The Palestinian Thobe and Traditional Clothing: History, Meaning and Regional Styles

The Palestinian thobe (also written thawb) is the long, loose dress worn by Palestinian women for centuries, cut from cotton or linen and covered in cross-stitch embroidery called tatreez. Until the middle of the twentieth century a thobe told you where its wearer came from: the colors, the motifs and the cut of the chest panel changed from Jaffa to Jerusalem to Gaza. This guide explains what a thobe is and its parts, how to read the embroidery, the regional styles, the headdresses worn with it, what Palestinian men traditionally wore, and how the thobe is worn today at weddings, protests and in fashion.

What is a Palestinian thobe?

A thobe is an ankle-length dress with long sleeves, worn loose over the body and belted at the waist with a sash. The word is simply the Arabic for "garment" and is used across the Arab world for men's and women's robes alike; in Palestine it means the embroidered women's dress above all. Everyday thobes were plain dark cotton with a little embroidery. Festive and wedding thobes were dense with tatreez, sometimes taking a year or more to stitch, and were built to last a lifetime and be passed on.

What makes the Palestinian thobe different from other Arab dresses is the embroidery. The patterns, colors and placement of the stitching identified a woman's village or district, her marital status and often her family's means. Women learned the motifs from their mothers and grandmothers, so a dress was a record of a place and a family as much as a piece of clothing.

The parts of a thobe

• Qabbeh (chest panel): the square embroidered panel below the neckline and the most important part of the dress. Its motifs and colors were the clearest sign of where a thobe came from.
• Banayiq (side panels): long embroidered strips running down each side of the skirt.
• Shinyar (back panel): the embroidered lower back section of the skirt.
• Sleeves: embroidered at the cuff and often along the length; some regional styles had long pointed sleeves called irdan that could be tied behind the back while working.
• Fabric: hand-woven cotton or linen, often indigo-dyed black or dark blue in the villages, and silk-and-linen stripes in wealthier towns such as Bethlehem.

A short history

Palestinian dress has deep roots and has absorbed influences from every civilization that passed through the land. Early garments were simple and unadorned; trade and cultural exchange gradually brought richer fabrics, more elaborate embroidery and brighter colors. During the Ottoman period the integration of fine fabrics, intricate embroidery and vibrant color became prominent, marking social status and regional identity. The twentieth century brought further change as upheaval and the diaspora blended old and new elements.

A Palestinian woman in traditional attire in the late 1800s.

Tatreez: how the embroidery tells where a dress is from

Tatreez is the cross-stitch embroidery that covers the thobe. Each region had its own stitch density, colors and motifs. The coast favored lighter, more open designs; the hill villages used dense geometric work in reds and purples. Common motifs include the cypress tree, birds, the moon, the comb and dozens of geometric forms with names drawn from daily life. Red, black and green dominate, and the particular shade of red could itself point to a town. Tatreez is still stitched today, on thobes and on modern clothing, and we cover it in more depth in our guide to traditional dress across the Arab world.

Regional styles of the Palestinian thobe

Urban areas often showed more elaborate, sophisticated designs, while rural regions had simpler but equally meaningful patterns. Below is a quick overview of the main regions and their differences.

• Jerusalem: the Jerusalem elite followed Damascus fashions, which in turn were influenced by the Ottoman court in Istanbul. Fabrics were imported from Syria with several specialist shops on the Mamilla Road. Wedding dresses were ordered from Aleppo and Turkey. From the beginning of the twentieth century the upper classes began to wear European styles.
• Galilee: collections show a distinct Galilee women's style from at least the mid-nineteenth century: a coat (jillayeh), tunic and trousers. Cross-stitch was little used; women preferred patchwork of diamond and rectangular shapes and other embroidery techniques. In the 1860s H.B. Tristram described village costumes as either "plain, patched or embroidered in the most fantastic and grotesque shapes". Towards 1900 Ottoman fashions such as baggy trousers and cord edging came to dominate. Before the arrival of European color-fast dyes, the Galilee grew indigo and sumac for blue and red dyes.
• Nablus: women's dresses from villages around Nablus were the least ornate in Palestine.
• Bethlehem: Bethlehem and neighboring Bayt Jala had the most elaborate dress in the country and were known for fine couching stitch work, used on the panels of the malak (queen) wedding dress, popular with brides from the villages around Jerusalem. The panels came to be produced commercially in Bethlehem and Bayt Jala, and among wealthier families the groom paid for the dress, so the work became a display of status.
• Ramallah: a great variety of distinctive, finely executed patterns, typically in red and black cross-stitch on white or black linen.
• Hebron: dense, all-over embroidery in deep reds and purples on dark fabric; some of the heaviest tatreez of any region.
• Gaza: black or dark blue thobes with narrower bands of embroidery, often in red with touches of mauve, and distinctive striped fabrics from the Majdal looms.
• Lifta and Bayt Dajan: near Jerusalem and Jaffa respectively, among the wealthiest communities in their areas, and their embroiderers among the most artistic.
• Majdal: today part of Ashkelon, the center for weaving the striped cotton and silk fabrics used across southern Palestine.

Modern couching stitch from Bayt Jala, traditionally used on the panels of the malak wedding dress.

The Bethlehem costume is called royal because it is so rich that it is described as "the queen of dresses" in Palestine. It is made of a blend of silk and linen woven in bright multi-colored stripes, with a short-sleeved jacket that glistens with embroidery and a high, fez-like headdress bearing the coins of the dowry. Christians and Muslims wore the same style, with Christian women adding a small cross on the chest panel. From Threads of Identity: Preserving Palestinian Costume and Heritage by Widad Kamel Kawar.

Headdresses and jewelry

Headdresses were as regional as the dress. The tarboush and the taqiyah were common caps, often decorated with coins and embroidery that marked the wearer's district and status. The smadeh, a headdress worn by married women, was typically trimmed with embroidery and coins. Another headdress, the shatweh, was made of broadcloth embroidered with silk, embellished with red beads and rows of coins across the front, with a chin chain carrying a large coin at the center.

A shatweh headdress with a row of metal coins attached to the front.

Belts (zinnar) and silver and gold jewelry completed the costume. The coins on a headdress were a woman's dowry and personal wealth, worn in plain sight, and pieces were passed down as heirlooms.

What Palestinian men traditionally wore

Men's traditional dress was plainer. In the villages a man wore a long shirt-like thobe over baggy trousers (sirwal), a sash at the waist, and over it the qumbaz, a long coat open at the front, often striped. A woolen cloak (abaya) went on top in winter. The head was covered by the keffiyeh held with an agal cord; townsmen until the 1930s wore the red felt tarboush instead. The keffiyeh became a national symbol during the 1936 to 1939 revolt and is covered in our keffiyeh guide.

The thobe today

The thobe did not disappear with the twentieth century. It is the dress of Palestinian weddings and henna nights, where the bride's embroidered thobe carries her family's heritage. It appears at national celebrations and at protests, where women wear it as a visible statement of identity, and the dress was carried into exile after 1948, where regional distinctions became markers of a shared national heritage. Rashida Tlaib wore a Palestinian thobe to be sworn in to the US Congress in January 2019, which set off the #TweetYourThobe campaign, and designers in Palestine and the diaspora now cut thobe panels and tatreez into modern silhouettes. UNESCO inscribed the art of embroidery in Palestine on its list of intangible cultural heritage in December 2021, and museums including the Palestinian Museum and the Museum of the Palestinian People hold large collections.

Leila Khaled wears a keffiyeh while visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in 1970.

Traditional elements in modern clothing

The fusion of traditional Palestinian elements with modern clothing has become a trend of its own. Designers and brands, including Native Threads, use tatreez patterns, the keffiyeh and the flag colors on everyday T-shirts, hoodies and jerseys so that the heritage is worn rather than stored. Our Palestine FC concept jersey carries tatreez patterns of the kind found on thobe panels, with the keffiyeh pattern across the shoulders; the Palestine watermelon and tatreez hoodie places a tatreez band on the back; and the embroidered Palestine oversized hoodie and Palestinian Jaffas T-shirt take the colors and the orange-grove heritage into modern cuts. The full range is in the Palestine collection.

Learn more

Two books are the standard references: Palestinian Costume and Jewelry by Yedida Kalfon Stillman, Palestinian Costume by Shelagh Weir (British Museum Press, 1989) and Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora by Wafa Ghnaim, alongside Widad Kawar's Threads of Identity quoted above.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Palestinian thobe?

A long, loose, long-sleeved dress worn by Palestinian women, cut from cotton or linen and decorated with tatreez cross-stitch embroidery. The embroidery on the chest panel and skirt traditionally showed the wearer's village or district.

How can you tell where a thobe comes from?

By the colors, motifs and stitch density of the embroidery, especially on the chest panel, and by the fabric. Ramallah used red and black cross-stitch on linen; Bethlehem used couching in gold and silver thread on striped silk; Hebron used dense reds and purples; Gaza used narrow bands on dark cloth.

What is tatreez?

Tatreez is Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery. Its motifs, such as the cypress tree, birds and the moon, carry regional and family meaning and are passed from mother to daughter.

What do Palestinian men traditionally wear?

A long thobe over sirwal trousers, a sash, the qumbaz coat, and the keffiyeh with an agal cord. Townsmen wore the tarboush until the 1930s.

Can you buy an authentic Palestinian thobe?

Yes, from Palestinian artisans and cooperatives in the West Bank, Gaza and the diaspora, and from specialist boutiques. A hand-embroidered thobe takes months to make and is priced accordingly. Native Threads does not sell thobes; our pieces take the embroidery and colors into modern clothing.

What is the Palestinian wedding dress called?

The bride wears an embroidered thobe. In the Bethlehem area the richest version is the malak, or queen, dress with couched silk and gold thread on the panels.