Dress Up: Negotiating how to exist between different identities and cultures

Photo source: @imaginingtheholy. Photographer: Thomas Abercrombie (1974-1975)

Words by Ayat Al-Muhaisen, Edited by Noor Palette

I would often meet my mother at the end of the narrow hallway of our Amman home. A dominating presence despite her petite stature, my mother faced me in her signature stance - a subtle lean to the right, with one hand placed on her lowered hip. The crop top and leggings, she informed me, could not be worn together. I needed to wear either a longer shirt or a looser pair of pants. Ma biseer ya Ayat, this is not okay, too much, hada el wade3 kteer la Amman, in Amman I won’t allow this, yalla go change habibti before your Baba sees this nonsense. My repetitive protestations that I had zero alternatives, since any other option would seriously “ruin my look,” were again met with an austere stare. Although I knew the second I slipped in the outfit that I would be forced to change, I still tried to leave the house in this “inappropriate” look.

Confrontations of this sort between my mother and me were routine (and are still ongoing today, albeit the argument has become more subtle); during holidays spent back home in Amman, I would test the waters and push the boundaries of my physical appearance - how much Vancouver can I bring in?

Nevertheless, this type of style play was not exclusive to my time in Amman. Once back in Vancouver, I also engaged in style play as I attempted to cultivate a “Western” look by embracing the athletic-leisure style that my peers seemed to value while also trying to find ways to mark my Arab ethnic identity through the body. The latter project usually involved heavily adorning myself with jewellery. To assert my Jordanian identity, I wore rings on every finger, stacked eight or so necklaces on top of one another, and let large gold hoop earrings dangle near my face. The Arabic calligraphy that was part of almost every piece’s design was a purposeful tactic - yes I am Muslim, yes I am Arab. Baba would chuckle at the excessiveness of it all as I left for school in the morning; waaaaaal, why so much ‘Allah’ around your neck! Mama thought it was sweet; wear it all, the eye and ‘Allah’ will protect you.

From a young age, I used what communications scholar Emily Zaslow calls style play as an identity project - sometimes conforming to and sometimes refusing normative femininities. It was, and still is, through my clothed body that I began to negotiate and control my uncertain identity.

In dressing ourselves, young Arab women engage with multiple social discourses of (Islamic) modesty/piety, sexuality, tradition, modernity, social class, and proper-improper femininity. Through such engagements, we negotiate lived tensions involving pleasure and anxiety, self-expression and regulation, dressing “for oneself” and for (internalised) others.

Playing with our appearances is far from frivolous - in fact, these bodily tactics are rife with socio-political meaning as we negotiate how to exist between different identities and cultures as well as consider how we may contribute to the intimate, generational communities of care that are built and maintained, among Arab women, through ~beautification~ processes.

Growing up, I would often sit in my mother’s room as she got ready for an evening out. Laying out all of her “options” on her bed, Mama always asked for my opinion and together, we would build her “final look.” While posing with my mother's handbags was exhilarating, the more special moments were when Mama and I sat together on her bedroom carpet, looking through her jewellery collection.

With each piece of jewellery came a story that Mama would share with me. Dangling a charm bracelet that she had collected pieces for all throughout her teenage years close to my face, Mama told the story of each charm - where she bought it, what it meant, etc. I felt a strong sense of pride as I was invited into her past. Mama showed me pieces of jewellery that she had received from aunts, uncles, and parents over the years. To this day, Mama remains most proud of the pieces that were handed down to her by her mother, pieces that once belonged to her grandmother - Jedda Rajha, the woman Mama is named after. From a young age, I sensed how Mama draws connections to her maternal lineage through the pieces of jewellery that dangle from her neck, ears, and wrists. In adorning herself with her grandmother’s jewels, Mama connects herself to a woman she never met but seems to fiercely know and love.

I learnt about my own mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother through the simple moments spent sitting on Mama’s carpet trying on jewelry. I stay connected to the matriarchs of my family through treasures passed down to me by my mothers.

I consider these bedroom moments crucial to discussions of mother-daughter relations in Arab society. Far from frivolous, these practices of material exchange work to cultivate and maintain a sense of identity and belonging among women in Arab society. Considering how in Arab (specifically Muslim) society, name nationality, and inheritance are passed on through the father, these intimate networks of exchange are perhaps the only ways in which Arab mothers are able to ensure that a maternal lineage and identity is preserved.

Find more of Ayat here: @ayat.almuhaisen