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!!??

[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!