Keeping you informed about Palestinian cultural heritage research, and our work here at the Archive

Keeping you informed about Palestinian cultural heritage research, and our work here at the Archive

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Palestinian embroidery in Australian Gourmet Traveller


You would think that - considering it's beauty - Palestinian embroidery would turn up in modern magazines more often.  Stylists are always looking for lovely materials to use in photographs in home style and travel magazines, etc.  And the fact that many good quality older Palestinian embroideries are on linen and worked in silk cross stitch gives them a lovely texture.

But it's actually quite rare.  Which is why we were delighted to spot a piece of Palestinian embroidery in this month's Australian Gourmet Traveller (page 94 of the Dec 2013 edition).


And such a lovely piece it was, too, with it's classical leech and comb designs in red and black cross stitch embroidery. It looks similar to pieces in our collection from the early 1950s, when the women in the refugee camp embroidery projects began using a more Westernized form of the saru / cypress tree to make their embroideries more attractive to the Western market.


The Gourmet Traveller section features recipes for Christmas / festive ham glazing and is impecibly styled by Geraldine Munoz, a stylist who's work we've admired for some years now.


We were interested to find out where Ms Munoz sourced the piece of embroidery, but rather than a store the provenance was listed as "all props stylist's own".  Like all good stylists Ms Munoz has built up a collection of interesting items - fabrics / decorative pieces etc -


which she can draw upon when the time is right. She may not even be aware this piece of embroidery is Palestinian, as she might have acquired it from a local op shop or vintage textile store either in Australia or abroad. She may have selected it for this styling assignment because of it's Christmas tree like motifs, it's linen texture or it's white, red and black colour scheme.   


Whatever her reasons, we think it's perfect Ms Munoz has used this piece in a Christmas feature - after all it could hardly have closer ties to the Holy Land :)