Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Clothing

         This is a topic that is very different in the United States and Sudan. In the U.S, they're are many styles and fashion that come out every year, and I guess you can say that for Sudan as well. However, I do not want to discuss the yearly fashions such as animal print or skinny jeans, but the more tradition dress in these countries. 
          In the United States, people just go with the flow and wear whatever is fashion. I don't think there is a traditional dress in the states, but there are fashions that will never go out of style. Such as the traditional blue jeans. Jeans originated in Europe in the 1500's and is still being worn today.
     In Sudan, they all pretty much dress the same. I believe this is due to the fact that they dress more religiously, rather than trying to make a fashion statement. The women wear head scarfs, hijab in arabic. Here is a video to show how to wear a hijab 
                                               
In Islam, women are supposed to cover their bodies from their head to feet. The Hijab covers the hair to respect Gods wishes. They also wear what we call abaya. It's a long gown that is predominately black although can be purchased in other colors. This dress covers the female body from the neck all the way down, long like a dress. There are also many different styles of abayas and they will never go out of style. 
An abaya looks like this 

The Men also have a traditional piece of clothing they wear that will never go out of style. It's call jalabiya. It predominately comes in white but is also available in other colors such as blue or gray. In Islam, men do not have to cover like women do so a jalabiya is more of a traditional wear rather that a religious dress. 
Here is what one looks like 

The difference between the way Americans dress and the way Sudanese dress is that in Sudan they dress more for religious reasons as in the U.S people wear whatever it is they desire. I'm not saying you have to wear these dresses in Sudan, they wear jeans, skirts, and shorts for the men as well, but this is the traditional way they dress. 

1 comment:

  1. I think you have a fantastic compare/contrast topic going on here in how one typically dresses in the Sudan and the United States. Be careful of overinclusion, though, in your analysis of dressing in the United States. There are many religious citizens and residents who dress traditionally; as a matter of fact, we have tutors in the PIER Center who wear the niqab; I just saw two of them the other day.

    So the main thing I want you to think about is qualifying your statements here. "Most" or "Many" people in the U.S. dress per current style; but as you also can tell, many people have different understandings of what style is as well.

    Don't forget to cite your image sources. I think this would be a good post to hyperlink to additional hijab/niqab links. What do you think?

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