"While some samples of incredible Moroccan hand embroidery date back to the early 18th century, Moroccan women started this time-consuming occupation long before. Beginning centuries ago, Moroccan women decorated their hands and feet with henna for special occasions. Later these patterns were transferred onto pottery and then into embroidery.The Moroccan newborn baby often gets a beautiful embroidered pillowcase and sheets. The importance of embroidery in Moroccan life can also be seen in the traditional ceremony held for infant girls at the age of four months, when the baby is placed in a chair and given a needle and thimble along with some silk thread to hold, in anticipation of a life blessed with the needle's art, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
When young, Moroccan girls were taught the art of embroidery in special workshops. The teacher, the maalma, would keep all the work as her commission for free training. Clients would come to order new embroideries, or have their old ones restored. In the early 20th century, when the tradition was still strong, more than two thousand women were teaching embroidery in Fez alone. Well-to-do families would buy cotton fabric, oriental silks, and special looms, so their daughters could practice at home the skills and art they learned from the maalma.
A Moroccan girl's dowry -- embroidered curtains, bed covers, tablecloths, and many other pieces -- could easily take a generation to build. Before the wedding, the Moroccan bride would be accompanied to the steam bath, the hamam, wearing clothes embroidered on the sleeves, the belt, the veil, and even the under garments. There were also pieces especially embroidered for the henna ceremony. The wedding sheet, made of crepe de chine
embroidered on the ends, would later be shown to everyone at the party, to prove the virginity of the bride. The girl's dowry was displayed at the wedding to demonstrate the wealth of the family. Sometimes the family rented out particularly magnificent pieces for this purpose.
Cities such as Tetouan, Chaoen, Meknes, Rabat, Salé, Zemmour, and Fez are all known for their unique embroidery styles, techniques, colors, and fabric. Women from Tafilal, in the south of Morocco, Berber Jews, mainly made fantastic embroidered clothes. Fez embroidery is perhaps the most celebrated -- easy to identify because of its highly graphic and geometric design; the triangle represents the eye, but may also symbolize the female sex if there are other triangles in each corner. Unfortunately today, relatively few Moroccan women practice the art of hand embroidery. Many items now are machine embroidered. It is such a pity that this beautiful tradition is slowly being lost. "
Borduurwerk Fez 2009
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