AFGHAN FASHION - PART I

Posted by Lianne Gutcher at 14:03 on 10 Jan 2010

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I was going to blog about this back in October when I bought my very own original burqa dress. Unfortunately, just at that time, the poor man's shop was blown apart by a bomb - for the third time, he tells me - and I thought it best to give him a bit of breathing space before I went along to pester him with my fashionista questions.

My friend Jake, a photographer, discovered the shop and the burqa dresses when he was hunting around for some vintage clothes for a Kabul fashion shoot.

The shop is hard not to fall in love with, tucked down a little alley, stuffed with sheepskin coats and bootees, mannequins that have been there for yonks (evidently blast-proof) and ageing catalogues - like the one above, which, surprisingly, dates from the 90s. I would have guessed seventies.

The man who made my dress is Abdul Jabar. He is 40 but looks older. His family owned a clothes factory in the 70s and started making the burqa dresses then as a bit of fun. They were very popular with westerners, he tells me, not so much with local Afghans. The mesh, which on a real burqa would cover the face, lies across the chest - giving a tantalising glimpse of cleavage... um, if you have one.  

The girl on the catalogue is Afghan. She worked in the factory and was asked one day if she would like to model. Mr Jabar doesn't know her name but says she lives in the States now.

Mr Jabar made about 10 dresses last year which he says were snapped up by the Faransawi (the French) and, of course, me and Jacob.

This year he is branching out and making burqa smock shirts too: 

Business is a bit quiet though, Mr Jabar says. He doesn't get many westerns dropping in any more because of the security situation. They are all confined to their guest houses.

I ask him whether after rebuilding his shop three times, he isn't ready to relocate. He laughs and says he's fine where he is. I really can't fathom it.

And so, partly because this is my blog and I can, but mostly because Jacob Simkin is an awesome photographer, here it is. The burqa dress 2009:

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