CULTURAL HERITAGE

7 to 12 ritual outfits
"Today, most of the time, the traditional wedding dress is called Chedda. This is one of the 7 to 12 outfits worn by the bride during the ceremony. Each outfit superimposes elements from different eras and has distinct functions and meanings. It is an ultra-complex dress system, but I made the decision to focus the application around a single element: the oldest and most symbolic costume, Chedda. It retains a strong magic and spiritual dimension. It results from the assembly of ancient, medieval and more recent elements, which conceal the body under layers of artisanal silk, velvet embroidered with gold and baroque pearls. Everything is particularly heavy! Between the caftan, the jewels, the headdress, the diadems, the whole weighs more than 10 kilos.

"This layered costume superimposes elements whose origins go back to different historical periods, whose base is Berber. Today, the main purely Berber element that persists is the golden loincloth called Fouta, which brides wear the day after the wedding. The stripes of the Fouta symbolize bars that protect the reproductive organs of evil spirits. This element is also found in the mountains, among Berber women, in more modest fabrics. It has passed through the millennia, becoming more sophisticated in Tlemcen, where it is made from precious bristles of hand-woven gold wire. The short caftan, concealed by pearl necklaces and entirely embroidered by hand, crystallized in this form during the Turkish era, as Tlemcen was the westernmost city in the Ottoman world during the four centuries preceding French colonization. The dress that is worn under the caftan is called Blousa, a Latin name. In its present form, it is about a century old and reveals the influence of the French-style dresses of the early twentieth century. As for the conical headdress, embroidered and adorned with seven to nine diadems, it is related to Andalusia of the Muslim era. During the Recapture, Muslim and Jewish exiles massively took refuge in North Africa, and tens of thousands of immigrants from the regions of Cordoba and Granada arrived in Tlemcen between the 13th and 15th centuries. This headdress, which evokes the encounter between the Middle East and Spain, between Asia and Europe, has thus perpetuated on the African side of the Mediterranean. short wedding dresses for older bride