Traditional Palestinian clothing

Palestinian bride in Ramallah dress, early 1900s Fahra Izhak Eadeh was photographed on her wedding day in Ramallah by the American Colony photographers in Jerusalem, sometime between 1898 and 1914. Her long thob is covered in dense cross-stitch on the chest, sleeves and skirt panels, and a long embroidered veil falls over her shoulders. Beneath the veil sits the dowry headdress. In Ramallah a woman's smadeh gained rows of coins from her bridegroom's dowry, and those coins were hers alone to spend, so the headdress was both ornament and savings.