My thing with men clothing in Arab countries

Something I don’t usually talk about - clothes - although I pay a great deal of attention to the way people dress anywhere I might be, and I also am quick to critizise the way they dress too, because I have a weird but very definite taste about what fits who and how ... Unless, of course, the person gets the real secret of looking good : being confident with what you wear, whatever it is. Make the others believe the clothes you’re wearing are exactly what you wanted to wear and the look you have is exaclty the one you wanted to get (even if it’s not). That’s one of my hidden cliché-french sides for you then.

All that aside, for years I’ve been evaluating traditional and modern clothing in all the places I have visited for what they look like in general by people wearing them (regardless of the bad or good exceptions on individuals), and after all those years the first place for the best looking clothes ever, for both men and women, is always occupied by the same ones : for women, the indian sari, of which I will speak in a future post. And for men ... The traditional and modernized-traditional arabian dress, the stuff that includes most of the time now :

• the white thawb / thobe / kandura / dishdasha / etc: the arabic names for this long white dress as seen on the Gulf princes on TV.
• the black overcoat or bisht. 
• the keffieh / shimagh / etc : it seems they had a ton of different names according to the region for the head-dress.
• the iqal : the (usually) black cord that keeps the latter set on the head.

Knowing that if we take old orientalist paintings and old pictures taken in arab countries into account, the clothes were much more colorful and with more variations in the past (and in my opinion, even more beautiful ... Seriously, what’s better than a well-wrapped turban ? Some of the afghan people were well-minded to keep that style). Nowadays it pretty much goes down to the above elements with few variations : white, black, possibly creme and brown for the bisht, and red or black checkered keffiehs. Sometimes I even saw a wild grey thobe or even a black one ... I guess it is due both to modernization, like everywhere in the world everyday things and clothes tend to become simplified, and also maybe to the wahhabisation of clothes : getting rid of anything that might appear ostentatious or too rich (colours, extravagant patterns, gold threads everywhere, etc). I would have prefered seeing more diversity but well, I can’t say the black and white simple stuff doesn’t have its own charm, since it is still n°1 on my list !

Why is it my favorite ? I can’t really say. I just know that in my eyes even the ugliest guy could attain some sort of class by just wearing it. I think most of people say that of an Armani costume or something western and expensive well-known brands. So if the guy wearing it is handsome ...

Everything in these clothes fascinate me : the moves like old greek statues’ drapes and the swoosh-sounds given by the movements, the fabric, the cut, the differents ways of wearing it. I have the same sort of fascination for my favorite haute-couture designer, Jean Paul Gaultier, but the arabian clothes have the advantage of not wanting to be fashionable at all.

It might also be that my totally subjective tastes makes me say that arabic is the most beautiful language of the world (even though I also like the sound of anything from italian to pashto, or any semitic languages, but if you want me happy, you’d better talk in arabic, preferably with oriental dialects), and that my own personal prototype of prince charming is definitely arab-looking, but still ... Way before learning a single word of arabic or knowing anything about middle eastern cultures, foreign clothes fascinated me, especially the oriental ones. Proof of my almost objective tastes in clothing is that, not knowing anything about indian culture, I still maintain that the indian sari is the best for women ( followed in second by arabian abayas and other women robes, yes, I admit. And middle-age european costumes, definitely.)

And I wonder why I am quite alone in having this fascination for arabian clothes. I actually bought in Jerusalem, for a cheap price, a white thobe and a black bisht, the vendor must have wondered why I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the clothes hanging with others by his little shop’s door and why I didn’t even bother haggling at all before buying it, but he saw me walking away with my bundle quite happy ... It just hangs there in my dressing among my other (wearable) clothes, with no use in perpesctive at all, but it makes me happy, looking at it from time to time.

The other day I was roaming inside the university library, in the usual part of it (arab world) where whole shelves ar dedicated to arabian gulf countries, and reading through some article I discovered that this dress was imposed on men quite the same way the black abayas are on women (sometime maybe to a lesser extent, but still), and it suggested that if some sort of revolution were to happen in these countries, this imposition might well be broken and most of the guys would start wearing western clothes, the way they all do when they have the choice ... And reading that made me so sad. I am deeply upset by this stupid cultural westernization of the world. How can you trade something so classy and comfy at the same time, the thobe, for something so average and not comfy at all like blue jeans and shirt ? (I tried the women version of both and the comparison doesn’t stand : the first one is definitely better on all sides). Just because some singer wears it in some stupid song ?

       Another awful thing I saw in my travels in the arab world (outside gulf countries) is this tendency of men, when they want to appear "serious", "responsible" or classy or something, to dress with particularly ugly western outfits. It's like watching a old TV series with out-of-fashion clothes with ugly colours and patterns. Or like my university professors. A university professor in France, especially in the languages department, just don't get it, they must live so outside of the normal world that they got stuck in the 70's or the 80's or something. White shirt, black pants, black coat, that's the minimum to look O.K. Forget the brown, the patchy, the weird grandpa patterns. And in the arab world they worsen it with the mustache. I can't abide with the mustache ... A beard is way better (I won't stress it enough), or even nothing, but why in the world would anyone want to wear a mustache ?

I can only hope that the «hype» sort of things will get more multicultural and world-level, instead of only western based, so that some guys on this planet will keep wearing beautiful clothes out of choice ... and women beautiful ones too. And slims are not among them in my book, except on very particular occasions. 

P.S. : I just read that interesting article about the UAE "national dress" ... It does have mysterious powers !

أكتب هنا عن حبي للملابس العربية خاصة الملابس الرسمية في الخليج  (الثوب والبشت وكل ذلك ولها أسماء مختلفة حسب المنطقة فلا أعرفها كلها ... ) والملابس التقليدية في العالم العربي. أفكر أن الملابس الخليجية هي الأكثر جميلة على الرجال مقارنا لأي ملابس أخرى وكذلك أن الساري الهندي هو الاكثر جميل على النساء دون أي ملابس آخر.

سأحاول أن أترجم كل ذلك قيما بعد, بعد الامتحانات. ولكن يجب أن يعرف العرب أن ملابسهم أفضل وأجمل بكثير من ملابسنا البلهاء في الغرب, وهذا رئي كفتاة غربية التي عاشت في الأردن والتي شافت النوعين (الذين مع الثوب والذين مع الجينز)