Ethics, Embroidery and Which Stories Get Told, Wafa Ghnaim on the Power and Practice of Palestinian Dress

About this episode

Wafa Ghnaim discusses the significance of Palestinian dress and the narratives surrounding it.

A child's dress rescued from the roof of a bombed-out museum. A mother teaching her daughter her ancestral embroidery techniques. A Miss Universe contestant confused over just whose traditional clothes she's trying on on a field trip. Cultural appropriation, erasure, silencing. Joy, close looking, reframing perfection. On International Women's Day, it feels timely to publish this important episode with Palestinian dress expert Wafa Ghnaim , as we look through the textiles lens to ask: who decides which stories get told, and from what angles? Where do colonial narratives lurk, how can we challenge them and why should we? Wafa is an art and dress historian, fashion researcher, embroiderer, curator, and the founder of the Tatreez Institute, specialising in Palestinian embroidery, dress, and adornment. In this compassionate, nuanced conversation we start behind the scenes at the museum, and end on every woman's right to tell her story, pass it down - and live in peace. If you find the interview valuable, please help us share it. Find links and further reading at thewardrobecrisis.com Support the show on Substack - wardrobecrisis.substack.com Tell us what you think. Find Clare on…

People in this episode

Host: Clare

Guest: Wafa Ghnaim

Topics covered

• Palestinian dress
• embroidery
• cultural appropriation
• colonial narratives
• women's rights

Keywords

• textiles
• art history
• fashion research
• Tatreez Institute

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Palestinian embroidery

Books & works: Miss Universe

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