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Fes Style Embroidery (Morocco)

Example of Fes style embroidery, Morocco. Example of Fes style embroidery, Morocco.

Fes style embroidery is a form of double running stitch decoration based on a form of embroidery from Fes, Morocco. It was introduced throughout Morocco by the French in order to revive Moroccan arts and crafts during the First World War (1914-1918).

This scheme was intended to provide embroidery training schools, generally raising the standard of existing girls' schools, and to save a number of embroidery skills from extinction by providing commercial outlets. Ironically, this emphasis and use of the Fes style caused the death of various local styles elsewhere in Morocco that were less adaptable to mass-production techniques.

By the end of the twentieth century, many people regard this form of Fes embroidery as being typically Moroccan and that it goes back hundreds of years.

Sources:

  • DENAMUR, Isabelle (2003). Moroccan Textile Embroidery, Paris: Flammarion.
  • STONE, Caroline (1985). The Embroideries of North Africa, London and New York: Longman, pp. 44-45.
  • VOGELSANG-EASTWOOD, Gillian and Caroline STONE (2016). 'Embroidery from Morocco,' in: Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood (ed.), Encyclopedia of Embroidery from the Arab World, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 188-209, esp. pp. 194-196.

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 17 June 2016).

GVE

Last modified on Monday, 17 April 2017 18:33