“Ooh gurl, wait until I wear my real outfit,” says Valérie Kaisala (47). It was a last-minute decision as to which outfit she would wear for Eid. She proudly takes out her habaya – a typical Moroccan outfit: soft pink with black accents. Just then she meets someone she knows. They wish each other “Eid Mubarak”, Arabic for – loosely translated – “happy celebrations”. “The essence of Eid-al-Fitr is being together with friends and family. But if possible, you put on your nicest outfit,” says Kaisala.
Commuters in Brussels could see it on Wednesday morning: the Islamic festival means a sea of colorful festive outfits: brightly colored kaftans, habayas and djellabas, but also jabadors – embroidered robes for men up to the knee with matching trousers and transparent tunic, popular in the Moroccan community – and salwar kameez – the classic tunic with a high slit and matching trousers, a clothing style mainly worn by the Pakistani and Indian communities. For women there is often a matching scarf.
“You can often see what someone’s roots are based on their party clothes,” says Hisham Arbib (28). He wears a white and black striped bouclé djellaba. . “This one is typical of the region where my mother comes from, the city of Chefchaouen in the north of Morocco,” says Arbib. His father is from the south, where the djellabas are often lighter, made of linen. It’s really warm there,” he says, laughing. If you see djellabas with a priest’s collar like that, they probably come from Saudi Arabia,” Arbib explains.
Flemish versus Italians
Mohammad Asaf Jamil (68) wears a simple, woolen salwar kameez. New, he assures us, “that’s how it should be for Eid-al-Fitr”. The traditional Pakistani outfit is a lot less colorful than the Moroccan outfits. “Our faith calls for us to be beautiful today. But everyone is free to decide exactly how to do this,” Jamil explains. “It literally says something about ‘washed’ and good clothing, but in the end that’s not what it’s about. You mark the importance of the end of Ramadan with the clothes,” says Ilyom Omoltssan (15). He wears a bright blue jabador that his aunt gave him, his friend Abdellah El Aoudi (15) walks next to him in his jeans and sneakers. “Also nice, right?”, he points to his friend’s outfit.
It results in a colorful street scene: girls with headscarves trimmed with pearls and colorful habayas. Two Turkish friends wish us “bayram”, Turkish for Happy Eid, as they rush to their families, dressed in matching corsets and kitten heels. A little further on, the pink caftan of Maria Coulibaly (26) stands out. She ordered them in Dubai, her two nieces Syrah (5) and Raïda (6) received the same black lacquer shoes for the occasion. A present, they say, beaming. Coulibaly loves the different costumes, but above all, the feeling of togetherness. “It’s nice to see so many people walking around proudly. Our faith only has two major festivals, Eid al-Fitr now and the Feast of Sacrifice within a month.” She is wearing her outfit for the second year in a row, says Coulibaly, she does not have much opportunity to wear the clothes in Brussels.
Gucci meets the djellaba
Or is that the reason why so much attention is paid to the uniforms? Partly, Arbib thinks. “It’s a great opportunity to honor both your faith and part of your cultural background,” he says. “I was recently talking about it with a Jewish friend. They also dress up for Yom Kippur.” At the same time, it is not just about faith, says Arbib, and he makes the comparison with Easter. Flemish and Italians both celebrate this, but in Italy they may pay more attention to festive clothing. “It is a mixture of faith, culture and personal taste,” says Arbib. Under his djellaba he wears black Gucci loafers. “I like to dress up anyway. This year I will wear the djellaba that comes from my mother’s region, next year I will wear one from my father’s region. I wouldn’t want to choose a side,” he concludes, laughing.
What is striking is that most of them received the outfit as a gift. Lima (6) proudly shows the white lace dress that sister Sounayla Ben Haddou (20) gave her as a gift. “Today it can be something extra,” says Sounayla. Together with older sister Oumayma (21), they are on their way to their family.
The sisters insist on getting ready together after morning prayers on the day of Eid-al-Fitr. The abaya, the dress that women in various Arabic-speaking Muslim countries wear during that prayer, comes off. The sisters snack on ice cream, turn on the music and get ready together. “I have now treated the youngest to a dress, but everyone does something,” says Sounayla, “One of us does the hair, the other does the henna. Ultimately it’s about sharing. There’s nothing like a piece of clothing that you received from someone you love, right?”
