'Costumes of Egypt: Lost Legacies': An author's bid to save forgotten identities
Art expert Shahira Mehrez talks about her quest to recollect and preserve the Egyptian women’s traditional costumes.
Shahira Mehrez is an Egyptian researcher who has devoted four decades of her life to studying a forgotten aspect of her country's women's history: their traditional costumes.
Her book — “Costumes of Egypt: The Lost Legacies” — released last October, is a four-volume comprehensive and richly illustrated guide to the traditional costumes of Egypt — from Nubia to Siwa.
“The simple people of Egypt, such as peasants, oases dwellers and Bedouins, have preserved for us the rich and diverse heritage of our country, which we, the urbanites, have neglected for too long,” the 80-year-old author told Al-Monitor.
With the advent of Westernization and globalization, she continued, these traditions are under threat. Egyptian society has been seduced by foreign fashions and consumerism, losing its identity and authenticity.
