Headscarf

keffiyeh

Tunisian silk fabrics

The high quality silk fabrics from Tunisia with their inwoven silver and gold threads are already admired at the London World’s Fair in 1851. In Tunisia, these girdles or sashes, head-cloths and shawls are reserved for the well-to-do. Specialists, organised into guilds since the Middle Ages, dye and weave the imported raw silk. After 1900 the wholesale import of cheap, industrially produced textiles drives the Tunisian silk production out of the market.