The conventional gaze sees clothing as a banal, quiet auxiliary object with undemanding presence. Perceived as natural and taken for granted, it is easy to forget that clothing is designed and produced as part of a particular history and culture. The clothes themselves design us and serve as major sociocultural actors. Against this backdrop, the current exhibition proposes an observation of dress as a clear cultural process. The two different exhibitions displayed side by side enable a gaze on the broad historical and contemporary process between photography and fashion.

Jews of Morocco, 1934-1937, is devoted to photographs by French photographer and ethnographer Jean Besancenot (1902-1992), taken in Morocco during the 1930s and ‘40s. The photographs document the unique forms and details of clothing throughout Morocco, especially among rural Berber (Amazigh) Jews and Jews from and in the mellah (Jewish quarter) in various cities. Details reflect personal status, events, positions, and social strata. Clothing worn for the photographs define and signify distinct categories, transforming dress into a prism reflecting locale, time, and identity.

The photographs document a perception of clothing as expressing values, creating an encounter between historical narratives, and fueling reciprocal relations between social strata which impact and mark the garment. Clothing is interpreted as a cultural act which is simultaneously part of the body’s physicality and an action performed on the body, shaping and changing it. Clothing represents its wearer as a distinct individual, enabling an experience of self-awareness and consciousness of the environs while transforming the wearer into one of a group. Belongingness is local, ethnic, gendered, religious, class-oriented, age-oriented, professional, and more. In practice, dress conveys knowledge about the wearer’s role and social function through imagery and decorations constituting a symbolic language.

Fashion designs by Stav Ellfassi Ahlavi (b. 1933, Israel) and Netta Ittah (b. 1993, Israel) reflect contemporary interpretations of historical material realized in a collection. The two designers are third-generation descendants of Moroccan immigrants whose source of inspiration in Morocco is their common denominator. Their works refer to the Moroccan historical-cultural context as an accessible material source which they each decode and reintegrate into complex dress systems.

HERitage by Ittah presents a contemporary interpretation of “la Grande Robe” – the Great Dress – the traditional Moroccan wedding dress. Ethnic memory is preserved within sophisticated designs and embodied in the traditional craft performed by the designer working together with her female relatives. Such laborious manual work performed in a contemporary style can nullify the hierarchy between haute couture, “ethnic” clothing, and what is considered fashionable in our own time.

Ellfasi Alhavi’s Child Bride Mother traces a journey of identity construction within a sociocultural consensus, following a Moroccan girl in an arranged marriage who attempts to find ways to live within a rigid traditional reality. Five models propose engagement in raw materials referring to Morocco which take shape into new possibilities of material interpretation, conducting a dialogue on the essence of social paradigms.

The exhibition’s two parts reveal material culture expressed in clothing. They present an unmediated view of Moroccan culture as interpreted through wearable objects from the early 19^th century, observing the transformations of the visual forms through contemporary design. This unique connection has the power to change how we see clothing from “folkloristic” to an exciting cultural material.