Palestinian conform engineer breathes new life into tradition
JERUSALEM – Palestinian conform engineer Natalie Tahhan is tough during work in her Jerusalem studio, replacing a perfected processes of cross-stitching and elaboration with a laptop mechanism and printed fabric.
Taking impulse from normal Palestinian patterns, Tahhan designs patterns digitally and afterwards has them printed on satins and silks before piecing together her garments.
Her complicated take on generations-old designs has captivated a penetrating following both locally and abroad, quite in a Gulf, where she sells her garments around a web.
“I wanted to do something new, modern, never seen on a market,” a 27-year-old said, as she totalled out fabric during her studio in her family home in Ras al-Amud, easterly Jerusalem.
Palestinians have for centuries painstakingly sewn prolonged black dresses and ornate them with red embroidery, in designs still ragged currently in farming areas and during marriages and other celebrations.
The designs change from segment to segment and tend to contend something about a wearer.
“We can tell where a lady who wears it is from and if she is married or single,” Tahhan said.
Several immature Arab designers have sought to modernize normal wear and pierce a dresses of their ancestors — an increasingly singular steer currently — to a new generation.
Tahhan, who complicated in Doha and during a London College of Fashion, is among a few to do so in Jerusalem. She believes she is a usually one to have deserted normal elaboration for her new method.
As a Palestinian territories miss a apparatus she needs, she has her fabrics printed in Dubai.
They are afterwards delivered to Jerusalem around Qatar and Jordan to by-pass a miss of approach shipments from a Gulf countries to Israel and a Palestinian territories.
– ‘Proof of existence’ –
Maha Saca, executive of a Palestine Heritage Centre in a assigned West Bank city of Bethlehem, says she supports efforts to breathe new life into normal designs.
“Adding Palestinian motifs to complicated wear is really important. It means we can wear a complicated dress with Palestinian elaboration on it,” she said.
The centre, determined in 1991, boasts a largest collection of normal Palestinian dresses.
“Embroidery is partial of a temperament and a explanation of a existence in each Palestinian city and village,” Saca said. “It shows a beauty and brilliance of a Palestinian heritage.”
She is lobbying for normal elaboration to be incorporated into Palestinian propagandize uniforms.
Saca pronounced top-end handmade dresses can cost between $1,500 and $2,000 (1,400 and 1,800 euros) since of a prolonged hours of work concerned and a cost of materials.
She stresses a need to safety palm embroidering techniques, though accepts that garments are being constructed in new and some-more complicated ways.
“We support it 100 percent,” she said.
Tahhan’s initial collection, consisting of 5 white and violet satin capes with shimmering geometric patterns, sole out totally in reduction than 3 months during a cost of $550 (500 euros) a piece.
Most of a sales were to Gulf clients who bought a equipment online.
– ‘Really value it’ –
One of Tahhan’s signature works is a mantle desirous by designs from a West Bank city of Hebron, assigned by Israel for 50 years. The mantle bears a period of blue and pinkish squares over black fabric, and is open during a shoulders.
Tahhan’s light fabrics work good in a Gulf market, where complicated black felt or thick string can turn intolerable underneath a blazing sun.
Her latest collection is called “Prints of Palestine.”
Tahhan’s plcae in Jerusalem, a city holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews, is also a and for sales “despite a obstacles and difficulties” imposed by Israel’s occupation, she said.
Israel seized a West Bank and easterly Jerusalem in 1967. It after annexed easterly Jerusalem in a pierce never recognized by a general community.
Palestinians see a eastern zone as a collateral of their destiny state, while Israelis cruise a whole city of Jerusalem their one capital.
“I wanted to do something as a lady from Jerusalem,” pronounced Tahhan, her prolonged black hair descending over her shoulders. “Why not emanate conform here?”
“People adore a thought of owning something done in Jerusalem, generally Palestinians abroad,” she said.
“When they buy something they feel they are holding with them a tiny square of a city.”-AFP
Article source: http://aaj.tv/2017/05/palestinian-fashion-designer-breathes-new-life-into-tradition/