Poverty is Sexy

...or so one company would have you believe. 


Last night while flipping through Vanity Fair I came across an advert in which Angelina Jolie takes sexy centre stage. There she is, looking beautiful, sultry and care-free on a rickety Asian boat, floating down the river.  At first glance, nothing unusual, just another gorgeous woman in a glossy magazine. I took a second glance, though, because it looked curiously like a boat, and a river, that I myself floated down a few years ago in Cambodia. A third glance...


...and then I'm suddenly filled with rage. A rage that left me tossing and turning and stormy all night, and that probably had my co-workers ready to beat me this morning. 


Here it is. 

©Louis Vuitton 2011, as printed in Vanity Fair Magazine October 2011

©Louis Vuitton 2011, as printed in Vanity Fair Magazine October 2011

     ©Louis Vuitton 2011, as printed in Vanity Fair Magazine October 2011

It's the bag. 


There Angelina is, in one of the poorest countries on earth, on a boat in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a Louis Vuitton luxury handbag.  


Talk about a juxtaposition of imagery.


I did a little bit of browsing today to find out more about this ad campaign. That's when I learned it was part of a larger series called "Core Values". Right, because that's what she we need when we go to poverty-ridden post-conflict zones; just a little reminder about what we value most and can't live without. A designer handbag.


According to some sites on the web, Angelina is not wearing any make-up, is wearing her own clothes, and the bag is her very own Vuitton. The campaign - photographed by Annie Liebovitz - aims to show real life, real moments, real people.


I'm no Annie Liebovitz, but I can show you some real life, real moments and real people.

Seriously, I don't think floating down the lush river (perhaps the Mekong, but more likely Tonle Sap lake near Siem Reap in Northwestern Cambodia) with a Louis Vuitton handbag and a Hollywood star shows us anything about real people and real life. Not real Cambodian people  anyway.


I know Jolie has done wonderful things, and that Cambodia is very close to her heart (because her eldest son was adopted from Cambodia). The world admires her for that.


And, she likely gave all some of the proceeds to charity, like the Jolie Pitt Foundation.


But that's the problem.


Real people don't need charity. They need real jobs. Real opportunities. Real dignity.


Angelina's star power would do wonders to promote a local Cambodian designer. I would love to see her in Vanity Fair advertising the luxurious silk handwoven by Cambodian women. I would love to see her leverage her power, not to gather donations for charities, but to build economies and empower real Cambodians to earn their way out of poverty.

Part of the fair trade Cambodian silk collection at Bambootique.

Instead, there's not a Cambodian nor a Cambodian product in sight.


Just a pretty girl. On a boat. With a Louis Vuitton bag.


Because hey, poverty is sexy.

Sunday Morning Giveaway!

For those of you who have been following Bringing Home the World, you'll know that I've just been on a fabulous work trip through the Middle East (UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan!).


Well, I've brought a little bit of the world back with me in the form of this gorgeous jewellery case handcrafted by women in Jordan and sold through Al Burgan Handicrafts. Al Burgan is proud to be one of the leading initiators in the Middle East of an industry which actively involves women in their own journey out of poverty. One lucky reader is going to be the proud new owner!

This lovely jewellery case can be yours!
The Arabic calligraphy reads "Knowledge is Light"

So, I guess we'll need a few rules. To enter for your chance to win, please fill out the form below. Only one entry is allowed per person. Please indicate if you follow Gandhara Designs through Facebook or Twitter, and if you follow this blog. An extra entry will be given for each way you follow! Entry deadline is October 20th, 2011. The winner will be drawn randomly and announced here and on Facebook on October 21st. You have two days to contact me, or I'll draw a new winner!

Searching for Silver

One of the most alluring things about the Middle East is its women, and their self-adornment. Pure joy for me is meandering slowly under the hot sun through the exotic bazaars in Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus and Amman searching for long-lost treasures. Middle Eastern jewellery is magical. The textures, the shapes, the jingling sounds all tell the stories of the women who wore the pieces, and the men who made them. Each bracelet, each medallion, each pair of earrings is a window into the life and culture of one of the most fascinating regions in the world. The styles and designs are as diverse as the beauty of the women who wear them. Each piece is laden with symbolism, heavy with the weight of desert life: harsh and stark, but also painfully beautiful.

An Egyptian woman in a traditional Bedouin niqab adorned with coins and amulets.

The silver jewellery that Bedouin women wear is not just for adornment; it is part of the dowry receives upon marrying and is an eternal marker of her social status. At traditional Bedouin weddings, the young bride will literally be cloaked in several kilograms of beautiful, hand-crafted silver. From the wedding day onward, these beautiful desert nomads carry the weight of their entire wealth on their person. The jewellery was theirs forever to keep, and to dispose of as they wished. Like a savings account, the jewellery was a safety net in case of divorce or economic hardship. The jewellery not only showed her husband’s social standing, but it was also a symbol of how much he valued her. How much she was loved. The more jewellery she had, the more the community knew how much he loved her (Note to husbands everywhere!).

A woman from Bethlehem adorned in her bridal jewellery.

In Arab societies, social standing was not just about wealth. It was about sons, too. From a woman’s jewellery you could tell how many children she had, as it was customary to receive gifts of silver upon the birth of each child. At a glance, her jewellery could tell others how many sons she had: the women of Western Egypt broke the tips of their pendants each time they bore a son!

An late 19th century Bedouin woman adorned in ethnic silver jewellery.

Since time began, women of the Middle East – and probably all around the world - wore jewellery as charms to ward of evil spirits, disease, bad luck and family calamities. Every piece of jewellery, whether worn by Jewish, Christian or Muslim women, embodied the deeply held spiritual and religious beliefs of the region. Certain symbols and amulets, like the Hand of Fatima (also known as the Fatima Hamsa), were incorporated into all pieces for protection from the evil eye. The number 5, central to Islamic mysticism, appears consistently throughout Bedouin jewellery. Symbolizing the five fingers of Fatima, and the Five Pillars of Islam (the Muslim version of the Ten Commandments), pendants and necklaces will often have 5 jingling, dangly bits incorporated throughout to scare away the evil spirits with their beautiful, holy tinkling sounds. In one collection, held in a museum in Amman, pieces are engraved with both a Christian cross and an Islamic crescent moon, demonstrating the thousand year old religious pluralims of the region. 

A piece I picked up on my recent trip to Jordan. See the five dangling bits, symbolic of  Islam's Five Pillars? I love the sound it makes when I walk. So peaceful.

Although the birthplace of monotheism, Middle Eastern jewellery demonstrates the firmly held animist belief that all entities – animal, plant, man and stone – have souls. Turquoise stones are therefore a common element in Bedouin folk jewellery because the beautiful blue colour is thought to ward off the evil eye and to be an overall stone of protection. Plus, turquoise is said to glow when its wearer is happy, and lackluster when its wearer is sad. Stones of a red hue, be they carnelian, garnet, coral or agate, are the most favoured. Green stones are thought to prevent disease. For over 2000 years, jewellery of the Arabian deserts has contained amber, coral and turquoise stones. Other stones are not uncommon, especially a smooth white bead that was thought to promote lactation, and dark green beads which were thought to prevent post-natal diseases.

Walking through Souk Jara in Amman, I stumbled across a lovely old man selling authentic Bedouin jewellery. See the rich turquoise, coral and green stones? These colours have been part of desert jewellery for over 2,000 years.

Bedouin women are heavily adorned with necklaces, anklets, bracelets, earrings, hair plaits and sometimes nose-rings. Silver coins are a common feature in almost every piece and they are more than just symbolic. In the early 1900s, the women, if disaster struck, would remove a coin from her jewellery and use it to buy much needed supplies. The jewellery itself, pure solid silver, was made from melted down Ottoman coins.

 These lovely earrings were given to me as a gift by a dear Palestinian friend. 

A traditional niqab (face veil) incorporating all the traditional elements of Middle eastern jewellery: coins, amulets, red and blue stones.

Today, you will not find a piece of Bedouin jewellery that is more than 50 years old. The tradition of passing down jewellery thorugh the generations was uncommon. Each young bride wanted her own, new, jewellery to symbolize her husband’s love and present-day status. Therefore, when a Bedouin woman died, her jewellery died with her. It was sold, melted down and fashioned into something new.

As the centuries have passed and the world’s fashion tastes have turned to gold, the Bedouin women’s traditional jewellery has become collectors’ items, filling textile and jewellery museums around the world. Collecting Middle Eastern jewellery, then, has become a political act of cultural preservation. 

In memory of generations of desert women, I am always searching for silver.

Kuwait: The Playground of the Rich and Fabulous

I arrived in Kuwait at midnight on Thursday, and was greeted by an oven-like breeze of 43 degrees!

With so many meetings, I won't have any time to write a proper post before leaving, so I thought I'd share with you the view:

Marina Hotel, Kuwait

Until next time!

Neither Whores Nor Submissives

I’ve been travelling in and out of the Gulf States regularly since 2007. With each visit, and each cup of steaming, cardamom-infused Arabic coffee, I’m delighted to see a press which is slowly becoming more open, and getting braver in its analysis year by year. No longer only a mouthpiece for the Monarchy (although yes, when tackling domestic politics this is sadly sometimes still the case), many newspapers, like The National and the Gulf News are increasingly tackling relevant and sometimes difficult international issues.

This trip I read an interesting article in The National’s Saturday Magazine about the violent gang rapes of women and girls in France’s ghettos and what the feminist movement Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) is doing about it.

The magazine article was interesting, not only because of its contents, but because of the way it was juxtaposed to an article I read only minutes before in the main paper about France’s ban on the veil (and the similar laws that Belgium, Holland and Italy are proposing). The newspaper article showed an image of a woman fully covered in niqab, (only eyes showing), with arms raised towards the sky. In her hands she held a cheque, made out to the Government of France for 120 Euros. Exactly the fine for donning the niqab in public. The article went on to replay the same old debate, addressing the same boring old questions: is France within its rights, or has it gone too far? Is it a woman’s right to express her religious belief in this way, or is the veil merely a manifestation of her total oppression?

In reading the magazine coverage of Ni Putes Ni Soumises, it became clear that Europe’s debate on the veil merely obfuscates the larger, more sinister issue, the issue nobody wants to address: in the banlieues – the outlying suburbs of French cities – which are largely populated by immigrants and impoverished white people, young girls (as young as 5 in some cases) are gang raped. Day, after day, after day.  Except that in the ghettos, no one calls these attacks rapes; instead, they are called tourantes, because the girls are “passed around like cigarettes”.

In Muslim countries, especially those that are still largely traditional and conservative, the shame of sexual assault stigmatizes the whole family, so victims often remain silent. Reading these two articles got me thinking. Are the women in France fighting so hard for their right to wear the hijab, niqab and burqa only because it is their religious right to do so? Or, are they fighting for the veil as a way to protect themselves? Are they thinking that if they hide their beauty, their curves, their sensuality, they’ll protect themselves from assault? They may be doing so without even being aware of it.

So, France, here’s how I see it. Instead of stepping up to the plate and going through the trouble of empowering a disenfranchised, uneducated, and thus violent, male population – which is the real source of these  women’s oppression  –  by offering education and employment opportunities, you’re just prattling on and on about the burqa.

If the French Muslim women who wear the burqa stand up and take it off, will they be liberated?

No. Because a piece of cloth cannot oppress.

But a community of angry, disempowered, uneducated and unemployed men can.

France, stand up for the women of your country. Make the streets safe for them. Make their families and neighbours accountable for their safety.

Then maybe, just maybe, you will lift the veil.