Oman's Dress Identity: Preserving a Part of History
Muscat, Oman is a place of contrast. Newly constructed tarmac roads wind through gaps in ancient mountain passes. Luxury cars zoom past trucks carrying goats and camels. Old fishermen’s dhows silently bob in the Muttrah harbor, in the shadows of oil tankers and cruise ships. These contrasts of the old and the new are embodied in the black and white of the local dress: Omani men proudly don the traditional crisp white dishdashas, and Omani women flaunt the latest style of flowing black abayas. Abayas originated from ancient times. In the past 20 or so years, this ubiquitous symbol of the modern Gulf woman is fast replacing traditional Omani dress.
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Aisa Martinez is currently a 2007-2008 Fulbright fellow living in Muscat, Oman. Previously, she worked at the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center and interned in the MEI Communications Department. For more information on the Centre for Omani
Dress, please visit http://www.omanidress.com.
