About a dress that reads like a book

Jordanian Ziad Qweider comes from family that originates from Palestine and that has been collecting and cherishing these historic garments called ‘thobes’. “In the past, Palestinian women would sew motifs onto their dresses to represent their heritage, ancestry, the village they originated from, and their marital status. So their thobe was a way of communicating without words. It was a competition between girls to put all of their creativity and talent into the dress, during their free time, often under the trees in the fields where they worked”, says Qweider, who - with a lot of patience and dedication, and inspired by the old garments that have been around him since childhood and conversations with embroidery savvy ladies alike - taught himself the art of stitching motifs onto fabric. The ‘Face From Another World’ collection he presented at the Beirut Design Week was the result of five years of work. He has incorporated the tradition and history into new designs that talk about contemporary challenges.

“My parents’ collection of Palestinian embroidered dresses counts some pieces that are over 100 years old”, says Qweider. Which actually means that many of these artfully worked dresses are older than the occupation of Palestine by the Israelis, which makes them extra valuable since it takes the edge off the often-heard Zionist argument that the Israelis occupied a land that was empty or was in any case without any developed culture worth mentioning... This artistically and historically important collection has never been exhibited before, and until today the family has been reluctant to do so but is now considering to take this step anyway. Only Al Jazeera was allowed to show one piece from the collection on Al Jazeera English Interactive - the piece you see here below.

“This collection shows our history, our identity”, says Ziad Qweider. “In ‘Face From Another World’, the main motif is a tired face, the face of a person who is suffering, who is under siege, who has been crying for a long time. You can see the tension in this person’s face. When I made it, I first had the long suffering of the Palestinian people in mind. But of course it’s recognizable for Syrians or Irakis too, and for all other people in the region, in fact for every human being all over the world since we’re all suffering somehow, and we all hope for a better future. I tried to make a face for our suffering planet. It’s a call to bring an end to suffering, stress and siege. We can break the borders, we can melt down tensions because we are all human”, the artist explains, for whom the feedback from visitors to the Beirut Design Week proved to be very fruitful. “To fully understand the pieces you have to know the code, just like in the old days with the thobe dresses. But if you love the aesthetics of the design, you will instinctively understand the message underneath. As the BDW visitors proved. Some architects showed their interest, and a tile factory was also eager to use the motifs. We might implement the thobe motifs in other media, for instance in 3D bronze”, Ziad Qweider announces. And he concludes: “Is Design a Need? the Beirut Design Week asked. I can answer this question with a clear 'yes': just like it was a need for the girls growing up in old Palestine, it still is today for all of us who feel the need to express ourselves. Through design we communicate, through design we reveal who we are, through design we reach out to other people.”