The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design by Malu Halasa & Rana Salam
Featuring text by Noura Kevorkian, an interview with Ammar Abdulhamid, poetry and self-portraiture by Iman Ibrahim and photographs by Reine Mahfouz, Issa Touma, Gilbert Hage and Omar Al-Moutem
8vo. pp. 176. profusely illustrated. bibliography. index. paperback. dw. (near fine - some light shelf wear to extremities). San Francisco: Chronicle Books, [2008].
ISBN-10: 0811864588 / ISBN-13: 9780811864589
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Syrian lingerie is racy attire little-known in the west. Manufactured in Syria and exported throughout the Middle East, it blinks, sings, vibrates, and flashes lights, and is adorned with everything from faux fir to artificial flowers and feathered birds to colourful plastic toy cell phones. This sort of lingerie is well known and accepted in Syrian culture, and is openly displayed in the markets and souks - it forms an important part of the longstanding folk traditions around weddings and marriage. Brides-to-be are given it as gifts by their mothers, or buy it themselves; husbands buy it for wives. "The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie" gathers together text and photo essays that introduce and celebrate some of the most outrageous undergarments in the world, and challenge our perceived notions of women, sex, and humour in the Muslim world.