Labour of Love: More About the Exhibition

Patches on the chest panels indicate openings for breastfeeding, which were sewn closed once a baby was weaned. The sleeves are machine-embroidered and use silk appliqué, suggesting that their wearers came from a well-off family. Types of stitching were good indicators of where clothes originated from. The lowest stitches along the hems suggest that the dresses (thobes) were from Hebron, while the zigzag implies Gaza—indicating that their owners lived somewhere in between. 

Patches at the knees reveal their wearers’ sitting positions while they performed certain tasks, such as washing vegetables, grinding wheat, and preparing food. The faded colour on one side of each of the dresses was the result of sitting in one regular place, exposing the sun to one side of the garments more than the other. When delicate parts—under the arms, or at the elbows—wore away, pieces of fabrics from husbands' old shirts were used to patch these up.

As the Israeli appropriation of Palestinian culture became more blatant, the 1970s saw the cementation of Palestinian embroidery as a cornerstone of the revival of heritage and articulation of nationalism. Female peasants in embroidered dresses (thobes)—by virtue of the connection of peasants to the land—were made synonymous with Palestinian endurance. Paintings and illustrations of idealised rural Palestine and women as exemplary mothers, wives, or fighters circulated through posters. This gave embroidery a symbolic dimension that still informs its use today.

As the Palestinian resistance movement intensified, images and illustrations of women on posters became increasingly militarised in the 1970s and 1980s. This reached a pinnacle during the First Intifada of 1987, as the women of Qalandiya camp and the villages around Hebron started to make Intifada-themed thobes. This period thus saw two different but connected articulations of female presence in imagery: on the one hand, as land, mother and history; and on the other, as active fighters in the Palestinian resistance. Both were shaped, in part, by embroidery.

When the First Intifada broke out in 1987, embroidery became a new effective tool of resistance. Whilst Palestinian flags were confiscated in protests and Palestinian colours banned in public, ‘Intifada dresses’ (thobes) were made by the women of the West Bank. National motifs were embroidered onto blue, grey, and black thobes. Some featured the Dome of the Rock, the Ship of Return, which in 1988 attempted to bring back a group of refugees, or the acronym P-L-O (Palestine Liberation Organisation), mingled among traditional motifs. 

As garments worn against the skin, they rendered women’s bodies sites of active political resistance. Embroidery (tatreez), however, was an unlikely tool of protest. Given the time and effort it requires in contrast to street graffiti or painted banners, the hand-stitched is the antithesis of spontaneity. Yet, tatreez reflects the prolonged nature of Palestinian resistance.

Following the Nakba, embroidery (tatreez) became a key signifier of Palestinian rurality, deep-rootedness, and steadfastness (sumood) in the face of Israeli erasure. Women’s physical presence—as representations of tatreez and the associated (if conflicting) virtues of chastity and maternity—embodied such symbolism. Alongside images of the city, olive trees, and the harvest, in the 1970s and 1980s, Palestinian village women became artist-inspiring icons. The artists’ commitment to 'Liberation Art' contributed to PLO’s strategic revival of Palestinian heritage and folk craft. 

These images formed the basis of illustrated posters widely circulated among the public. Though the Nakba eroded many women’s connection to agriculture and changed their relationship with tatreez, post-Nakba paintings and posters reaffirmed their connection to both: rendering women, sometimes literally, flattened emblems of history or resistance.

Hebron was known for the jallayeh, a split-front coatdress made from a thick material, which was worn over the main dress. During the British Mandate period, when social norms around simplicity changed, women sewed up their jallayeh openings from the inside. They came to include solid chest panels or a long permanently fastened slit to retain the acknowledged local style without compromising contemporary taste.

The use of silk and thick taffeta patchwork on such coats was also typical in Hebron and often applied by a professional embroiderer for a fee. The Khayam al-Basha (pasha's tent) motif was also used frequently in the area, alongside symbols of the grape vines that were widely spread across the Hebron hillsides.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many residents of Yaffa worked in the import and export of oranges, cotton, olives, and sesame products, which left their mark on the locals’ dresses (thobes) and embroidery (tatreez). Motifs of citrus fruits and figs were common. 

Southern coastal plain thobes varied significantly due to ease of movement in the area and the resulting cultural influences. Rich and heavy garments with dense tatreez and patchwork in the jallayeh style existed, suggesting origins in the villages west of Hebron. Simpler and slimmer thobes with lighter tatreez, often on white fabric, indicated origins in the villages near Ramleh and Yaffa. 

Gazan thobes were identified by their relatively sparse tatreez, geometric patterns, and pink and red colour palettes. The embroidered chest panel was also standard, echoing the amulets and jewellery worn around a woman’s neck for good luck. The tatreez was usually made on majdalawi fabric, named after the local town of Majdal, an important weaving centre known for fabrics with different combinations of pink and green stripes. 

Bedouin women from the Naqab desert and the southern regions wore black thobes that were larger than their counterparts in the area villages. Two forms predominated: massive and billowy thobes with exaggerated pointed sleeves, and narrow-sleeved ones that were not as wide. The local qladat hijab (necklace) worn with the thobe and believed to have protective powers against the evil eye and envy was predominately triangular. Women wore these dresses with coin and bead-drenched burqas (face ornament), ample silver and amber jewellery, as well as long head coverings cascading down the back of their heads. 

19th-century southern Bedouins’ livelihoods depended on livestock and the transport of goods from Gaza to Egypt. As a result, their clothing shared similarities with that of the Sinai Bedouins. These ventures were affected by the train and car industries of the early 20th century, and after 1948, the Naqab tribes ended up displaced or in permanent Israeli military camps.

Although Syrian tatreez emerged from local traditions, it had a lot in common with Palestinian embroidery, given the proximity of Galilee and the Jordan Valley with southern Lebanon, Syria, and northern Jordan. The interrelation, exchange, and movement between these communities during the Ottoman Empire made Galilee a diverse region for fabrics and clothing traditions. Syria was a major producer of fine silks, which made their way to central Palestine through these northern towns. Both southern Syrian and Palestinian traditions shared the predominance of the cross-stitch and favoured geometric patterns. The garment cuts were similar too: the pointed-sleeved dresses and open jallayeh coats were popular among women in both areas.

Beit Dajan was famous for its fine tatreez, with small and perfect stitches. The area was at the crossroads of Yaffa, Gaza, Haifa, and Ramleh, giving local women access to numerous designs from others further afield. In the 1920s, a new type of embroidery on Beit Dajan dresses became popular—a couching stitch with silk and silver cords called rasheq. Introduced by a woman from Bethlehem who came to live in Beit Dajan, the style caught on. However, white threads were used rather than the silver or gold ones typically used in Bethlehem embroidery.

As with dresses, the forms and styles of women’s headdresses varied regionally across Palestine, but almost all were characterised by heavy ornamentation with gold and silver coins. These coins were financially and symbolically linked to the dowry a groom was obliged to pay. After covering wedding expenses, the father would provide his daughter coins for her headdress along with gold and silver jewellery, which together constituted her share of the sum given for her hand in marriage.

Headdresses and jewellery were important status symbols for a woman and her family. The value of the ornamented headdresses constituted a woman’s personal property that she could add to or spend from as she wished, such as removing coins to help with improvements to her home or farm. Apart from some ceremonial headdresses, worn only at weddings, most headdresses were worn by their owners every day. They marked a woman as married and kept her wealth on her person. Women reportedly developed headaches when headdresses were removed due to their tremendous weight.

Embroidery (tatreez) played an important role in weddings, with girls embroidering their bridal trousseau from a young age. The wedding preparations could take months, even years if money was short, as embroidery silks were expensive and only bought by those who could afford them. At times, embroidered dresses (thobes) appeared to have been worked on by different hands, whether it was because a girl's stitching technique improved over time or because the women in her family assisted her. 

The trousseau consisted of a special thobe embroidered by the bride for her wedding day, another thobe worn on her first day out as a married woman, everyday garments, and at times, cushions and bedding for her home. The headdress was an important marker of maturity, often strung with hundreds of silver coins which signified a woman’s marital as well as her financial status.

Despite tatreez’s status as a domestic handicraft, local industry and international trade in textiles played a significant role in its production. From the mid-19th century, cotton, linen, and wool were made in Palestine and locally woven in several main towns, with other textiles coming from Syria, Egypt, and Europe. The British Mandate, as well as increased imports from Europe and Asia, contributed to the introduction of new fabrics into Palestine, and foreign cotton was enjoyed for its novelty and quality. 

Some 19th-century village thobes included panels or scraps of European cotton or fine velvet in eye-catching positions. Bethlehem and Jerusalem taqsireh jackets were also frequently lined in British cotton as a sign of wealth and prestige.

Although tatreez was predominantly an individual pursuit, with women embroidering for their personal wear, there were always women who embroidered for the local market. Bethlehemite women were famous for their tahriri couching technique, and as it became increasingly fashionable, women from elsewhere in Palestine commissioned or purchased couched sleeves or chest panels to add to their wedding dresses.

The introduction of sewing machines in the late 1920s and early 1930s meant that machine-made embroidery could be added to hand-worked garments, offering extra income for women who owned one. Foreign tourists who visited religious pilgrimage sites bought embroidered mementoes, such as hand-made shawls and canvases with the words Jerusalem or Bethlehem stitched in English.

In 1965, Inash Al-Usra was founded by a group of Palestinian women, led by Samiha Khalil, in Ramallah and Al-Bireh. The association supported hundreds of families in need. By gathering regular donations from locals, the organisation established a culture of giving within the community. Their work included social solidarity projects, supporting families who had lost their breadwinners, or whose income was affected by imprisonment or injury, university scholarships, and aid to the Gaza Strip.

Inash Al-Usra’s vocational training centres and home-embroidery projects were also very active. By June 1988, 2600 women were embroidering locally, earning up to 60 per cent of their salaries through this work. Even when their offices were raided in 1988 and shut down for two years by the Israeli authorities, Inash Al-Usra rallied to serve their community and continued their activities in secret.

Although this thobe came from the city of Al-Bireh, it includes taffeta sleeves with Bethlehem couching embroidery, indicating its owner’s high social status. During the 1930s and 1940s, when women's dress collections increased in size and value, Bethlehem women produced hand-embroidered dress panels and ready-made garments for the local wedding market. Similar cottage industries surfaced in Hebron, Ramallah and Majdal, disseminating the emerging fashions to local villages.

Inspiration for tatreez patterns came from flora, fauna, architecture, religious fashion, carpets, mosaics, daily life, and even local political events. Market days and extended family celebrations brought women into contact with villagers from different areas of rural Palestine. On these occasions, a woman committed to memory a motif spotted on someone else's dress and rushed home to embroider it. Misremembering or creative license turned it into something new, a novel motif specific to the woman’s village, with its own name. She in turn passed it on to her friends or daughters. 

The introduction of cars and buses in Palestine in the 1920s allowed women to travel further distances, prompting greater circulation of designs which seamlessly entered the cycle of inheritance related to tatreez.