Barracan

I've been following the news from Tripoli Libya since the overthrow of Gaddafi. I found a news site called The Tripoli Post, very dry and no pictures. Today, someone put up a link to the Libya Herald, which looks like every other news site out there (I swear there's a template somewhere) but it does have lots of pictures.

One of the articles was discussing the buying of new clothes for Eid, the end of Ramadan, and what that meant years ago and what it means now. There was some discussion of traditional dress but no mention of the barracan.

When I lived in Tripoli (1955-57), there were two types of dress for women: the indoor barracan and the outside barracan. The outdoor one was a large shapeless piece of wool that women could shroud themselves with and only have one eye showing. But here's a picture of my mother wearing an indoor barracan at a costume party (she borrowed it from our maid). The piece hanging down comes up over the head and face if the woman needs to, say, answer the door.