Loading ...Sewing together Palestinian history
For some, when you mention Palestine, images of war, bombings and destruction come to mind, most forget that Palestine has a rich and beautiful history and a colourful culture.
Taita Leila is a project that challenges these ideas and brings together Palestinian history through a different language: the language of thread. The core idea of the project is to produce modern clothing inspired by traditional Palestinian dress, reviving and restyling embroidery in a way that Palestinian grandmothers would be proud to wear it. The team behind the project research, repackage and rework items with this “language” in mind, decoding the meaning behind it to share it with the wider public.
The social enterprise employs and empowers local Palestinian women who know how to embroider and make handcrafts of all kinds to retell the story behind every type of Palestinian dress. Taita Leila works with different villages and co-operatives to make designs that can be incorporated into a modern wardrobe.
The first thing that draws your attention to the project is its name: Taita Leila. Taita is an Arabic term of endearment for grandmother and Leila is the lady who is the inspiration behind the project. Her full name is Leila Hussein Fakhri Khalidi, author of “The Art of Palestinian Embroidery” that retells the stories of old traditional dresses from Palestine.
Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com