Muslim women have several restrictions on their clothing. They generally wear clothes that cover them from head to toe leaving only their face and hands bare. You can easily point them out in a crowd with their traditional clothes.
Women’s Abaya is a traditional Muslim wear (common more among Middle Easter khaleeji women), which is like a cloak made of a single piece of cloth. They cover everything below the shoulders barring only the hands and feet. Traditionally they were available in black but these days they are also available in different vibrant colors. But these days it has become very common among women of different regions; you can identify them as kaftans. Even famous designer, Domenico Vacca, has decided to add trendy Women’s Abaya designs to his collection. This will actually help in making this type of clothing more famous. They may be traditional wear for Muslim women, but no one can deny that they are very comfortable.
How is an Abaya different from a Jilbab?
An Abaya is somewhat similar to a Jilbab in the fact that both of them cover the entire body. But a Jilbab has the sleeves stitched to the main body of the cloak. Jilbabs are available in many designs; you may easily find hooded ones for a cold day, apart from these you have the ones you can use casually or formally. Jilbabs have a structure in which you can add frills, flares, ruffles, laces, cuffed sleeves, to stylize your garment. An Abaya is a single piece cloak whose sleeves are not stitched to the main body. These usually have embroidered neck lines, sleeves or base.
Abayas and their designs
These are available in light materials, like lexus crepe. These days you can find them made of internet crepe and satin materials which are high quality. These can be open fronted from top to bottom or they can also be entirely closed.
The modern form of this garment adopts stylish intricate geometric and floral patterns all through the body or just on the neckline, base and sleeves. These can also be embroidered with gold or silver. Beads, sequins, multi colored crystals can be incorporated in the design to make them more stylish. If you are looking for high end designs you can go for the ones that are styled with Swarovski stones.
The term ‘Abaya‘ has many definitions and often there is a difference over what an Abaya looks like, what it consists of and what colours it comes in. The way I would define an Abaya is that it is a black long cloak (one piece) that covers everything below the shoulder except hands and feet. The Abaya garment is commonly worn among the Middle Eastern khaleeji (gulf) women.
The rational behind this definition is to set the Abaya apart from the Jilbab garment which has some similarities but many differences. Jilbabs to begin with have arms which are stitched to the main body of the cloak. It has many colours and has many designs such as hooded Jilbabs and has a wider range like smart, casual, work etc. Jilbabs can incorporate more style into the actual shape of the garment like frills, flares, ruffles, cuffed sleeves, laces, pleats and much more.
Abayas, on the other hand, are one piece garments with sleeves which are not actually stitched to the body of the garment but formed as one piece. This may sound as strange as it does but it is an age old custom amongst the Arab Khaleeji (Gulf) women to wear it like that. Abayas traditionally come with embroidery on the neck, sleeves or base hem.
Abayas come in light materials as long as the colour is black such as lexus crepe, a polyester type of material for a standard priced Abaya. Abayas made from internet crepe and satin materials are higher end quality and fairly expensive and can cost anything from £100 to £300 or over. Abayas can be open fronted with buttons all the way from the top down or closed.
Modern day Abayas worn by the younger generation are moving away from the traditional embellishment on the garment. The younger generation opt for more stylish geometric, floral patterns from silver or gold embroidery, bead, sequins, multi coloured crystals for standard or Swarovski for more expensive Abayas. These intricate patterns are added onto neckline, bodice, base and flowing flared sleeves with tassel to make it look more chic, trendy and elegant for younger generation to wear Abaya.
