clothing for women traveling to morocco

clothing for women traveling to morocco



Moroccan Women's Clothing
Morocco Travel Information

Traditional clothing for women in Morocco consists of brightly colored, long flowing robes, headscarves, slippers, button down blouses, and, sometimes, even veils. This style of clothing has been cultivated since the ancient times of Moroccan history, and is still a part of the living tradition and culture of the country today. Typically, the women of Morocco continue wearing the traditional clothing of their forbearers without extensive variation or influence from the realms of Western fashion, but modern alterations of the historic Muslim-influenced styles of dress are rapidly creeping into wardrobes. Heterogeneous fashions - mixes between traditional Muslim/ Moroccan and modern women's clothing fashions - can now be observed in the streets of Morocco today, but the principles of hijab, the Muslim idea of modest dress, still prevail. There are various different articles of clothing that make up the Moroccan woman's wardrobe, and this paper is meant to shine some light on these pieces, as well as discuss the ways in which Muslim women's fashion has been changing in Morocco.






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Moroccan ceramics, food, fashion, religion and most important, tips on how to use a squat toilet

Moroccan ceramics, food, fashion, religion and most important, tips on how to use a squat toilet

by Laura BeauchampSahara Desert spider. This little guy crawled into our tent one night during our Sahara Trek. Our guide quickly killed it. After looking at the spider more closely, I was glad he did.During our 3-week adven­ture in Morocco, I noticed some inter­est­ing things that I thought I could share with you.  Currently we are in Bucharest, Romania. We just arrived here yes­ter­day after a one day layover in Milano, Italy and before that we spent a quick two days in Madrid. I will get some photos up of Madrid shortly. In the mean time enjoy the following.CERAMICS & TILESMorocco has tiles on some roofs that strongly resemble the ones used in Italy, only the tiles are smaller and are usually found in one of three colours:  orangish-red, blue or green.  After vis­it­ing a ceramic pro­du­cing town near Zagora in south-eastern Morocco, we learnt that green is the most common and tra­di­tional colour for not only roof tiles but also any shape that can be made out of ceramic, like ash trays, serving plat­ters, plates, sugar bowls and the infam­ous Moroccan tanjine pot.  In fact, green is the colour of Islam.The roof tiles in Morocco are very much like the ones in Italy. They are gen­er­ally green, but you’ll also see blue and an orangish-red.The many dif­fer­ent colours of the ceram­ics are pro­duced with primar­ily natural dyes.  The yellow ceram­ics are dyed with saffron, the blue with indigo, and the light pinkish-red with henna water and lemon. The green is made from a com­bin­a­tion of three things, one of them being copper. Some ceram­ics are fired once to make them off-white in colour, then they are dec­or­ated with nat­ur­ally pro­duced henna.   After one more firing in the kiln, the design is everlasting.FOODLunch and dinner in Morocco start with com­pli­ment­ary bread and a small plate of fant­astic fresh olives.  Salt and pepper are kept in small, com­munal dishes on the table instead of shakers. This means every­one must use their fingers to pinch the salt and/or pepper onto their food.  The pure lack of soap, toilet paper, hand blowers and paper towels in restrooms has led me to eating my meals without the aid of salt and pepper.A weekly market in one of the small towns of Morocco. If you’re hungry while shop­ping you can grab a roasted corn cob.ALCOHOLIt is almost impossible to find alcohol in Morocco, although it is avail­able. The local brew is called “SPECIAL BEER”, that’s lit­er­ally and actu­ally the name of the beer.It comes in itty-bitty 24 cl bottles. Roughly three of these bottles equates to one stand­ard Canadian bottle of beer.  The servers in one bar had a habit of leaving the empties on the table, there­fore making Chris and I look like extreme alco­hol­ics when we had accu­mu­lated 12 bottles on the table within a couple of hours.MOSQUESIslam is the main reli­gion in Morocco yet prayer call is not heard as often nor as loud as in Turkey. In fact, the call to prayer in El-Jadida sounded very dif­fer­ent. It sounded shorter and stac­cato. Mosques are not as plen­ti­ful or easy to locate.A large mosque in Tangier’s medina over­look­ing the Strait of Gibraltar. You can just make out Spain in the distance.The only indic­a­tion of a build­ing being a mosque is the 5–6 story square tower. There are no domed roofs, extra spires, or elab­or­ate dec­or­a­tions and tile work like the mosques of Turkey.  In a sense, the mosques had a much more humble feeling.WOMEN’S CLOTHINGYoung girls and adoles­cence wear western styled clothes like tight emo-jeans and T-shirt.  The major­ity of women and teenage girls wear head­scarves and occa­sion­ally you’ll see a girl as young as seven wearing one.  The women here must have huge ward­robes in order to have a head­scarf that per­fectly matches the long-sleeved shirt which she has to wear under the floor-length back­less summer dress. This is the attire of a very modern Moroccan lady in a big city like Meknes or Fes.The tra­di­tional outfit of Moroccan women. It is worn over their normal clothes, like a jacket.In nearly all the rural cities, towns and still within the larger cities the major­ity of women con­tinue to wear the tra­di­tional outfit, a long-sleeved, ankle-length, hooded, “jacket”.  Patterns and colours are limited only by the ima­gin­a­tion.  They come in pat­terns like leopard, zebra, bright red, green, purple, floral print, vibrant tur­quoise etc.The tan­ner­ies in Fez’s medina souk. This is one of the first stages in cre­at­ing the many fash­ion­able bags or purses for sale. The entire area reeked of death (like Brooks Alberta).MEN’S CLOTHINGThe variety of mens dress exceeds any­thing yet seen in the history of the Western world. Primarily men just wear pants and collared T-shirts, but you will also see men in thobes (a long-sleeved, floor length, white col­oured outfit, which kind of looks like a dress shirt that’s been tailored to the ankles), a jacket some­what like the ladies only without the hood and slightly wider cut and lastly some men wear long-sleeved, floor length, hooded robes usually dark brown or green in colour.A husband and wife stroll through the Eassouria medina souk together.When men are dressed in these with the hood up they remind me of the Jwa’s from Star Wars.  The hoods are very unique in how they point at the top and how the men fold them up so they can see.SHOESMoroccan shoes.This style of shoe is “very Moroccan”. All ages of people wear them.  It is almost as if the design of the shoe developed out of func­tion (like most things).  You know when you’re in a hurry to catch someone who just left your house, how you slip on your shoes really quickly flat­ten­ing the heals into the shoe?  The Moroccan shoe looks like this has happened to all of them, only the maker sewed down the heel in the squished down position.TOILETSCarry around soap in a plastic bag in your purse because 98% of toilets do not have any type of hand san­it­izer.  It is also wise to carry around hand san­it­izer to use before/after toilets and eating.   In Morocco , 95% of the toilets are squat toilets. If you are not use to these it helps to wear a skirt which can be easily lifted out of the way.Squat toilets are every­where in Morocco.To avoid as much spray back as pos­sible it is import­ant to put your feet at quite a wide stance, but even more import­ant is squat­ting as low as you can (without falling into the fes­ter­ing hole of waste beneath you!). My last piece of advice on how to squat prop­erly and come out rel­at­ively clean is aim. The better you are at aiming for the drain increases your chance of less spray back by ten.  Some squat toilets have a flush, some don’t. Look up and around for a string to flush. If you don’t see any­thing, I can guar­an­tee you’ll see a tap and a little bucket.  Without think­ing about it too much, turn on the tap, fill the bucket and dump it down the hole. This must be the most energy effi­cient flush on the planet, but now you see why I highly recom­mend car­ry­ing soap and hand san­it­izer. Toilet paper, very import­ant, is not used really in many places believe it or not.  Carry your own toilet paper at all times. Sometimes there will be a garbage bin with you and your squat toilet. If not, try to use as little as pos­sible and wash it down the drain with your little bucket. Do not put tampons down the toilets, you may really, really regret it.morocco culture,moroccan food,morocco food,moroccan cuisine,morocco beaches,moroccan meal,beaches in morocco,moroccan culture,hercules cave,hercules cave morocco

What to wear in Morocco

What to wear in Morocco


What to wear in Morocco???,,
I'm sure this has been done before but I couldn't find a post dedicated to it alone.

There seems to be quite a bit contradictory information about how to dress. This is what I have gathered...

Men
Should dress smart & not show skin (no sleeveless tops, shorts and flipflops).

Closed shoes?

What about T-shirts - are they ok?

Women
It's less strict in cities but to avoid unwanted attention...

No low cut tops - but how low is low? Is it ok to show some skin if no cleavage is show?

No tight clothing - but hw tight is tight? Must it be baggy?

No arms or legs on display at all.

What about sandals - if worn with long skirt ankles will show...

No make-up - how bad is to wear it then?

However then it gets confusing because it says
Quote
Despite the stigmas, many "modern" Moroccan women will wear "western"-style clothes. Go out into any street of a large Moroccan city and you will see many women wearing tight shirts that reveal anything from the shoulder to the belly-button, short skirts and very close fitting jeans. Make-up and blond hair are very much in fashion


What about covering the head with a shawl? Some sites (& posters here) say yes you should especially if you have blond hair. Others say it is completely unnecessary.

How different is how a woman is treated if she is with her husband (which is what I will be), alone or with a girlfriend?

I went with my 17 year old brother, in Djema el Fal I was amazed at the difference it made having him with me from the times I was wandering around alone, in other cities I didn't really wander around alone so I am not sure what that would have been like. Generally though the hassle wasn't major and I usually just ignored it, my brother found it more stressful than I did.

Clothes wise I wore t-shirts, my boobs aren't tiny so t-shirts are never really loose on me, but they weren't really clingy and 3/4 trousers. If I was going to a religious site I wore full lengh trousers (many people weren't) and maybe a kaftan type top (but again lots of people didn't bother). In Marrakech I was quite shocked at what a lot of tourists were wearing (think tiny skirts and low cut vest tops) so I think they are more relaxed in what they expectto see touists wearing there.

I wore a bit of make up on an evening, didn't feel it affected the way I was treated.

As for blokes I don't think tshirts would be a problem, bro wore sandals but he does look quite young so not sure ifhe gets away with more than others?

Only time I felt uncomfortable was in the hotel bars as most women in there are prostitutes so I got a few sleezy looks but no worse thanI get in my local nightclub here at 2am!

Okay, Ria, wherever you got your information - you ought to write them a letter of complaint, because some of that is quite absurd.

Men should not wear sleeveless shirts (don't show their armpit hair), and shorts are debateable (only young urban Moroccan men, 20s and under, might wear them), but flip flops are absolutely fine, as are other sandals. Moroccan men tend to be well-dressed, so if you look sloppy, the only problem is standing out as a tourist. That said, you will not offend anyone with sloppiness.

Women should avoid the following: cleavage, shoulders (although I show mine in the summer, and so do many Moroccans), and legs above the knee or mid-calf (skirts should go PAST the knee, not to it). That stuff is the only stuff I personally consider to be necessary.

Ankles are fine, feet are fine, lower arms are fine. Neck is fine, but the lower-cut the shirt is, the more attention you will get (in my opinion, as long as you don't see breast at all, it's okay).

It's best to wear looser tops, as Moroccan men will of course (like men in most places) stare at the outline of breasts, and some women find it prudent to wear shirts that cover their bottom if wearing tight pants, but again, it's not necessary.

Make-up is FINE. FINE! Almost all Moroccan women over 16 years old wear makeup in some form. Lipstick is much less common, but kohl around the eyes is practically a rite of passage. Just don't overdo it (but seriously, why would you?)

DON'T cover your head unless it's with a bandanna or hat. There is absolutely no need to cover your hair; you are not Muslim and no one expects you to dress like a strict Muslim woman. I suppose if you're visiting some very conservative small village and all the women there are wearing it, you may want to, but in any sizeable city, I'd say 50% of women do, 50% don't.

As for being with a man, well...your husband will be addressed if he's with you, you will not. 9 times of 10, anyway. You won't get as many stares (particularly if you're obviously together, e.g. holding hands), but some men will still take it too far and try to harass you. I was with my husband once and a man cupped imaginary breasts toward me and said "niiiiice." By the time I got my husband's attention, the guy started pretending he didn't speak English.

Ria, I think you are worrying too much. You will see a little of everything, depending on which town you are in. Makeup certainly is o.k. and you do not need headcovering. But yes, I do think shorts for both men and women are inappropriate, as are sleeveless blouses for women...but I am sure alifbaa and the other regular female posters will chime in with suggestions.

Ria, thanks for posting this. And alifbaa, thanks for answering. I've been wondering much the same things -- it seems like the guidebooks are totally contradictory on the clothing for women question. It's nice to hear a straight answer from someone.

Why you all complicate things , You can wear what ever you want , Morocco is a country of Freedom and Democracy there's no Harm if you didnt wear the same as people do :)
But if your a fan of moroccan clothes then u will be excited where ever u go u had to change ur clothes , maybe from the north to the south coz so many tradition and cultures , Berber , Aouribiya , Jebala , Doukala , Sahraoui and more so u have to be ready lol


Alifbaa i dont think so all of our country men treat all the womens this way but only some of them , they need little bit to get sexual teaching in life thats all , step by step :)
So if some do treat women wrongly so that mean u have to change ur clothes ? Strange ! LOL , everyone has his personnality so if yours strong enough to convice that men or help him out to understand that could help and if u think u have to wear what we are wearing then go ahead :)
Peace & Love .Of Course we got freedom and democracy :) just u cant feel it if u are a stranger thats all :)

I've just come back from a week in Marrakech and Essaouira and found that when I was with my (female) friend I had virtually no hassle, when we went out on our own we both had quite a few blokes come up and whisper things to us while we were walking, usually along the lines of "hi how are you" but one did say something rude. On the whole, neither of us had hardly any hassle and thought all the reports are ridiculously overblown. We both wore long sleeved shirts and long trousers or skirts all the time and wore a little make up as well - as other posters have said it's really hard to imagine why you would wear skimpy tops and things. Tourists who were wearing skimpy clothes seemed to get hassled constantly in the Medina, whereas we didn't at all.
 that's a nice thought, but having lived here for awhile, I can tell you that despite the fact that some Moroccan women can get away with wearing whatever they want, foreign women are subject to harassment ten times stronger. And of course it's not all Moroccan men who perpetrate this, but if we assume that at least half do (and it sure seems that way in Meknes), then that's a lot of harassment.

I can't feel freedom and democracy because I'm not Moroccan? Gee, I'll bet the Nichane journalists, who are Moroccan, aren't feeling it so much right now either. Neither is Aboubakr Jamai, who has apparently just left this free country.

I love Morocco, my friend, but please consider the fact that tourists are coming to Morocco to enjoy their time, not fend off hordes of Moroccan men.

I wore long trousers or skirts at all times and usually vest/thin strapped tops but with a loose cotton shirt over the top and always had a pashmina/scarf at hand. If I was on top of the tourist bus, at a rooftop terrace restaurant or somewhere quiet I would strip down to the vest top to soak up the gorgeous heat of the sun. When on the streets I'd wear the loose cotton top over the vest, and if I felt I was being particularly looked at I would wrap the pashmina around my shoulders. There were other women wearing a lot less and looked quite comfortable but I also saw women who were walking around hunched with arms crossed across their chests and looking very uncomfortable - I can only imagine they were on their first walk through the Medina.

I wasn't unduly harrassed, none of the men touch, but I found that some them can give a look that is so penetrating it feels like they're more than touching. It's quite unpleasant, paticularly when coupled with whispered comments or even just a sort of "tsk" sound. Unfortunately it's all done so slyly , softly and quickly that my boyfriend never saw it happen and for a time he thought I was being silly and over-reacting by wrapping myself up in layers and layers!!

Hope this helps!

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