How Arabic Embroidery Art Is Developed Through Time

The Art Of Embroidery in Arab countries is a peculiar kind of embroidery which has existed for thousands of years ago. Its styles reflect the earlier ideologies even before religions had even existed or evolved.

In the Arabic embroidery, each character symbolizes a certain theme. For instance, the ear of corn symbolizes fertility while the goddess is expressed by the image of a moon. Even the colors have roles in defining the meaning of the embroidery. The primary colors are red, black and white. They symbolize the three phases of the goddess. The purity and fight against evil is signified by the while colors, where the red reflects the second phase of the life of the goddess as a mature woman enjoying love and fertility. Black, on the other hand, represents the goddess, who is old and wise, the oracle. This is why you will find most Arab dresses to be embroidered using these three main colors. Because each of these colors has a different and distinctive meaning and was believed, long time back, to have interacted with body parts, making the person wearing them healthy.

The Arabic embroidery was affected by numerous reasons, the most important of which is the distribution of Islam. Since Islam has distributed in the region, embroidery has become influenced by Islamic writings. The majority of patterns had geometric styles, flowery styles or calligraphy. And as the Quran teachings prohibit the figures of creatures or humans, the embroidery is focused on writing characters in an Arabic Islamic structure. The pictures of pets or human beings were not to be used at all because of the spread of Islam. However some might believe that this could be a limit to imagination, it had in fact pushed people to be more creative as well as impressive with the natural resources they've got in hand.

The Ottoman period was one of the richest periods in terms of fashion and embroidery. It blended the Arabic patterns with the Turkish ones. Several items of clothes available to date reflect the creativity and the very fine detail of the decorative details used at that time. The embroidery, the color, the fabric, the patterns… everything used blended homogeneously together reflecting a rich form of art. Female clothes were richer in terms of patterns and embroidery used as there was more room for creativity and originality.

The art of embroidery transferred from a generation to the next over millenia, since the time of Bedouins and peasants inhibiting the Arab desserts. The same patterns and colors stay alive to date, however, not as popular, as it was one day. Only lately though had this type of art form started to get another form, a more modern and up to date one. The variation of colors, materials and patterns improved revealing more recent types of art, that are more contemporary and up to date, reflecting the status of a world, bringing forward the histories of multiple cultures together.