Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic One day in July the voice of the celebrated Lebanese singer Fairuz drifted up from the Palestine encampment at Cambridge university, a cluster of tents decorated with colourful signs and Palestinian flags under the looming spires of King’s College. The encampment, which closed in mid-August, was set up in May by the student-run Cambridge for Palestine group to protest against the university’s links to companies and institutions which they say are complicit in Israel’s war on Gaza. On that July day, in one of the communal tents, a group of people sat in a semi-circle, concentration etched on their faces as they tried their hand at tatreez, traditional Palestinian embroidery. They stitched fallahi, a type of cross-stitch, and chatted under the watchful gaze of Dina Asfour, a Palestinian-Spanish woman who is one half of Tatreez Collective. The London-based artistic group was founded in 2022 by Asfour and Yomn Al-Kaisi with the aim of preserving the ancient art form through workshops. “I learnt [tatreez] on my own, and then when I went to Palestine, my auntie refined me,” says Asfour, whose family is from Nablus, in the occupied West Bank. She had a yearning to pass on this skill, particularly to other members of the Palestinian diaspora who had nobody to teach them. “For me it was an amazing way to heal from this trauma that I have from my identity, and to feel much closer to what is home for me, as well as Palestine.” Tatreez is a centuries-old art that was originally practised by Palestinian women in rural communities, and passed down from mother to daughter. The patterns are intricate and the colours vibrant, with early motifs representing a woman’s social status. The cotton threads were naturally dyed using plants and spices such as sumac. Asfour explains how the many different patterns within tatreez tell the story of Palestine, from the cypress tree or tree of life motif, which represents the resilience of the Palestinian people, to the colours of the flag, which started to be incorporated into designs after it was banned in 1967 (the ban ended with the Oslo Accords in 1993).The embroidery became an important source of income and an act of resistance for Palestinian women, particularly following the mass displacement of Palestinians, or Nakba, in 1948. But subsequent wars and dispossession have often prevented tatreez from being passed on to future generations, with many fearing it would die out.In the past few years, however, tatreez has been enjoying a revival. In 2021 Unesco added the art of tatreez to its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list. It has been featured in Vogue and garners more than 1,000 results when searched for on Etsy. Wafa Ghnaim, a Palestinian dress historian, educator, and founder of the US-based Tatreez Institute, which was launched in 2022, was taught tatreez by her mother when she was young — she says there are photos of her at two years old embroidering — and describes it as being “intertwined with my relationship with my mother and my grandmother”. When she began teaching tatreez in 2016, people told her it was already “extinct”, but it continued to spread, particularly across the diaspora. Now “everybody’s doing it”, she says. Crucially, the art has “evolved in lockstep with the women who created it”, says Ghnaim. “So it is always going to reflect our experiences, our stories, our history and our tradition, but it can’t stay alive if it doesn’t tell our current story.” For example, Palestinian-American fashion designer Suzy Tamimi includes tatreez in her streetwear designs, using embroidery she has been collecting for more than 10 years or that was custom-made by women in Jenin refugee camp to decorate bucket hats, joggers, T-shirts and hoodies. “My main goal has always been to create a way of relating to the western world, creating a conversation and an interest in where [tatreez is] from. We, as Palestinians, have been demonised for so many decades and haven’t really had the opportunity to show the beauty of our culture and to be viewed as human.” Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Tatreez Collective’s Asfour has seen a surge in inquiries for workshops and a wider variety of people attending, with more people interested to learn about Palestinian culture and show their solidarity. She considers tatreez as a “soft power” tool, a way to make sure Palestine’s important cultural history is not erased. “Palestine is always linked to trauma and blood. But also, we want people to know that there’s more behind that, there is craft, there is history, [ . . . ] there is culture and beauty — not only the politics and the occupation,” she says. Today in Palestine, tatreez has “taken on a new dimension in terms of survival,” says Yasmeen Mjalli, the founder and creative director of the Ramallah-based ethical fashion brand Nöl Collective, who works with local women’s co-operatives and artisans in villages around the West Bank and Gaza. “After the war began, the demand coming from embroiderers just skyrocketed,” she says, explaining that tens of thousands of Palestinian men in the West Bank lost their jobs due to border closures and restrictions put in place after October 7. “We started getting contacted left and right by women who were trying to bring in any sort of extra income that they could to support themselves and their families. And so we went from before the war working with three women to now over 30, and still doing our best to accommodate even more.”For Mjalli, the garments they create are a means to tell the stories about the crafts and the women who create them. She describes tatreez and other Palestinian crafts as a “way for us to archive our history when we’re actively being erased and have been so for the last 70 plus years.” For example, the embroidery motifs also represent different regions and villages, so that when a village is destroyed, “that motif lives on, like it’s an embroidered archival map, if you will, of a Palestine that no longer is”. Back at the Cambridge encampment, as the workshop came to a close each person got to take home their tatreez creations; little pieces of Palestine in their pockets. Maybe they will pass on their new skill to others, preserving an ancient tradition that is woven into the fabric of many Palestinians.Sign up for Fashion Matters, your weekly newsletter with the latest stories in style. Follow @financialtimesfashion on Instagram and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
