Traditional Kurdish Dress

Author, Petra Noel-Arthur, wearing a hand-embroidered Kurdish dress, a gift from Kurdish colleague, Fenik Omar, photographed in Erbil during her years living and teaching in Iraq — a moment recounted in her memoir Petra in the Middle East.

Erbil, two thousand eighteen, Kurdish Flag Day.

Good day valued reader,

I was gifted a traditional Kurdish dress by my dear friend and colleague, Fenik Omar, in celebration of, I wanna say my birthday, but it could have been in celebration of Kurdish Flag Day as the two coincided within days of each other. Fenik, like many other Kurdish women I knew in Northern Iraq, had for some time been flabbergasted at the fact I did not have a traditional Kurdish dress given the number of years I had already lived in Erbil. I always stated the one fact as a convenient excuse: I did not know where and what in relation to buying a traditional dress or getting one custom made. But the truth was more layered and nuanced.

When I had first arrived in Iraq several years before, I was living in Soran or Diyana— one of the most traditional cities in Iraq. All women wore the traditional dress, here. I respected and admired not only their commitment to their culture and his preservation, but it's undeniable, undeniable, undeniable beauty, elegance, and dare I say, glamour. And that's the way I saw them, Kurdish women.

I knew from my three months in Diana that the Kurdish dress, if adorned by a foreigner, would undermine the thousands of years of history, grit, and triumph over unspeakable tragedies that characterize the Kurdish people and their region. The men agreed, and I knew (felt) this even before I wore the dress, and it was confirmed the day that I did. Find out what happened in my memoir Petra in the Middle East. Available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover and e-book.