A hasty blog post on Sunday about a 1970s caftan pattern provoked a passionate response. Craig of Winnetka Farms called and joked that since we’ve already hosted a shoe making workshop we might as well host a caftan making class. That, I said, would make us fodder for Portlandia parody.
Reaction to the caftan post fell into two camps. Baby Boomers chastised my Generation X cynicism and noted that caftans are comfortable and practical. Others thought the idea is as ridiculous as, well, hosting a shoe making workshop and grinding your own flour. In Facebook, someone posted the picture above of Yves Saint Laurent rocking a caftan and “mandals”.
The caftan is from the Middle East and is still part of the the day to day and clerical garb of Abrahamic cultures. It’s a garment that makes a lot of sense in a hot, dry Mediterranean or desert climate. It functions as a kind of natural air conditioning. With each step you get a breeze, a real bonus for a coming era of anthropegenic fashion change.
Its last appearance was during the 1960s. When will caftans return to the fashion-forward Silver Lake Trader Joes?
YSL rocks it
The question is how many others can?
I bet not many (esp outside the culture )
Would it be like hipsters riding around in 1890s fashions we saw not so many years ago?
Actually I was once invited to the European “branch” of a Nigerian tribe’s annual gathering – all doctors, engineers, lawyers and “what have you”. And all in beautifully crafted and embroidered or painted (?) caftans (if they’d call them that, I don’t know). And you could see that, though some of them were second generation, they felt more at ease in these than probably the European business suit.
“With each step you get a breeze”. I assume you’re going commando!
I meant to make that joke, but you beat me to it!
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