dress (kandurah) is part of a three-piece ensemble, along with the Omani overgarment (ZI500128a OMAN) and the Omani underpants (ZI500128b OMAN).
Object History
On a winter’s day in 2015, Dr. Reem saw a group of female Omani performers at a function held at the desert winter camp of Sheikhah Hamdah bint Mohammed Al Nahyan, the maternal aunt to the late Sheikh Khalifah bin Zayid Al Nahyan. Dr. Reem was very taken by their dresses and ordered this three-piece ensemble from a woman who makes them in Oman, not thinking that one day they would form a part of the Zay’s Collection.
Object Features
This simple tunic dress kandurah features a plain, unadorned neckline. Its distinguishing feature is that it is made of relatively thin satin cotton compared to that of the cotton silk threads used in Syria to stitch the (saya), which is a type of (jallabiya) popular in Aleppo and Hama.
The other thing of note regarding this kandurah is the decorative embroidery around the sleeve cuffs, which is a combination of white cotton machine embroidery overlaid by hand-stitched black and turquoise blue embroidered geometric shapes made up of rectangular stitch patterns. At the top of the two cuffs are a repetitive looped line and above this another line similar to the zigzag. Metal buttons were used to close the decorative cuffs.
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