Overview
Modern Egyptian dress has changed twice in a century, and both times headgear went first. The tarboosh, badge of the reforming nineteenth century, was abandoned after 1952 as a relic of monarchy and Ottoman rule; the headscarf, uncommon among educated urban women in the 1960s, became widespread from the 1970s onward.
Key garments and style
Western dress is ordinary in the cities and has been for a century, in offices, schools and universities. The galabeya, a long loose gown, continues as everyday clothing in the countryside, among craftsmen and at home, and functions as comfortable dress rather than as costume.
The tarboosh went out with the revolution, dropped rather than banned, and its disappearance was rapid enough that photographs date to within a few years by whether men are wearing one.
Women’s dress carries the sharpest change. The hijab worn today is not a survival but a return, spreading from the 1970s among students and professionals, and it is generally worn with contemporary clothing rather than with traditional dress — a headscarf with a coat, a shirt and trousers.
Egypt is also a cotton country, its long-staple crop having underwritten the economy since the nineteenth century, and a substantial garment manufacturer.
Transition
Egyptian dress now runs the same fashion cycle as anywhere else, with the galabeya and the headscarf as living elements inside it rather than outside.