Tatreez Untangled: The Story of Palestine’s Trademark Embroidery
Amidst geopolitical crises, industrial adaptation, and overall transformative eras of history, humanity has persisted in preserving unique ethnic practices that signify the world’s cultural patrimony. In Palestine, one such tradition is tatreez.
The unique pattern of embroidery serves as a cultural parallel to the nation’s political history and remarkable heritage. It remains one of the most pivotal tools in the artistic expression of Palestinian liberation, according to Wafa Ghnaim, the Founder of Tatreez & Tea, an initiative dedicated to the teaching and preservation of tatreez.
“When you say you’re Palestinian, you have to be prepared to defend yourself — with knowledge, with the pen, with the tongue, and if necessary, with other means. So to make that expression, to say that you are Palestinian, it means that you become a target, or that you could offend someone. I don’t think people in other parts of the world know that,” Ghnaim told Palestine in America.
The practice of tatreez is not only an embroidered reflection of Palestinian determination, but it’s an artistic language that vocalizes indigenous stories. Tatreez does not solely exemplify a folk tradition that has persevered in the face of mass displacement and systematic genocide; it wades into a complex narrative on what it means to be Palestinian. Hearing the cultural perspective from active and esteemed Palestinian embroiderers, such as Ghnaim, bridges the collective and individual identities that have formed through the reclamation of tatreez.
Tatreez, like other traditions, cuts through the fanatical rhetoric that invalidates the cultural and geographic presence of Palestinians in their homeland. As a Palestinian in diaspora, you are merely viewed as a vexed geopolitical conflict, not as an impressionable individual with a unique ethnic heritage. Ghnaim discussed the true meaning of being a Palestinian by addressing stigmas surrounding our existence, socio-political stigmas that taint the world’s perception of Palestine. Tatreez is key to the artistic belonging of Palestinians outside the scope of political conflict. Elaborating on this matter, Ghnaim shared one of many primary initiatives in her teachings of Palestinian embroidery:
“I feel a very strong oath in my work to always talk about our history and our current condition, and I feel like that is part of my art activism,” Ghnaim said. “I do teach Palestinian embroidery, but more importantly, I teach about Palestinian history and Palestinian life and humanity.”
Ghnaim, who was born in the U.S., started to learn tatreez from her mother at age two. Her mother, Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, who is also a master of the craft, was born in Safad, Palestine, where she too learned to do tatreez from her mom.
Continuing in her mother and grandmother’s footsteps, Ghnaim became the first Palestinian embroidery instructor at the Smithsonian Museum, and earlier this year, she became an artist in residence at the Museum of the Palestinian People. As such, Ghnaim spreads an art that has its own rich history of repurposing and resolve.
Many excellent preceptors and global project leaders, such as Sara Jayyusi, also have a strong drive to expand the figurative literacy of tatreez. Jayyusi, along with her husband Omar Daylaq, are the founders of Deerah, a traditional fashion brand centered on sustainability, which promptly challenges Western ideals by embracing fine Palestinian array. When asked about the origins of Deerah and its raison d'etre, Jayyusi elaborates on the devaluation of tareez both in the cultural sphere and fashion realm:
“I felt like [tatreez] was so underrated, it was so under-appreciated. With Deerah what I wanted to do was to give it a nice platform where it looks nice, where I knew I could do that, where I could make clothing that is appealing to the newer generations, but at the same time holds authenticity of our culture and our heritage, and put it up as high fashion in the level where it needs to be.”
Passionate artists like Joanna Barakat have reconstructed this emotional labor into murals of resistance. Barakat is adroit at creativying the Palestinian experience and she particularly excels in embedding figurative motifs in her embroidery, oftentimes boldly narrating elements that critically challenge colonial ideals. The embezzlement of tatreez carried out by the champions haute couture is a persistent issue, as Palestinian stitch-cross patterns continue to be draped on exclusive runways in the name of Western fashion.
Tatreez, among all other formations of artistic resistance, have become increasingly popularized. The collective reclamation of tatreez paves leeway for more appropriate and inclusive representations of Palestine to cascade the fashion world, and Joanna Barakat vocalizes prevailing attitudes on fashion exploitation of Palestinians all over the world.
“I would love everyone to appreciate Palestinian embroidery as an indigenous Palestinian language and artform that needs to be preserved and cherished. It is evolving with fashion, art, and design and will always be integral to Palestinian visual language since it carries the energy and stories of our ancestors. I urge people to learn about it so that they can consume and produce it consciously,” Barakat told Palestine in America.
While current geopolitical circumstances have exploited and erased the intrinsic value of Palestinian culture, the conscious effort made by artists in diasporic communities has helped such traditions to persist, even in spite of dwindling conditions. Cultural educators like Ghnaim, Jayyusi, and Barakat signify the miraculous diligence of the Palestinian people.
Photos by Sara Jayyusi
The Journey of Tatreez
Tatreez is a unique Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery that distinguishes itself with lush color schemes and intricate patterns. It emerged in the Middle East nearly 3,000 years ago. Embroidered garments, otherwise known as a thobe in Arabic, date back to the 11th century in Ottoman Palestine. The craft is a tangible cultural application belonging to the Palestinian people and has demonstrated both individual and collective artistic expression.
The folk tradition was passed down intergenerationally from mother to daughter and often served as a rite of passage for young Palestinian women crossing the threshold of their adolescence. Contrary to other well-documented cultural traditions, tatreez was passed down orally for hundreds of years. The ongoing systematic cultural appropriation of Palestinian praxis inspired secret teachings of tatreez. This commenced as a means of preserving the folk tradition and protecting its authenticity from global commodification and economic exploitation. The cultural magnitude of tatreez sprawls far past what meets the eye, as it symbolizes female empowerment, political resistance, and Palestinian liberation.
One unique aspect of tatreez is that each region traditionally wove their own motif in the embroidery. Palestinians in mountainous areas in the west favored black fabric; northern communities were far more fond of white cloth. With industrialism and developments in the efficiency of textile production in the late 19th century, each Palestinian niche had adopted distinctive cultural emblems characteristic of their community. For instance, tatreez sewn in Jericho typically include vivid floral elements. Villages within Khalil habitually embrace flamboyant blue color varieties with fabricated moons. On the contrary, tatreez in Ramallah reflects nature, typically depicting palm trees and cypresses with deep red threading. The idiosyncratic tatreez patterns of each cultural faction embody the alluring nature of Palestinian artistic resistance.
In the early 20th century, the role of tatreez in Palestinian society extended far beyond the realms of fashion. Women prioritized their independence, and prior to the exodus of 1948, the manner in which women adorned their stitched garments contributed to their social prestige. Female embroiderers took great measures to embed elegance and beauty in their cultural attire. They did that by importing luscious materials such as silk brocades, precious metals, and linen from Lebanon and Syria. During this era, tatreez was not only unique to each village, but the motifs of each embroidered garment represented the unparalleled stories of the woman wearing them. After the Nakba in 1948, Palestinians practically abandoned tatreez because of the rising geopolitical conflict and tremendous immigration influxes. The growing environmental hostility meant that women were expected to take far more significant, proactive roles in society, leaving little room for recreational embroidery. It was not until the ‘60s when the tradition gained its traction again.
The Palestinian women who rehabilitated this old tradition did not have knowlede of the customary techniques practiced by the generations before. There is little information on the stylistic themes of tatreez during the post-Nakba era of the ‘50s. Geographical conflict and forced displacement devastated the craft, and because of the hostile political climate, Palestinian women no longer had access to the material means or discretionary time to embroider like they once did.
Tatreez in the ‘60s exemplified Palestine’s harshly declining economic reality. The once intricate motifs became over simplistic, the lush textiles were substituted with basic cotton linens, and industrialization replaced the authentic manual process with newly developed technological machinery that lacked the Palestinian touch. The fiber threading and material filaments that once portrayed regional identity and social status had been disrupted by the dwindling economic circumstances, as had traditional Palestinian lifestyle in its entirety. Tatreez, which had historically served as an eloquently woven cultural identification for Palestinian women, had been foresaken by this time.
The Nakba had devastating consequences, including the immediate displacement of at least 750,000 Palestinians and potentially hundreds of thousands more in the decades that have followed, spinning the diaspora across illegally occupied territories and producing refugee camps in neighboring countries. This historical catastrophe prevented Palestinians from continuing on the tatreez, and it was not until the ‘70s that tatreez returned to prominence. A conglomeration of Palestinian liberation organizations began spawning during this era, which ultimately transformed tatreez from an artistic tradition into a political emblem. Tatreez began to exemplify the Palestinian identity beyond the lines of sartorial art. Prior to the establishment of Israel, women generally favored embroidered stylistic differentiations on the basis of regional identity. Afterwards, however, there was a collective cultural shift in expressing political resistance artistically through tatreez. Tatreez was a medium to vocalize the right to self-determination and statehood, a form of artistic expression unique to the Palestinian struggle.
By the ‘80s, tatreez had transformed into stitches of identity with the Palestinian experience, the legacy of intangible cultural attributes, the unique reflection of political action, and the intergenerational perseverance through state-sanctioned oppression. The collective efforts made in achieving Palestinian sovereignty had been supported by the politicization of tatreez and its capacity to serve as a fabric of resistance. In 1980, the Israeli government imposed a law that completely prohibited all artwork with underlying political themes, alongside forbidding any artwork that possessed the four colors of the Palestinian flag (black, white, red, and green). This feeble attempt at censorship, which lasted until 1993, elicited only greater creativity in the expressive works of Palestinian artists. The refusal to abide by such repressive rules, even with the risk of detention, blossomed avant-garde methods of resistance, such as the famous Intifada dress. The Intifada dress was popularized among Palestinian women in the ‘80s and ‘90s who stood in mass protest against Israeli oppression. The pattern typically depicted repetitive Palestinian-themed silhouettes and patriotic motifs across a thobe’s chest piece. The folklore stories and political calligraphy encapsulated in the Intifada dress continues to be a vivid portrayal of Palestinian history and national heritage.
