If a king gave you a dress in 1942 and another in 1952, which would you reach for first? That was the delightful dilemma for the daughter of the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who received the garments from King Abdulaziz. Now they glint in a London gallery as though the tailor had only just put down the needle.
Thobe Mokhattam, From the Turathuna (Our Heritage) series, Safeya Binzagr (1940-2024). Reproduction of watercolour on paper. Courtesy of Darat Safeya Binzagr.
Gifting clothing is a long-standing Islamic tradition among rulers, and foreign visitors were welcome recipients. A garment makes an unusually personal present, made to be worn at precisely the moment someone wants to be looked at. These thobes, the outer dresses of central Najd, the historic homeland of the Saud family, would have been worn for weddings and other special occasions. Colourful and voluminous, they were clearly built for making an entrance, and you can almost hear the rustle of that much cloth crossing a room.
Most of us own a gifted garment we keep long after it stops fitting, a scarf from a grandmother or a jumper knitted by an aunt. The thobes sit at the very grand end of that impulse: cloth that says I thought of you, with a king’s resources behind the thought.
Thobe (outer dress), Najd, Saudi Arabia. About 1940. Silk, metal-wrapped thread, cotton.
Lean in to the glitter and the map widens. Every dress is embellished with metal-wrapped thread, a fine strip of metal wound around a fibre core so that it behaves like thread and catches light like jewellery. Under gallery lighting it should flash and settle as you move, much as it would have across a crowded celebration. The materials and embroidery techniques carry the trail of trade and exchange well beyond Arabia, with India especially present. A Najdi celebration dress, it turns out, had a well-travelled wardrobe behind it.
Left: Dorra'a (under dress), Najd, Saudi Arabia. About 1940. Right: Dorra a (under dress), Najd, Saudi Arabia, About 1950. Probably silk, metal-wrapped thread.
The collection arrived at the V&A in 2025, donated by the family of Sir Hugh Stonehewer Bird. Fuchsia Hart, the museum’s Sarikhani Curator, points to the international connections that shaped Najdi thobes and to the part they played in royal gifting. Antonia Carver of Art Jameel calls the display a rare chance to explore the history of Saudi dress, and it is hard to disagree.
Golden Threads: Dress from Saudi Arabia is on in The Jameel Gallery at V&A South Kensington until Sunday, 30 May 2027, and it is free to visit. It forms part of the Jameel Programme marking twenty years of the gallery with Community Jameel. A short film about the 1940s bridal thobes accompanies it, and it is worth watching before you go, or after, when you want to look again.
Allow time to stand close to the thread, because the glitter rewards patience.
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Further Information:
Golden Threads: Dress from Saudi Arabia is on in The Jameel Gallery at V&A South Kensington until Sunday, 30 May 2027
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Image Credits:
Lead: Thobe (outer dress), Najd, Saudi Arabia About 1950. Silk, metal-wrapped thread.
All further images as credited in captions, and courtesy of the V&A.