We were asked to write our own travelogue for this week seminar. Mine is about my trip to United Arab Emirates, Dubai and how I saw fashion in there.
Last year with my family we travelled to United Arab Emirates, Dubai to spent
our Christmas holiday. First thing I
noticed as our tour guide was telling us about the city on our way to hotel
that they like in Dubai to have everything the biggest in the world (buildings
were fighting to be the tallest and also fastest built, even Ferris wheel
“London Eye” was going to be the biggest in the world).
I could not help but
notice how everyone were dressed, especially women. Women were all wearing
burka. Some of the women were all covered and you could see only their eyes and
for some of them you could see their beautiful faces. For coming from Finland this
seemed really overwhelmed for me. Not only that these women have to cover
themselves, but not to be able to express through clothing and to look all the
same. It took me couple days to start looking more closely these garments. They
seemed to me first only black and all looking the same when viewed from a
distance, but when I looked closely I could see that they were all different. I
could see different fabrics and also amazing handwork on the garments. Some of
them had embroidery on them made with black on black so I could not first
notice it from distance and some of them had also small beading on them. I also
noticed that women were expressing their fashion style also through brooches,
bags and shoes. This of course is what I saw in tourist are, but I don´t think
that everyone has that luxury.
Through whole trip I
was questioning from myself how should I been dressed in
this vacation. Even I don´t think anyone should be right to say how I dress,
but the mood and the feeling I Dubai made me uncomfortable.
So should I respect
my own ethics or as a tourist should I respect their culture? At the same time
do I then respect only men´s thoughts or the women´s thoughts?
