Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology

Tales of a Layered Identity: When Fashion Meets Ethnography in Sardinia

In her tale "Maledizione" (Curse; published this year in Italian, still untranslated in English at the time of writing this post), Sardinian author Bianca Pitzorno tells the story of a revengeful woman.

This lady is jealous of her beautiful maid Vittoria Palmas who has attracted the attention of a wealthy foreign man nicknamed by the locals "Gadoni". The young man asks for Vittoria's hand and the envious lady commissions a dowry set for her maid that includes among the kitchen linens also a small tablecloth with a motif designed by the lady herself.

Remedia, the young embroiderer who should work on this piece can't read, so she doesn't realise that the letters form a curse with the power of instantly kill the newly-weds. The young and enthusiastic embroiderer, though, decides to make some additions to the tablecloth that looks unadorned to her eyes. She loves nature and animals and creates on the tablecloth a wonderful natural scene that will have some very unexpected effects on the couple and on the lady as well.

The mysterious tablecloth with the cursing spell, the starting point for this tale, actually exists: it is preserved in the ethnographic section of the Sassari-based Giovanni Antonio National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography and it was chosen by Alghero-born fashion designer Antonio Marras to become part of an exhibition he recently curated.  

This museum features in its collection a variety of archeological remains and artefacts, but also a rich ethnographic section with costumes, textiles, wood and ceramic objects donated by private collectors such as Gavino Clemente, a member of a famous family of cabinetmakers and a collector of traditional pieces. 

The traditional Sardinian costumes preserved at the museum, dating between the late 1800s and the second half of the 1900s, document the attires of the islands, but in particular of the northern and central parts of this Italian region.

The tablecloth that fascinated Pitzorno, embroidered around the 19th century in Barbagia, Sardinia, is an extremely rare piece. The author translated in her tale the curse in Italian, but also included in the book a representation of the embroidered words with the original message (in the local dialect) of the malevolent spell (scanned and featured in this post) invoking consuming flames, agony and pain on the unfortunate victims.

While this is a mysterious and disturbing artefact, there are other fascinating pieces featured in the event curated by Marras, entitled "Sulle tracce di Clemente" (On the Trail of Clemente; until 18th June 2022), and organized in the museum section dedicated to Gavino Clemente.

The event is conceived as a dialogue between archaeology, traditions, music and literature and opens with an installation featuring female figures in a fantasy attire.

These figures, wearing traditional skirts layered one upon the other, raised on their shoulders to form a shawl or covering the traditional baskets piled up on their heads, represent the janas, legendary fairies from Sardinian tales, but they also hint at the layered cultures of Sardinia and at the possibility of combining different influences and inspirations to create juxtapositions, comparisons and parallelisms and generate an entirely new hybrid identity.

Fashion and traditional costume fans will rejoice at the richness of the pieces on display also in other sections of the exhibition: immaculate white shirts with brocaded or intricately embroidered bustiers take indeed centre stage among amphorae and cercamic pieces from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages.

Some of their floral or geometrical patterns are echoed in the decorative motifs of the finely pleated skirts incorporating brocaded fabrics or embroidered elements, on display on the walls of the museum.

The shirts (sa camisa), bustiers (su cossu) and skirts (sa gunnedda) are key elements of the Sardinian costume, but also staples in Marras' collections and installations. The designer has always been fascinated by layered styles that symbolise the Mediterranean, Phoenician, Byzantine, Arab. Catalan, Spanish and French influences (clear in the rich variety of the local costumes...) on Sardinian culture.

Accessories and in particular silver headdresses, embroidered silk satin hats and jewellery - from necklaces and filigree brooches to silver and coral rosary beads - complete this exhibition that could be considered as a unique mix of ethnography, fashion and literature as well. 

Some of the artefacts are indeed accompanied by a QR code that allows visitors to read tales by Bianca Pitzorno, Antonella Anedda, Flavio Soriga, Marcello Fois, Francesco Abate and Elvira Serra inspired by the pieces on display.

The words of their stories and the threads of the pieces included in the event hint at the act of weaving and at spinning a good yarn as well.

This initiative of matching the tales with the objects proves an excellent idea as it is a way for visitors to bring back home with them not just a souvenir from the museum shop, but a short tale that will fill their hearts and feed their minds (you actually wonder why more famous museums who boast of organising blockbuster exhibitions do not adopt this idea of combining literature with their events or even a fashion exhibition with an anthology of commissioned stories...).

With Growing Inequality, Shouldn't the Poverty Chic Trend Become Untrendy?

Four years are not an extremely long period of time; yet many things can happen even in a relatively short time. In May 2017 we did a post about the poverty chic trend, mentioning Maison Margiela's "Future Destroyed" slashed and cut sneakers (retailing at the time at $1,425) and Golden Goose's "Distressed Superstar Sneakers" (retailing then at $585).

The former looked as if they had been fiercely attacked with a razor blade and then crudely reassembled with a stapler; the latter, alleged homage to the West Coast's rich skateboard culture, featured ripped laces and duct-tape reinforcements around the toe and looked pretty dirty and run down. The shoes were attacked on social media with many people accusing the brand of "poverty appropriation".

Rather than being the result of creative and rebellious vandalisation (imagine a teenager scribbling on their old shoes revolutionary slogans or colouring them in with contrasting patterns for fun...), the shoes were indeed conceived as designer items, representing the kind of faux-distressed luxury favoured by those ones wealthy enough to be able to pretend of being poor, but actually being able to escape poverty at any time.

The cringing "Poverty Chic" trend seems to be still fashionable and Golden Goose still produces its "pre-distressed" sneakers, but so many things changed since that post.

 A global pandemic has radically disrupted and changed our lives, re-shifting our very distracted minds onto health; vaccines contributed to make the wide gap between rich and poor countries more visible. Coronavirus has also had an impact on jobs, making the rich richer, but also making a lot of ordinary people redundant. In some countries, such as Myanmar, where fast fashion companies produce their collections, when factory closed due to order cancellations, women turned to prostitution to feed their children. Besides, Covid-19 also fuelled child labour.

Climate change brought instead extreme weather, floods and drought, fire and water that left thousands all over the world homeless. At the time of writing this post, hurricane Ida is still raging in Louisiana.

We are going through new emergencies, while the old challenges remained unsolved: migrants keep on arriving, crossing the Mediterranean in search of a better and safer life; in the meantime, thousands of Afghan people fled their country, that fell back in the hands of the Taliban in August.

Most Afghan refugees arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they left behind their families and everything they owned. Some of them were temporary relocated in emergency military camps like the one in Avezzano, in the centre of Italy, that can contain over 1,000 people. Local inhabitants collected toys for the children who arrived there in the last few days. Thinking about their needs and their mental and physical wellbeing, your mind wanders to poverty chic and pre-distressed shoes with dirty and broken laces that give the wearer that aura of having lived through a disaster of epic proportions, of being a cool survivor like the protagonist of a Hollywood movie about the ultimate Armageddon.  

Poverty chic and artificially distressed luxury designs may still be popular, but at the moment this is not just embarrassingly uncomfortable, it is an inappropriate and utterly immoral trend with the power of distorting reality and turning serious modern socio-economic issues into a trend or a fad and wealthy wearers jumping on this bandwagon, into offensive cosplayers of people in need. The Afghan refugees that were evacuated to other countries, arrived with nothing but their dignity; it's about time the fashion industry regained its own dignity and made poverty chic untrendy.

A Coat Story (About Traditions, Trends & Appropriation) from Afghanistan

One of the pictures American photographer Fred J. Maroon took for his 1968 fashion photoshoot in Afghanistan (that we analysed in yesterday's post) showed a model wearing a pustakis, or embroidered sheepskin jacket, hat and boots with the hills north of Kunduz in the background. According to the late photographer's notes, the jacket was about $27 at the market in Kabul.

Yet, if sold in London or New York, the jacket would have been far more expensive. Sheepskin or goatskin jackets - also known as Afghan jackets - were indeed considered a cult item between the late '60s and the '70s.

Made with the fleece on the inside and the cured and tanned leather on the outside, hip-length sleeveless or short-sleeved (pustinchas) jackets, knee-length, long-sleeved (pustakis) or ankle-length coats (pustins), originated from the Ghazni province, between Kabul and Kandahar. Men would cure the skin, tan the leather and make the jackets, while women and girls embroidered them with intricate geometric and floral designs.

Western travelers started buying them in the '50s, but they became more popular in the '60s when hippies travelling to exotic locations started visiting Afghanistan and spotted them, turning the garment into a staple of their wardrobes.

In the mid-'60s Craig Sams, a young American, travelled to Kabul and started importing Afghan coats to the UK, selling them in hippie boutiques such as Granny Takes a Trip on London's King's Road. Pustinchas became popular with both men and women and The Beatles made the jackets more popular in 1967.

"Everybody wanted one of my Afghan coats when The Beatles walked out of Granny Takes a Trip boutique on Kings Road wearing them," Sams remembers on his website.

Lennon sported a tanned yellow Afghan coat embroidered with red flowers at The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album launch party, held at Brian Epstein’s house in May 1967; Ringo Starr was also portrayed in an Afghan jacket in June 1967. Besides, all four Beatles wore pustinchas inside-out in their film of the Magical Mystery Tour and on the album's cover (View this photo) and they also sold the jackets at the Apple Boutique, their retail store.

Life magazine dedicated to the trend a feature published on its 26th July 1968 issue entitled "A Shaggy Coat Story from Afghanistan". The feature recounted how a New York-based company, Mallory, had started importing goatskin jackets straight from Afghanistan (the jackets were sold at $75), while another company, Knobkerry imported jewelry. Life dedicated three pages to the Afghan jackets, prominently featuring Mallory's embroidered and braided vests.

The magazine highlighted that the jackets were launched by The Beatles in England and eventually became fashionable also in the States. "Worn over bright silk jump suits and slung about with yards of Mideast jewelry, they make an exotic evening outfit, especially when the nights turn cold," the feature on Life magazine stated.

By 1968 Afghan coats were everywhere, from the cover of Harper's Bazaar to the pages of Italian erotic magazine Playmen, modelled in this case by actor Tomas Milian (the shop Edward's in Via Borgognona, Rome, sold the jackets).

Demand rose and the production moved to Kabul where more artisans and embroiderers were employed to make the coats, among them many women from the provinces where there were many skilled needleworkers. Imitations were also made in Iran and Turkey: the original jackets from Ghazni featured elaborate hand-embroideries, but less elaborate ones became popular as the demand rose.

The coats had their advantages and disadvantages: they were hand-made and therefore unique and they were relatively affordable, even when artisans made them pay more; on the other side, due to a skin curing process they had an unpleasant smell especially in the rain (Life magazine highlighted in its feature that Mallory's jackets were deodorised upon their arrival in the States).

The sheepskin smell didn't stop the trend for Afghan coats, though: sold at Bloomingdale's and Macy's, the jackets became a hit with ordinary people and with celebrities as well. The musicians who opted for the trend included, for example, David Bowie, who donned a pustakis when he got married to Angela Barnett in March 1970; before him, The Animals' Eric Burdon had already chosen an Afghan coat for his wedding to Angie King at Caxton Hall, London, in 1967.

But the list of musicians who went for this style also features Jimi Hendrix, Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Pete Townshend of The Who and The Kinks.

Quite often costume designers have turned to this iconic wardrobe staple to recreate a mood in films set in the '70s: the character of Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" (2000), sports indeed an Afghan coat. 

It is not so rare to stumble upon a sheepskin coat in contemporary collections such as Hedi Slimane's S/S 20 Celine collection, while for some fashion brands such as Etro or Coach the sheepskin coat has become a signature piece. Etro featured for example in its A/W 21 collection a few densely embroidered sheepskin jackets that seem to recreate the original styles from the '70s. 

It is difficult to reconcile this trend that helped spreading the fame of the country in the '60s to the Afghanistan of these past few weeks, with the Taliban regaining power, people being evacuated and warnings about terror attacks in Kabul. As thousands of refugees fled from Afghanistan and safely landed in emergency centres set up in different countries in the last few days, you realise that the story of this traditional hand-made item gradually changed when it became a hippie trend and a fashion must, turning in more recent years into a case of cultural appropriation.

Vintage Fashion Photoshoot: Afghanistan, 1968, by Fred J. Maroon

The final evacuation flights from Afghanistan heading to Italy and the UK landed today, but the situation remains critical in the country.

During this past week we have explored a variety of issues connected with this country, from the work of artists and artisans to some of the indomitable Afghan girls and women and athletes as well.

We haven't looked at photography yet, so let's do it today remembering Fred J. Maroon's fashion photoshoot in Afghanistan.

Born in 1924, the American photographer graduated in architecture in 1950, but throughout his life he mainly worked as a photographer for a variety of magazines, including Life, Esquire, Paris Match, Town and Country, Travel and Leisure and National Geographic. 

In 1968, intrigued by the ancient Silk Route, but unable to take pictures in China, he decided to head to Afghanistan. The country was an important segment of the silk route anyway and Maroon felt it offered the chance to shoot some exotic locations. The editors at Look magazine approved his project and Maroon left.

In Afghanistan Maroon managed to take some great photographs that wouldn't have looked out of place in a travel publication or in the pages of the National Geographic: rather than merely focusing on fashion, Maroon created contrasts with the models in Western clothes (or in clothes that combined local designs and Western attire) in the foreground and the locations in the background.

Vast natural landscapes prevailed in some cases: in one picture a model in a lynx-bordered wool-fleece coat, matching tunic and flared pants, was portrayed with the snowy peaks of Hindu Kush mountain range in the background, in another a model in a floral gown stood among bright red poppies.

In other images, Maroon put emphasis on culture, local places and traditions with a caravan passing by the giant Buddha statue in the Bamiyan Valley (destroyed by the Taliban in 2001) or a model wearing a male costume comprising trousers, a silk tunic and turban, stading in the Charh Chatta, Kabul's covered bazaar.

One of the best images remains the portrait of model Ann Cosyns in an embroidered pigskin coat and boots by Chester Weinberg and a cropped silk top and silk-satin pouf skirt, standing in front of a group of Buzkashi's Chapandaz riders at Kunduz. 

Architecture was instead referenced in a picture with the Grand Mosque of Herat, a model standing around the caves of the Bamiyan cliff sides, and with two images of Balkh, one with the Khwaja Parsaw Shrine in the background, another with a crumbling caravansarais in the background and a model in palazzo pants in the foreground. 

Maroon wasn't sure what to expect when he left for the shoot and wondered if he may have been greeted with hostility, but the images showed instead the hospitality of the people he met with one model for example sitting among elder Kochi tribesmen gathered for afternoon tea.

Sadly, it is unlikely we will see any fashion shoots like this one again anytime soon, that's one of the reasons why we should cherish Maroon's fashion reportage from Afghanistan so much. You can check out the entire photoshoot and the story accompanying it on Fred J. Maroon's website.  

Image credits for this post

All images in this post copyright Fred J. Maroon

Can Fashion Actively Help & Support Afghan Women? Yes, Says Only the Brave

Up until a few days ago the Instagram page of the Only The Brave (OTB) Foundation, a not-for-profit organization launched in 2008 by Renzo Rosso (president of the eponymous fashion group that owns Diesel, Maison Margiela, Marni, Jil Sander and Viktor & Rolf), still focused on fashion-related social issues, such as sustainability.

Since the Taliban entered Kabul, though, the foundation has re-shifted its attention to Afghanistan and Afghan women. Yet this focus is not just a way to show solidarity from a distance, as OTB has actually been also active and has recently helpd flying out of Afghanistan the local women it has been supporting.

Since 2019 the foundation supported a project called Pink Shuttle launched by Nove Onlus that tried to help women becoming more independent in Afghanistan by guaranteeing them free mobility and overcoming limits imposed by a restrictive and conservative society. The project offered indeed Afghan women public transportation with shuttles driven exclusively by female drivers in the streets of Kabul.

Drivers were selected, trained and authorized by their families and the senior citizens' council to become part of the project. Passengers were also selected through agreements with the organizations where they worked or studied to define transfer times and routes; in this way women could reach the places where they worked and studied independently in a country where women engaged in non-traditional activities are targeted.

Nove Onlus was hoping to turn the Pink Shuttle into a proper commercial service managed by local women, but the rapid Taliban takeover will now bring the project – that was also financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development – to a stop.

Yet, knowing that the women Nove Onlus trained may have been in danger and may have become the target of the Taliban for having dared to drive, the charity with the support of the OTB Foundation flew them and their children over to Italy. In the past few weeks Nove Onlus had to destroy all the documents that regarded the women who collaborated with them; the charity also shut down the Pink Shuttle service website and brought to an end a series of social projects they were doing in Afghanistan, but they do hope they will be able to keep on building a sports venue for disabled people in Herat. For the time being, the Pink Shuttle mini buses will be turned into emergency vehicles, a project already supported by OTB.

Ths Pink Shuttle is not the only project OTB supported in Afghanistan: in collaboration with CIAI Onlus, the foundation also helped girls who, refusing combined marriages or were the victims of physical violence, were accused of moral crimes and ended up in the Kabul and Herat Youth Rehabilitation Centers.

Since it was created in 2008, the OTB Foundation has supported a variety of international projects focused on social development. The activities are mainly developed by Renzo Rosso's wife Arianna Alessi, vice president of the OTB Foundation, who has so far taken an active approach to emergencies.

Last year, the foundation mainly concentrated on providing practical help during the Coronavirus pandemic, donating 1 million pieces of PPE (including surgical masks, filter masks, scrubs, shoe covers and hand-sanitizing gels that they managed to get through the OTB network of suppliers across the globe) to 100 Italian hospitals, retirement homes and other organisations.

It also distributed air cleaners, helmets for breathing assistance, full face masks and iPads to help patients to remain connected with their families, and supported the conversion of a section of a Milan-based hospital into a Covid-19 ward. When vaccines were rolled-out OTB also contributed to set up a vaccination hub in Bassano Del Grappa for the local population.

Besides, all Italian OTB executives voluntarily donated a minimum of five of their contractual paid leave days collecting a sum exceeding 500,000 euros to distribute among lower-income employees of the group inactive and in need because of COVID-19, while Rosso waived 50 percent of his salary as president of the fashion group.

OTB is not the only foundation linked with a fashion group working on social projects: brands and fashion houses have realised that consumers nowadays do not want to buy just a product, but they also want to learn more about the values of the brands they are investing in. Supporting a social project or a specific cause is indeed an asset for a brand or a fashion house as it shows consumers where they stand.

And while maybe most brands or fashion houses may not be ready yet for what the Italian king of cashmere Brunello Cucinelli calls "Humanistic Capitalism", quite a few of them are realising they can't just sell luxury products without caring about what happens around them, but they should also reinvest their profits back into social projects that can improve people's lives in the local community where they are based or in developing countries.

Sport as an Empowering Force & a Political Statement: Lessons from Pioneering Refugee & Asylee Athletes

Fashion publications often look at the Olympic Games as if they were a runway show, checking out just the uniforms of the various teams, rather than the athletic performances. Yet the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games provided us with some great lessons that went beyond sports and fashionable uniforms.

The 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo are currently on (until 5th September 2021) and, as the situation in Afghanistan develops and more refugees are leaving from Kabul airport, there is one small multi-cultural team at the Games, that is reshifting the attention on the estimated 82 million refugees in the world - Refugee Paralympic Team - comprising 6 refugee and asylee Paralympic athletes.

Sports can truly rebuild a life and the team reunites displaced athletes who have survived war, persecution, exile, violence, hunger and disabilities. One of them, Mohammad Abbas Karimi (first picture in this post, credit: Getty Images / Michael Reaves), fled Afghanistan to pursue his dream of becoming a swimming champion.

Born without arms in Kabul, Karimi was bullied in school and was often angry about his condition. Hope in his life came from a swimming pool built by his brother for a community near Karimi's home. Getting in the water calmed his anger and made him feel protected. Yet, knowing that it would have been difficult to train in Afghanistan, Karimi fled his home country at 16. He reached Iran and, from there, after a daring and dangerous journey, he arrived in Turkey. Between 2013 and 2016 he lived in refugee camps and eventually managed to leave when Mike Ives, a retired teacher and former wrestling coach in the United States saw a video Karimi posted on Facebook.

Working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ives put together the documentation Karimi needed and helped him resettling in Portland, USA. Karimi was the first refugee to win an international medal when he won silver in the 50m butterfly S5 event at the Mexico 2017 World Para Swimming Championship. Since then Karimi moved to Florida to continue his career and now he’s competing in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

Others who trained hard to be in the Games didn't manage to make it this time: Nilofar Bayat, 26, captain of Afghanistan's female national wheelchair basketball team, managed to flee from Kabul and reach Spain with other refugees just a few days ago. In Afghanistan Bayat played basketball, but also campaigned for women's rights and for the rights of women with disabilities and, fearing she may have been targeted and killed by the Taliban, she had to flee the country. Some of the players in Bayat's team are war-wounded like Bayat who was severely injured when a rocket hit her family’s house in Kabul when she was just a toddler, others are amputees or paraplegic.

Bayat and her team started competing internationally in 2017 at the Bali Cup and since then they fought against many prejudices. Having a disability and being women playing basketball meant they were often subjected to insults. Yet they kept on playing and fighting for their rights: before the Taliban quickly regained power this month, there were over 100 female basketball players in different cities in Afghanistan, many of them hoping to become Paralympic champions (the Wheelchair Basketball Federation of Afghanistan was recognized in 2014). Now Bayat is safe in Bilbao where both she and her husband (from Afghanistan’s men's national wheelchair basketball team) were selected to join the city's teams.

There was also a Refugee Olympic Team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and it featured 29 athletes competing in 12 sports. They didn't win any medals, but some of the team's athletes, such as Masomah Ali Zada, are considered as pioneers in their sports.

Born in Afghanistan, she spent her early years in exile in Iran while the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. In Iran her father taught her and her sister to ride a bicycle. After her return to Kabul, she went to high school and university. Despite disapproval from more conservative Afghans who thought it was disrespectful for women to ride in public, she started cycling with a group of other young women who were often targeted while cycling.

In 2016 French TV channel Arte did a documentary called "Les Petites Reines de Kaboul" (The Little Queens of Kabul) featuring Masomah and her fellow athletes, showing the team training in the Afghan capital despite being threatened by those who believe women cycling is immoral. In the same year, Masomah left Afghanistan with her family and claimed asylum in France. She is now studying civil engineering at the university in Lille, where she lives with her sister Zahra.

In Tokyo she competed as part of the Refugee Olympic Team not just to try and win a medal, but to put under the spotlight women's empowerment in Afghanistan and inspire others. Even before the Taliban regained ground and power just a couple of weeks ago, riding a bicycle for a woman was seen as an act of defiance and a political statement and female cyclists were often verbally and physically attacked.

Yet, despite disapproval, cycling became a popular sport in Afghanistan among women and the cycling federation counted over 200 women, plus seven women’s provincial teams and an annual women’s race. These women passionate about cycling, such as Rukhsar Habibzai, Captain of Afghanistan's women national cycling team and founder of the women-only Cheetah cycling club, were often considered symbols of peace and freedom. Yet, in the last few weeks, as US troops started leaving, many of the female cyclists in Afghanistan weren't able to train anymore on the long-distance tracks as they didn't feel safe.

There's actually a lot of concern around the women's cycling team as former Italian cyclist Alessandra Cappellotto tried to get out of Kabul with the help of the association Road to Equality twenty-five girls from the team, those ones with more recognisable and prominent profiles on social media, as they may have been targeted by the Taliban. At the moment, though, we do not know if she managed to also because there were suicide bombing attacks at Kabul International Airport today (Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks), with explosions at the Abbey gate and near the Baron hotel. So, for the time being, we can only hope they are safe and will maybe join one day the Refugee Olympic Team.    

Of Indomitable Afghan Girls & Women: From a Feminist Queen to "Robot Girls"

According to the Pentagon over 10,000 people at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan are waiting to be evacuated and, while the US withdrawal deadline is getting nearer (31st August), the German military confirmed that the Taliban, that entered Kabul on 15th August, agreed to let Afghans leave the country after it. In the meantime, it was recently confirmed that, among those ones who managed to leave the country, there is also the Afghan female robotics team. 

The Herat girls have taken part in the last few years in events and competitions all over the world and they became one of the symbols of progress of their country.

Knowing that under Taliban rule they may not be allowed to continue their studies they bravely decided to leave their families and country behind and pursue their dreams. For these girls feeling empowered comes from fixing things and creating devices that can improve people's lives, such as their recent robot that uses ultraviolet light to disinfect surfaces. You can be sure these young women will continue their studies and let's hope they will be able to take part in further competitions and pursue their robotic dreams.

But the history of Afghanistan features also the stories of other indomitable women, one of them is a little-known fashion designer, Safia Tarzi, that the British Vogue team met when the magazine went to Kabul in 1969 for a reportage, published in December of the same year that also featured a piece entitled "Adventure in Afghanistan", by Safia Tarzi.

The feature recounted an "unforgettable adventure" Tarzi had lived in Afghanistan when she stumbled upon a game of Buzkashi, a wild sport that was played for state visits and also on ceremonial occasions like the king's birthday and that consisted in horsemen fighting for possession of a dead calf. Tarzi first started taking some pictures (one accompanied the feature on Vogue) and then she joined the Chapandaz riders in the game on a wild horse. 

In her designs Tarzi focused on combining traditional elements and local embroideries with Western styles; her collections balanced innovations and traditions and her signature piece remained the turban, often donned with functional and modern mini-dresses.

There had been other attempts at modernise fashion in Afghanistan before Tarzi when an American woman, Jeanne Beecher, the wife of an airline executive working in Afghanistan, realising local women were interested in Western fashion, launched a dressmaking school in Kabul at the end of the '50s. Pan Am Airlines helped establishing the school providing sewing supplies and patterns that were donated by the Vogue Pattern Services. The first course started in 1959 and included over 32 students, mainly women from the city's middle and upper classes. The first show was organized in 1960 and Pan Am kept on supporting the school by donating more materials in the following years.

Like the women at the dressmaking school, Tarzi had upper-middle class origins, so she came from a privileged background. She was also a photographer and a keen air balloonist, race car driver and scuba diver. When she wrote the feature for Vogue, Tarzi had just completed an archaeological course in Paris, driven by Land Rover from Paris to Kabul, given lectures about Afghanistan in the French capital and opened a boutique in a hotel in Kabul. Tarzi, who died in an air balloon crash, descended from another indomitable Afghan woman, Queen Soraya Tarzi (1899-1968), wife of King Amanullah Khan.

Born in Damascus, Syria, where her family was exiled, she was educated by her father, the Afghan leader and intellectual Sardar Mahmud Tarzi. Her family returned to Afghanistan under King Habibullah. 

Her father's liberal ideals influenced her future actions and promoted the modernisation of Afghanistan and, after she married, she had a key role in the evolution of the country. Queen Soraya Tarzi was the first Muslim sovereign to appear in public with her husband, besides, she regularly participated in hunting parties riding on horseback, and in Cabinet meetings. A feminist who fought for gender equality, Queen Soraya was also the Minister of Education and encouraged women in Kabul and in the countryside to study, opening the first primary school for girls in Kabul, the Masturat School. In 1928 she also sent 15 young women to Turkey for higher education.

King Amanullah Khan publicly campaigned against the veil: after he stated at a public function that Islam did not require women to cover their bodies or wear a veil, Queen Soraya tore off her veil in public, an example that the wives of other officials also followed. Time Magazine voted her Woman of the Year in 1927 and the following year she received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford.

In 1929 when the liberal reforms of King Amanullah Khan enraged the country's more conservative religious groups, the royals went into exile to prevent a civil war. Invited to live in Italy, Queen Soraya died in April 1968 in Rome. It is sad that it seems that exile awaits all those women who fight for their rights in Afghanistan, but some of the girls from the Afghan female robotics team stated in interviews that they wish to go back to their country one day and help it. For teh time being they have also been offered scholarships at universities in the United States. Queen Soraya is long gone, but you bet she would have been proud of these indomitable "robot girls".

Alighiero Boetti & The Afghan Experience: Will Artists Ever Go Back to Work in Afghanistan?

Evacuation operations from Afghanistan to take out of the country eligible civilians and their families are continuing, but not without debates and clashes as the final deadline is looming. The date set to complete the operations is indeed 31st August, but some countries such as the UK and Norway have recently asked to extend the operations, something that is unlikely as it would not be tolerated by the Taliban. The civilian section of the airport in Kabul is currently shut and the evacuation depends solely on the US military operation being maintained.

At the moment Kabul International Airport is a very different place from what the British Vogue team found in 1969 when they arrived in Afghanistan for a reportage that was later published in the December 1969 issue and that looked at Afghanistan as an exotic destination, perfect for Western expatriates and hippies.

Fascinated by the country, the desert and the mountainous villages and interested in faraway cultures, Italian artist Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) first travelled to Afghanistan in 1971. 

Part of his interest in Afghanistan also came from an ancestor who lived in the 18th century, Giovanni Battista Boetti, a Dominican monk and a rebel. Sent to Mosul to serve as superior of the Apostolic Mission of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, Giovanni Battista Boetti abandoned his creed and converted to Islam founding a Sufi sect, assuming the name of Sheikh Mansur. 

When he first visited Afghanistan, Alighiero Boetti had started developing an interest in politics, geography and maps and during his first trip to Kabul he brought with him two squares of fabric and commissioned embroiderers to create an intricate tapestry simply stating "11 luglio 2023 - 16 dicembre 2040" (11th July 2023 - 16th December 2040; the diptych represented the date of his predicted death and of his 100th birth anniversary). The embroidered pieces soon turned into the beginning of a new body of works and a new adventure. Boetti started travelling back and forth to Afghanistan at least twice a year till 1979, often with his family in tow.

While in Kabul, he would stay at the One Hotel, a guest house he had helped funding in the residential area of Sharanaw. Directed by the young Gholam Dastaghir, the One Hotel had 11 rooms, a restaurant and a garden where visitors, usually hippies and Indian and Pakistani carpet traders, could drink chai and smoke dope. For Boetti the One Hotel was his home and studio, though, and it was here that he met Salmani Ali, who became his assistant, and it was at the hotel that he conceived his embroidered maps of the world. Ali, originally from the Hazara village of Jaghori, prepared chai at the hotel and introduced Boetti to two embroiderers, Fatima and Abiba.

Local craftswomen turned into Boetti's collaborators throughout the '70s: Boetti stated he provided the idea that was then executed by others (a concept he had taken from Sol LeWitt’s 1967 "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art"). Working in local villages such as Istalif, these women helped him creating his first maps of the world and later on his compositions with letters.  

Boetti's maps represented a flattened globe with all the continents and nations characterised by the colours and designs of their flags. The first "Mappa" was produced in the autumn of 1971 and more followed: Boetti provided the design and the local artisans would execute them following Boetti's instructions. It took six months for smaller maps, one year for the first large map. Usually the artist would see for the first time the finished works when they were sent back to Italy.

So, rather than living a merely hedonistic adventure in Afghanistan, Boetti discovered there a new way to make art and also found a friend and collaborator. Salman Ali became indeed his assistant and followed him to Rome where he helped running his studio and became a member of the artist's family and a connoisseur of Boetti's art. 

The One Hotel closed down after a few years, before the Soviet invasion; in 1979 Boetti and Ali went back to Kabul to oversee the production of new works, but Afghanistan was changing. Boetti managed to go back to Italy; Ali remained behind and returned to Italy via Iran only two years later. From Italy Boetti and Ali supported Afghanistan sending financial aid to Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Afghan resistance fighter and leader of the mujahideen, but also shipping shoes to Massoud's soldiers on the mountains of the Panjshir Valley. 

Boetti’s weavers continued to work on his maps from Pakistani refugee camps after the Soviet invasion in 1979: the new maps they did depicted tense political realities and one tapestry entitled "Soviet Exodus with Poppies" included tanks and weapons. The maps continued being produced till Boetti's death in 1994; after his death Boetti's son Matteo collected the final map in Pakistan and paid severance to the weavers and families of artisans that had worked for his father for two decades. 

Boetti's embroidered maps are particularly significant in our politically and complex times: Boetti used the map format to prompt people to ponder about issues of national self-definitions, but in some cases his tapestries turn the world into a flat territory in which affinities and differences poetically coexist in a melting pot; at others they become historical documents that remind us the world has rapidly changed throughout the decades, as some of the countries embroidered in Boetti's colourful tapestries were disintegrated or have changed flags.

With the current situation in Afghanistan it is sad to admit that is seems difficult if not impossible to think about Western artists who may one day go back to work in Afghanistan like Boetti did, combining the themes of travel and nomadism with the concept of multi-cultural collective collaboration and achieving a balance between conceptualism and humanism thanks to those families of Afghan artisans and refugees who made his works.  

Image credits for this post

All images copyright and courtesy Archivio Alighiero Boetti

What Can We Do for the Women and the Artisans of Afghanistan?

 Afghanistan has dominated the news during this past week. As announced in April by US President Joe Biden, American troops withdrew from the country. Yet the Taliban quickly regained control of Afghanistan, entering Kabul, the capital, on 15th August. They encountered little resistance as the US-backed president Ashraf Ghani escaped to Tajikistan and, as the twenty-year Western occupation came to an end, fear spread about the return of the Taliban.

US President Biden talked about a responsible ans safe withdrawal, but the reality was different with chaos ensuing as people rushed to the airport in Kabul to try and leave the country. People who collaborated with occupying armies over the last two decades are in great danger and, while some were allowed to board planes, and safely reached Italy, Spain, the UK and the US, there is still great concern for all those left behind, and in particular for all those women who fought for their rights and equality, for activists and members of the LGBT communities (under the Taliban's interpretation of Sharia Law, homosexuality is strictly prohibited and punishable by death).

Between the '50s and the '70s Afghanistan experienced freedom and stability and Kabul was known as the "Paris of Central Asia" (black and white photos of those times show women in short skirts and fashionable hairstyles), but under Taliban rule (1996-2001), the country experienced violence and social regression. Women's rights were eradicated: girls were banned from attending school, studying and working (and they couldn't access healthcare delivered by men, which means they could really access healthcare as women were forbidden to work...), besides they could only appear in public wearing full body coverings and accompanied by male escorts. Failing to observe the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic law meant to be publicly flogged or executed.

The US-led invasion that followed the 9/11 attacks brought an end to Taliban rule and some changes for women that may be promptly erased by the Taliban regaining power. In the last few days we have seen videos of girls and young women on social media recounting what's happening, with many of them terrified and locked in their houses, hiding from the Taliban. In one video a young girl cried, stating "We don’t count because we were born in Afghanistan (…) No one cares about us. We'll die slowly in history". Two women working at the presidential palace highlighted in another video that the Taliban are behaving as they did 20 years ago, and they weren't allowed to enter their offices despite the Taliban told workers to go to work.

What will happen to them and to the rest of the country is of great concern and it is of great concern also what will happen to all those artisans - many of them women - who have been working for platforms selling online or in stores hand-crafted designs, and who may find themselves cut off from their customers and their chances to make a living.

Most Western companies working with Afghan artisans focus on woven textiles, carpets, rugs, embroideries and jewellery, quite a few of them are retailers and platforms selling ethical products or interior design companies focused on an artisanal approach.

Artisan & Fox for example is a social enterprise empowering artisans in developing regions and developing nations across the globe - among them weavers and silversmiths. Artisans working for the platform are guaranteed 50% of all gross profits from each item, and Artisan & Fox also offers micro-loans, pays for raw materials in advance and helps open bank accounts when the need arises.

Since 2015, Artisan & Fox has been working with over 200 artisans across 11 countries, collaborating with independent artisans, small artisan groups, non-profits, and local social enterprises. Among such artisans there is also Afghan Lama El Desouky who makes geometrically harmonious and linear jewellery collections. Artisan & Fox also sells jewellery pieces made in the old city of Kabul.

One of the immediate consequences of the return of the Taliban may be the end of such artisanal connections and at the moment Artisans & Fox is encouraging its consumers through social media and in particular via its Instagram page to donate to NGO Emergency, that offers free, non-partisan emergency healthcare across Afghanistan, or to Turquoise Mountain, founded in 2006 by HRH The Prince of Wales. 

For the time being Artisan & Fox will donate all profits from the "Ode to Kabul" collection, inspired by the lyrical poetry of Persian Master Saib-e-Tabrizi, to Turquoise Mountain so they can provide vital emergency support and services to the artisan community. 

But there are other companies that have opted to support Afghan artisans and families: Ishkar (the name references a plant found in the deserts of Afghanistan known for its hidden alchemic properties), that works with artisans in Yemen, Mali and Iraq, has also been selling since 2016 jewellery, scarves, kilims and glassware made in Afghanistan.

To help with the current situation, Ishkar has put together a print sale of images by award-winning photographers, such as documentary photographer Rena Effendi (the black and white picture entitled "Titanic Bazaar" showing women in burkas featured in this post is by Effendi).

All profits from the print sale will go to Emergency centres in Afghanistan. Donations will fund specialist training of local nurses and doctors who will go on to treat thousands of patients in need across the country (prints will be for sale online at special, one-off prices and available for a limited period, until 15th September 2021).

Ishkar also created carpets for Choose Love - a charity through which it is possible to buy vital supplies and services (including food, toiletries and legal advice) that can be donated to refugees. The carpets are handmade to order in Afghanistan and all profits from these products will go directly to Choose Love projects.

Noonday Collection, a site selling jewellery and accessories made by artisans across the globe has also got a selection of products made in Afghanistan. 100% of the artisans who make their pieces in Afghanistan are women and 76% of them worked from home during 2020.

The site has pledged to give 10% of sales on selected styles (until 31st August 2021) to Artisan housing grants in Haiti (recently hit by a devastating earthquake) and to Afghan refugee support.  

There have also been companies based in Afghanistan and owned by young Afghans, who attempted to relaunch fashion in the country, such as Laman, a men and women's wear brand combining Western designs with traditional Afghan elements and handcraft that focuses on reviving Afghanistan's rich tradition of embroidery (that differs from community to community and province to province).

What will happen in the future for such a company (a while back Laman came under fire for its models not wearing headscarves at a runway show, and Taliban rule would probably not allow such a label to exist) and for all the Western platforms working with local artisans is uncertain under different points of view: under a new ultra conservative Taliban government the condition of women would regress once again, some of these artisans wouldn't be able to work and cultural and historical sites may end up being destroyed as well (remember the 6th century Buddha figures at Bamiyan destroyed by the Taliban in 2001? By the way, Laman did a photoshoot in front of the destroyed Buddha of Bamiyan last year).

At the moment one of the key issues for the Western platforms working with Afghan artisans may be the logistics as many used shipping companies based in cities such as Bagram, where there was an American military base (that was rapidly evacuated in July) and shipping products out of Afghanistan at the moment is probably impossible.

As the situation in Afghanistan is currently still developing, it's worth following the Instagram accounts of some of the companies mentioned in this post such as Artisan & Fox and Ishkar as some of them provide updates. But what can we do in the meantime for the people in Afghanistan? Well, if you can afford it and want to be more active, you can buy some of the handmade products still available from these companies or you can support a charity currently working in Afghanistan or providing help for Afghan refugees abroad.

When the Camera Reveals Something Never Seen Before: Hiro & The Surrealist Perspective

In 1984 photographer Hiro took a surreal image of Elsa Peretti's signature gold bone cuff that the jewellery designer created for Tiffany & Co.

Rather than portraying a model wearing the cuff inspired by the human body and anatomy, with a protuberance that allows the bracelet to fit comfortably over the wrist bone, Hiro modelled it on what looked like a real bone, adding two tiny ladybugs that climb the bone, to create a series of contrasts between luxury, life and death. The iconic image must have come to mind to Hiro's fans when it was announced a few days ago that the photographer, who was 90, died last Sunday at his country home in Erwinna, Pa.

Yasuhiro Wakabayashi, better known as Hiro, was born in November 1930 in Shanghai, China, to Japanese parents. After spending a period of time interned in China, at the end of the Second World War the family moved back to Japan.

Fascinated by American culture and in particular by the work of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, Hiro moved to the States in the '50s.

He first became assistant to Rouben Samberg and then to Richard Avedon who recommended him to Alexey Brodovich, art director at Harper's Bazaar (Hiro studied photography at the New School for Social Research with Brodovitch in 1956).

Soon Avedon acknowledged his talent: at his studio Hiro had the chance to practice on commercial still lifes while the legendary photographer was in Paris on assignment and, in 1958, Avedon named him associate at his studio. In the meantime, satisfied with the results of the assignments he had given him (one revolving around taking a picture of a Dior shoe), Brodovitch allowed Hiro to work on pictures for Harper's Bazaar.

Hiro worked for the magazine between 1966 and 1974, but also accepted commissions offered by other fashion magazines, including Vogue. While working at Harper's Bazaar Hiro met through Nancy White (then editor of the magazine) Elsa Peretti whom he later introduced to Halston (there's an Harper's Bazaar cover from 1966 by Hiro featuring a photograph of model Marisa Berenson with a drawn green hat superimposed on her profile; the hat was designed by Halston). Peretti went on to become Halston's muse, while Hiro shot every national ad for Peretti’s merchandise for Tiffany & Co., from the early 1980s till last year.

Hiro's aesthetic developed from Brodovitch's teaching – one should click the shutter only when the camera reveals something never seen before.

This principle accompanied Hiro throughout his career: those who know the history of fashion may be able to easily recognise in his pictures a design by Pierre Cardin or Cristóbal Balenciaga (the four-cornered Balenciaga dress pic emphasising the geometries of the design was a favorite of Hiro), but the angle, composition and mood, and the passion for intriguing juxtapositions, made sure his photographs remained unique. 

His inventive and innovative style was his trademark and some of his pictures often appear in books about photography that look at composition, juxtaposition and surrealism in this discipline and in particular in commercial photography for advertising purposes.

Among such images there is a picture taken in 1975 in St. Martin of model Jerry Hall's face reclining against a sea-and-sky background, surrounded by the aura of perfume that Hiro created with cigarette smoke from the model's lips.

Hiro's still lifes like one of his early pictures taken in 1963, showing a Harry Winston ruby and diamond necklace over the hoof of a Black Angus steer, also remain iconic.

Quite often women's feet became the protagonists of his shoots: in 1982 he took a photograph of a manicured toenail painted fire engine red being climbed by a very adventurous tiny ant, but in his archive there's also a foot's sole, resting horizontally with a tarantula crawling over the heel and a model's foot on an octopus among black stones (a picture taken in 1982 for Vogue).

The results of his studies and vision were controlled and precise, but also surreal, full of imagination, and intriguing light effects. The quality of light was actually another of his passions that probably derived from cinema.

In his career he experimented indeed with strobes, coloured gels, infrared film and neon lights, and he also attempted to give to his images an inner dynamism to convey a sense of filmic motion (see for example his partially blurred photographs).

Though his innovations suited fashion publications, Hiro's quirky style, often with products prominently on the foreground, proved perfect for advertising purposes.

Yet not everything was commercial and Hiro also tried through his images to comment about consumption: in 1972 he created an image for a cosmetics advertisement showing a close-up of a woman popping pills in her mouth while wearing fierce red lipstick and bi-coloured nails.

Hiro also tried to introduce new themes to fashion magazines: in 1969, the photographer asked Harper's Bazaar to let him photograph the launch of the Apollo 11 moon mission from Florida, but they told him they weren't a science magazine. Hiro took the pictures all the same and eventually his photograph of the Apollo 11 blast-off with the silhouettes of the spectators was included in the magazine's editorial page.

Hiro never considered himself as an art photographer, even though he was celebrated in exhibitions in galleries and museums (including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, N.Y., and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London).

Throughout his career Hiro also worked on images that were not conceived for commercial purposes, but that had a reportage quality about them, like the black and white portraits of strangers in subway cars taken in the early '60s in Japan and his book "Fighting Birds/Fighting Fish" (1990) featuring black and white photographs of cockfights and Siamese fighting fish.

Hiro is survived by his wife Elizabeth Clark (they married in 1959) and their two sons, Gregory and Hiro.