When fashion travels across societies, it carries with it the character of its place of origin, reflecting the customs and cultures of its people. Fabric and costume were not only a facet of the local social identity of Egypt, but also expressed the artistic, political, economic, and social identities all around the medieval Islamic world. In his writings, 12th-century Muslim polymath al-Jazari underlined how fashion was inseparable from identity and chose the turban as a symbol of the Arab persona.

Legacies and Influences

By definition, fashion is the clothing heritage that is seamlessly passed from one generation to another. There is one incontrovertible rule, however: nothing stays exactly the same. Clothes and costumes develop and evolve across time, and each modification and fashion trend builds upon the previous ones. The fundamental nature of fashion heritage is cumulative; like energy, it can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only transform from one form to another.

Egyptian fashion heritage has both preserved and displayed Egyptian identity through myriad influences across the years. Several factors have contributed to the exchange of artistic influences in fashion between Egypt and other countries of the East and West. The power and influence of Egyptian culture throughout antiquity had profound influence on many aspects of life in the region, not least when it came to fashion. In later Islamic eras, the trade and exchange of costumes, clothes, and textile goods between Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt's position as a trade link between the East and the West further contributed to the multiplicity of influences.

The production of tiraz, for example, involved an industry of considerable size throughout the medieval Islamic world. Tiraz were luxurious embroideries, sewn onto garments (usually as armbands), and typically bearing the name of the ruler. Artists, manufacturers, and weavers frequently moved between different factories—private (tiraz al-khassa) or public/commercial (tiraz al-‘amma) ones—during the Abbasid Caliphate. This no doubt contributed both to the diffusion of artistic influences and to the development of an identical industrial character for clothes throughout the regions under Abbasid rule.

Clothing became an expression of both the political and the religious identities of the rulers at the time, and many Islamic countries began attaching the tiraz band to their garments. A good example can be seen in the remains of a linen garment decorated with silk threads that are woven in the form of two bands of opposing Kufic inscriptions. Between the bands, we can see drawings of 16 animals. The inscriptions read ‘Bismallah (In the Name of God), the Compassionate, the Merciful. There is no God but Allah and may Allah's blessings be upon Muhammad, Seal of the Prophets and upon his good family. May Allah grant His blessings and happiness to the Caliph, servant of God, al-Fadl the Imam al-Muti‘lillah, Commander of the Faithful, may God prolong his existence. This was ordered by the vizier—may God strengthen him—to be made in the tiraz al-khassa (royal factory) of Misr (Egypt), under the direction of Fa’iz, a servant of the Commander of the Faithful’. The most important characteristic of these inscriptions is that they include the name and titles of the Caliph al-Muti‘lillah. It also gives us to understand that the order to weave the clothing item was made by his minister to the weaver directly, and mentions the weaver's name, Fa’iz. The garment along with its band were made in the official workshops in Egypt called tiraz al-khassa.

A further tradition which may have contributed to the propagation of Egyptian fashion influence was that of the sultan's khil‘ah (robes of honour), considered one of the most important textile gifts in the Islamic era. The sultan or caliph would bestow on his relatives and loyal supporters his most valuable clothes as honorary gifts and decorations, which they in turn would wear during public ceremonies, creating a demand for this type of fashion among the nobles of the era.

The open borders, the qualitative multiculturalism in Islamic societies, the Hajj (pilgrimage) trips, and the relations of marriage and kinship that linked Egypt to various countries of the Islamic world, all these elements also helped in the exchange of fashion between Egypt and other Islamic countries.

Evolution and Innovation

Egyptian clothes were made of many different types of fabric, including linen, wool, cotton, and silk. In ancient Egypt, linen was frequently used to make both clothes for the living and shrouds for the dead. Linen and wool continued to be used copiously in the manufacture of clothes well into the early stages of the Islamic era.

When the Byzantines introduced silk to Egypt as a raw material, this was one of the first signs of foreign influence on the raw materials of the Egyptian clothing industry. Cotton, however, remains the one raw material that has garnered the most fame and has been known for its optimal quality throughout the history of Egyptian textiles. It offers an example of the universality of Egyptian fashion, as it was in great demand on global markets and in various countries of the Abbasid Caliphate. Similarly, Egypt copied the cotton fabric printing method used in the Indian subcontinent. Hence, cotton, whether in its raw or manufactured form, represented an exchange of artistic influences between Egypt and the world.

Cotton and silk were considered complementary raw materials in the manufacture of costumes and primarily provided the threads added to adorn the garment after the weaving process was finalized. They were used to create ornamentation or decorations on the surface of the woven cloth rather than as a main raw material in the structuring of warp and weft on the weaving loom.

Craftsmanship and Ornamentation

Due to the multiplicity of methods for making and decorating clothing, especially during the Islamic era, there was continuous exchange of technologies and approaches. One of the most famous of these was the kabaty method, pioneered by the Copts of Egypt. It is an ancient method that relies on creating the textile decoration during the manufacturing process itself by passing the ornamental threads through extended unconnected wefts along the width of the fabric, so that both the processes of manufacture and decoration take place together. The best example for that is offered by Samuel ibn Morcos's turban, which is the oldest extant turban with inscriptions in Kufic script. It reads, ‘This turban belongs to Samuel ibn Morcos and was made in Ragab of the year 88 ...’ Some ascribe its origin to the city of Sanhour in Fayyum.

This method became the most popular way of making and decorating costumes and even influenced Chinese silk fashion. China produced a type of cloth known as kabaty silk (silk tapestry), meaning that the base material was silk, but the craftsmanship and decorative technique was kabaty. Leather clothes, as well, were ornamented in what became known as kabaty leather (leather tapestry) style. Egyptian kabaty textiles and costumes gained worldwide renown and were often presented as diplomatic gifts during the Islamic era. This type of textile also filled the markets of the Arabian Peninsula and became synonymous with Egyptian costume of the time.

Themes and Influences

The artistic themes and decorative elements on each costume in all their sensory and aesthetic formations represent multiple meanings and values. The decorations on Egyptian costumes throughout history reveal the Egyptian artistic identity, while also incorporating decorations from other cultures as well.

Among the masterpieces of Mamluk costumes and clothing, we find the blue and white textiles made of cotton and decorated with wax print or batik dyeing and printing methods. These were gifted to the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun and bear the typical inscriptions of his name. Some of them also display the double-headed eagle that symbolized him. These same masterpieces include Chinese elements and the Chinese (Tchi-Tchi) cloud patterns.

Egyptian fashion was also influenced by a foreign style of decoration known as waqwaq (talking trees). Attributed to Japan, which was known in ancient Arab sources as the ‘Lands of Waqwaq’, the patterns are of tree branches ending with human and animal heads.

Conversely, Egyptian fashion in the Islamic era was also a very strong source of inspiration for European textiles and arts in terms of themes and decorative elements. European products reflected a great deal of the Islamic artistic character, represented by elements such as Arabic letter decorations and the use of floral and geometric ornamental motifs inspired by Islamic arts. During the Fatimid era, for example, Fatimid motifs were used in the decoration of textiles in Sicily, of which the mantle of Roger II is a particularly famous example. Sicilian clothes became imbued with the Fatimid artistic character, and items such as Sicilian ivory boxes often incorporated Fatimid ornamentation such as that seen on metallic lustre ceramics.

International diplomatic relations with the countries of Europe and the exchange of official embassies in the Mamluk and Ottoman eras also contributed profoundly to the variety of clothes in both European and Egyptian societies and offered a window on different clothing cultures. There is the example of the costumes worn by the ambassadors of Venice when they visited the court of the Mamluk Sultan Qunsuah al-Ghuri in Egypt, where their depiction reflects the extent of artistic exchanges between Egypt and Europe at that time. A further example is that of sixteenth-century Poland, where woven and embroidered belts were produced. These were entirely Islamic in character but were known as ‘Polish belts’.

Fashion was, still is, and always will be a representation of the lives and identities of the people who wear it, radiating creativity, beauty and artistic complexity that cannot be found in any other applied art. The weaver has the ability to transform threads that, in themselves, do not carry any decorative or expressive values. Through treating, flocculating, dying, preparing, and then weaving, the weaver effects a miraculous transformation and produces a beautiful costume that combines functionality with aesthetics and represents a universe of creativity and sophistication.