Fashion is Political: Palestinians in the Present
The Museum of Palestinian People’s gallery features a historical dress called a thobe. Its fabric and creation tells a longer story of Palestinians’ ongoing struggle. / Photo by Aanika Sawhney
With a following of 17 million on YouTube and 4.3 million on Instagram, where her bio reads “For every child, always,” Ms. Rachel raises the message at Glamour’s Women of the Year award ceremony in an upcycled dress detailed specifically with children’s drawings from Gaza.
Children’s educator Rachel Griffin-Accurso was honored as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year for her empathy-led videos and teachings last week on Nov. 4 in New York City. Recently, her social media has become an unwavering platform for her advocacy against the inhumane conditions that children and the Palestinian people have endured through the genocide.
“When I see children suffering anywhere, I just think about, ‘What if that was my child?’ I put myself in people’s shoes, and I just do what I would want another person to do for me,” Ms. Rachel told Glamour. “Children should have human rights, and children do have human rights.”
Artwork from nine Gazan youth were embroidered onto the folded capelet of her off-the-shoulder dress and on the back of its train. Their woven sentiments were brought to life, as she walked the red carpet and held the photos of the artists in a celebration of their creativity and strength. The drawings featured universal messages of hope and peace with symbols like doves, nature, and distinct Palestinian representations of resilience through watermelons.
She further spotlighted their experiences in a series of posts wearing the dress, tagging the children’s profiles, many of whom use their art to fundraise for their families.
“I want to tell you more about the children who made this amazing artwork. I can’t convey enough that they are just like your children,” she wrote Nov. 6 on Instagram.
Ms. Rachel radiated from within. Piecing together her thoughtful outfit, she connected the public to the identities of Palestinians, who have been reduced in size due to mass casualties. Their art and her platform humanize the children. Ms. Rachel used the attention placed on celebrities’ dresses to ask for reflection, and I see a striking plea coming from the Gazan children’s harsh realities in conflict with their artistic dreams through her dress.
Embroidery has historically told the story of Palestinian identity in traditional clothing. The Museum of the Palestinian People is the first museum in Washington, D.C. dedicated to Palestinian arts. The gallery features a “Map of Traditional Palestinian Dress Styles” from the Palestinian Heritage Center, highlighting the embroidery tradition called “tatreez” between mothers and daughters.
“The stitch design would be linked to the village itself, so the people could recognize where you were from,” said Julia Pitner of the Museum of Palestinian People. “You had all of these different stitches that were specific to villages and areas in Palestine, based on the flora and fauna of the area around it, so it showed a real attachment to the land from the beginning.”
The dress on display in the gallery had a similar two-tone to Ms. Rachel’s, with black and magenta paneling. The museum description highlights the cross-stitching of upside-down flowerpots as “perhaps a playful gesture,” which could lean deeper into tragedy, representing loss of life.
This striped fabric style comes from the Gaza city, al-Majdal, which was known as the capital of weaving. Inhabitants were forcibly displaced, many unable to take their weaving looms, and the textile hub is now known as the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
In September, Vogue Arabia highlighted Palestinian designer Yasmeen Mjalli's Nöl Collective as a preservation of the art. This textile, Majdalawi, still exists today as a reminder of heritage and resistance.
The threads of Palestinian voices in Ms. Rachels’ dress embroidery are an unignorable call for justice. She rejects the global public and political silence on Gaza, sharing her platform to name Palestinians as human, uplifting the children like the ones she sings to online.
Aanika Sawhney is in Washington, D.C., reporting for the Medill News Service, covering Immigration and Demographics. Her columns use her real experience and on-the-Hill observations to establish the intertwined nature of what we wear on our bodies to historical and ongoing world politics.