19th Century Middle Eastern Clothing

Nineteenth-century Middle Eastern clothing varied by region, occupation, wealth, and whether it was worn indoors or in public. Ottoman officials increasingly combined the fez with European-style tailoring, while many other people continued to wear layered shirts, trousers, robes, and cloaks. Adoption was uneven: Istanbul artisans modified or resisted official headwear, Egyptian workers wore simpler outfits than wealthy Cairenes, and Qajar Iran followed its own court and clothing traditions.^1,3,8

Ottoman Dress Reforms and the Fez

The most visible sartorial change in the 19th-century Middle East was driven by state decree. Sultan Mahmud II's clothing reforms — first for his new army in the late 1820s, then for officials of every rank in 1829 — replaced the traditional turban with the fez — a brimless red felt cap.¹ These dress reforms set the stage for the broader Tanzimat program, launched in 1839, which sought to modernize and centralize the Ottoman state, often drawing on European models.² The fez, ironically itself thought to be of Moroccan origin, became the empire's defining headgear for nearly a century until Ataturk's Hat Law outlawed it in 1925.¹

Military dress changed first. After Mahmud II abolished the Janissaries in 1826 and created a new Western-organized army, the robes and turbans of earlier centuries gave way to Western-style uniforms, and the sultans themselves came to dress like Western commanders, in dark suits of black or dark blue, with jackets embroidered at the collar and cuffs and trousers with bands down the sides.^5,1 For civilian officials, the stambouline — a black frock coat worn with the fez — became the standard formal outfit, blending European tailoring with Ottoman identity.⁴

Who Adopted the Reforms?

The 1829 regulation concerned officials of every rank, including Muslims and non-Muslims. Replacing differentiated turbans with a common fez made the bureaucracy look more uniform, visually supporting an Ottoman identity that crossed religious communities. Bureaucrats, professionals, and prosperous urban Christians and Jews adopted it particularly enthusiastically. This was a change in the appearance of state service and particular urban groups, rather than an immediate replacement of every local wardrobe.¹

Artisans' responses were more complicated. Some Muslim workers wrapped cloth around the fez like a turban; others initially rejected it. FIT's account links their distrust partly to the dissolution of the Janissaries, with whom Istanbul guilds had been closely associated, and to economic policies that exposed them to foreign competition. By the end of the century the fez had spread among the lower classes too, but cloth-wrapped versions remained visible. Wearing a reformed garment did not always mean accepting the state's preferred way of wearing it.¹

The hat also connected clothing reform to manufacturing. Istanbul and Cairo established fez factories in the late 1820s, while Tunisian producers faced pressure to mechanize and competition from cheaper European imports. A supposedly distinctive Ottoman accessory could thus be supplied through an international industrial market. Its political meaning and its place of manufacture were separate questions.¹

Even official headwear changed within the century. Abdülmejid favored a higher fez, Abdülaziz a lower version, and Abdülhamid II a nearly cylindrical one. FIT also records Abdülhamid's prohibition of Western brimmed hats in 1877. The accessory introduced as a reform could consequently become a defended marker of Ottoman identity: European influence did not mean an uninterrupted progression toward identical European clothing.¹

For the court kaftans and turbans that the fez and stambouline replaced, see Ottoman clothing, from court kaftans to the stambouline.

Everyday Dress and Regional Traditions

Beyond the official reforms, everyday clothing across the Middle East retained much of its traditional character. Bedouin men of Arabia and the Syrian desert wore a coarse cotton shirt under a woollen mantle, the abba, with a keffiyeh headcloth held in place by a camel-hair cord, the agal.⁷ In Egypt, men of the middle and upper classes layered full drawers, a shirt, a short vest, a long striped kaftan, and a cloth outer robe.⁸ Persian men wore the kolah cap and coats pleated at the waist.³

Women's clothing in the region changed more slowly than men's official dress. Bedouin women wore a wide, dark cotton gown and a head kerchief, and many half-covered the face with a dark veil, though in the interior of the desert women usually went unveiled.⁷ In 1830s Cairo, women of the middle and upper classes went out in a loose silk gown, a long white face veil called the burko', and an enveloping black silk wrap, the habarah.⁸ In Istanbul, elite Ottoman women increasingly adopted Parisian fashion — including corsets and bodices cut in the European manner — while still wearing the ferace outdoor cloak and yashmak face veil in public; by the later decades of the century the yashmak had grown more transparent and the ferace was often worn open.^9,10,6,11

Egyptian Clothing: Layers, Labor, and Income

Edward William Lane's account, based on his residence in Egypt in 1833–35, describes the order of a prosperous man's layers in detail. Drawers and a full-sleeved shirt came first; a sleeveless short vest could add warmth. Over these went the long striped kaftan, bound with a shawl or muslin girdle, and a cloth outer coat. The shirt, vest, and outer robe were distinct pieces, allowing combinations to change with weather and circumstances. Lane also distinguishes a more ample ceremonial robe from the ordinary outer coat.⁸

His descriptions of poorer men are markedly different: drawers, where affordable, and a loose blue linen or cotton gown or a brown wool garment could form the core outfit. Some men added a wool girdle and a cap wrapped in cloth; the poorest lacked shoes or additional layers. Servants could wear the blue gown over several other garments, and grooms secured its wide sleeves with cords while working. In cold weather, coarse wool cloaks supplied another layer. Income and occupation therefore changed both the number of garments and how they were managed on the body.⁸

Women's domestic clothing also needs to be distinguished from outdoor coverings. Lane describes middle- and upper-class women wearing a shirt, very full trousers gathered below the knee but hanging toward the feet, and a fitted, long-sleeved yelek or a shorter jacket. A girdle and an embroidered outer coat could complete the ensemble. These layers explain why a public photograph of an enveloping wrap cannot reveal the whole outfit underneath.⁸

For many less affluent women, Lane records cotton or linen trousers, a blue shirt, and a dark head covering, sometimes with a checked cotton wrap. He reports that face veils and shoes were more common in Cairo and parts of Lower Egypt than in Upper Egypt. His observations are geographically and chronologically specific; they should not be extended to all Egyptian women throughout the century.⁸

Comparing Regional and Social Settings

Setting	Documented clothing	Important distinction
Ottoman bureaucracy after 1829	Fez with reformed official clothing	A prescribed style spread unevenly beyond state service.1
Istanbul artisans	Fez sometimes wrapped in cloth, or initially rejected	Workers adapted the new headwear rather than simply copying officials.1
Cairo, prosperous men, 1830s	Drawers, shirt, optional short vest, kaftan, girdle, outer robe	Layering and cloth quality distinguished this outfit from poorer men's dress.8
Egypt, poorer working men, 1830s	Loose blue cotton or linen gown, or brown wool garment, with additions as means allowed	Work and resources determined the practical ensemble.8
Early Qajar court, Iran	Long robe, waistcoat, jacket, sash, and tall black cap	Iranian court styles had their own history, separate from Ottoman fez reform.3

In Persia, women wore the chador outdoors over richly decorated tunics and wide trousers or, from the middle of the century, short layered skirts, often made of boldly patterned or embroidered cloth.³

Qajar Iran: Court Dress and Public Coverings

Early nineteenth-century Qajar men's court clothing combined an ankle-length robe, a short-sleeved waistcoat, and a shorter outer jacket. The tall black astrakhan cap, patterned waistbands, jeweled armbands, and carefully chosen edgings made the ensemble distinctive. Kerman wool and Kashmir shawl fabrics were valued alongside silk. These examples concern expensive court dress; they do not establish that comparable luxury was available to ordinary households.³

For women, early Qajar domestic ensembles included a shirt, full trousers or a gathered skirt, and a fitted jacket whose turned-back cuffs could display contrasting layers. Outdoor dress added the chador and sometimes a separate face veil. Diba records white chadors as well as the appearance of black or dark blue examples by mid-century. Color and garment combinations changed over time, making a single modern image of the chador an inadequate guide to nineteenth-century practice.³ For the twentieth-century dress laws in Turkey and Iran, see modern Middle Eastern clothing.

Sources

1. The Fez and the Ottoman Path to Modernity — Emerson Hurley, Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), 2023.
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2. Tanzimat — Elizabeth Thompson, Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, and Linda T. Darling, Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (via Encyclopedia.com).Reference 1
3. Clothing x. In the Safavid and Qajar periods — Layla Diba, Encyclopaedia Iranica.
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4. Watercolor drawings of Ottoman costumes — Qatar National Library Digital Repository.Reference 1
5. Garments of the Ottoman Sultans — Sumiyo Okumura, Turkish Cultural Foundation.Reference 1
6. Women's Garments — Sumiyo Okumura, Turkish Cultural Foundation.Reference 1
7. Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, vol. 1 — John Lewis Burckhardt, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831 (Internet Archive).
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8. An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians — Edward William Lane, written 1833–35 (Project Gutenberg).
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9. European Fashion, Consumption Patterns, and Intercommunal Relations in the 19th-Century Ottoman Istanbul — Anastasia Falierou, in Women, Consumption, and the Circulation of Ideas in South-Eastern Europe, 17th–19th Centuries, Brill, 2017.Reference 1
10. A Turkish woman — Amadeo Preziosi, watercolour, about 1843, Victoria and Albert Museum.Reference 1
11. Veiling and Veil-Based Outer Garments in Ottoman Women's Clothing: Yashmak, Face Veil, Ferace, and Çarşaf — Arzu Bor Kocaman, Mütefekkir 13(25), 2026.Reference 1