But not a real green dress, that's cruel

[qatarperegrine]

When I started reading about Gulf women's clothing, I read about something called a half-niqab.

What I've been calling a niqab, and what Gulf Arabs apparently call a burqa, is a light piece of cloth that covers all of a woman's face, with an opening for the eyes:		A half-niqab covers the lower part of the face, but leaves the forehead visible -- usually more visible than in this picture:

Before last week, we'd never seen anyone wearing a half-face niqab. Women we saw wore either the full niqab or just a shayla. Suddenly, half-niqabs are now everywhere; every time we visit a mall we see at least half a dozen women in half-niqabs.

So what happened? Where did they all come from? My theory is that early summer is half-niqab season, because they're cooler than full niqabs; Justin's theory is that the half-niqab is just suddenly the in thing. Any other ideas?

Comments

I just realized something

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Is that YOU in that niqab!!??

Re: I just realized something

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

She's the one on the left. :-)

I will be curious to find out if the half-niquab is a time-of-year thing or if it's a fashion thing... keep us updated on what you find out!

That's what I meant

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

For some bizarre reason, the image "on the right", is NOT showing for me at all. It was only from your comment, that I inferred it's existence. So it was only by looking at the "source-code" for this entry, that I could find the other image.

Re: I just realized something

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm the one on the left. I don't wear Qatari dress, but I own an abaya, a shayla and a niqab. You can see my shoddy attempt at putting them all on here. There's definitely skill involved, and it's skill I don't have!

[nicodemusrat.livejournal.com]

There was a strike at the factory where they make the sanctioned twisted corbs for niqabs, so all the garment makers had to switch to half-niqabs when their supply ran out...

Okay, yeah, it's probably a seasonal thing. :)

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

According to the site I was just looking at, the half-niqab differs dramatically from the regular one - rather than having a forehead part and lower-face part, it's JUST the lower-face part and it hooks over the ears with elastic. More like a cowboy sort of mask than what I'd thought of as a niqab!

[qatar.livejournal.com]

(oops, I missed this comment when you made it)

Yes, you're right. The picture I chose was a bad one, because it makes it look like the half-niqab is just like a full niqab without the line of string over the nose. If you look closely you can see that the half-niqab is actually lighter black, so you can imagine how much of the face would show if it was worn with a shayla worn Qatari-style.

This probably gives a better idea, though obviously here both parts would be black: