Dress Codes From The Past

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An example of Jewish women adopting the manner of dress of their host countries can be seen in the brocaded silk sari worn by a bride in the Bene Israel Community in India in the mid-twentieth century. While the short bodice worn under a traditional sari leaves a woman’s midriff well-exposed, the sari here includes a much longer bodice.

Weddings weren’t always white. Brides had been wearing a plethora of colors, including blue, yellow, and practical colors like black, brown, and grey. Even royal brides before Queen Victoria did not typically wear white, but chose heavily brocaded gowns, particularly red, embroidered with white and silver thread. As accounts of Queen Victoria’s wedding in 1840 spread, elites followed her lead. Because of the limitations of laundering techniques, white dresses provided enormous snob appeal. After all, here was bride who could afford to choose an elaborate dress that could be ruined by any sort of spill. In the Jewish world too, colored wedding dresses were de rigueur. On display is an early twentieth century wedding dress from Edirne, Turkey, made of dark purple velvet with elaborate embroidery of gilt metal threads. A wedding dress from New York, dated from the mid-twentieth century, however, is a creamy white.

Little Men and Little Women

Traditional societies, who often placed a higher value on males, dressed their little boys in girl’s clothing in an attempt to confuse the evil forces intent on harming young boys. A slide show depicts a little Yemenite boy dressed in the same tasseled hood as his sister. In a similar attempt to stave off the evil eye, an indigo-dyed cotton dress from Sana’a, Yemen (1932), the front covered with elaborate rows of embroidery and kauri shells, was worn by a little girl after her recovery from smallpox, and covered with amulets to keep her safe.

Clothing that Remembers

One of the earliest exhibitions is an eighteenth century tallit, prayer shawl, from Germany. Made of damask, brocade silk and embellished with gilt metal cord and lace, the intricate work still bears witness to the reverence given to this item of ritual clothing.

In a different section of the exhibition, you can view the dark broadcloth cloak worn by Rav Chaim Moshe Bejerano Efendi, Chief Rabbi of Turkey (1920-1931). This style, however, wasn’t reflective of the rav’s preference – it was the Turkish caliphate who designated dress codes of his subjects. Years later, this style of dress was followed by Chacham Ovadiyah Yosef, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi and spiritual leader of the Shas political party.

In Jewish life, clothing had multiple uses. For example, a woman may have had a Dress for Life. (Wouldn’t husbands of today love that one?) The dress was worn on special occasions: on the first Shabbat after she give birth and received her well-wishers, on Yom Kippur, and for one final time upon her death, when it served as her shrouds.

Sometimes, clothing was redesigned to perpetuate the memory of the dead. From the late 19th century, it was a common practice for Sephardi Jewish women in the Ottoman Empire to donate precious dresses and trousseau items such as colorful headscarves to the synagogue, where they would be transformed for ritual use. On display are several scarlet and magenta kerchiefs of silk and brocaded silk from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan (early twentieth century).

Following this tradition of perpetuation, the exhibition features a parochet, curtain for the Torah ark in a synagogue, from Izmir, Turkey. It was fashioned from a silk, velvet and satin woman’s dress embroidered with gilt metal thread and, according to the embroidery, dedicated in 1929.This is more than recycling fabric. It is an elevation of the mundane to the holy. These items of have become more than just a fashion statement – they offer a window into the deepest aspirations of someone long gone.