Nestled among shops in a bustling market in north Lebanon’s Tripoli, Mohammed al-Shaar is at his workshop making traditional tarboosh hats, keeping up a family craft despite dwindling demand.<\/p>\n
With a thimble on one finger, Shaar, 38, cuts, sews and carefully assembles the pieces of the conical, flat-topped felt hat also known as a fez, attaching a tassel to the top.<\/p>\n
Reputedly the last tarboosh craftsman in Lebanon, the Tripoli native has been making the hats for 25 years in know-how passed on by his grandfather.<\/p>\n
“Our family has been carrying on this craft for 125 years,” said Shaar, who also studied tarboosh making in Egypt.<\/p>\n
The brimless hats made with maroon, black or green felt, some bearing floral motifs or embroidered with Lebanon’s national emblem, the cedar, sit on display in the small workshop.<\/p>\n
While the tarboosh has been around in Lebanon for several centuries, it became particularly common during the late Ottoman period.<\/p>\n
“The tarboosh used to have great value — it was part of day-to-day dress, and the Lebanese were proud of it,” Shaar said, noting the hat now is largely seen as a traditional item or appealing to tourists.<\/p>\n
“Nowadays, people barely wear the tarboosh, except for traditional events,” he said.<\/p>\n
As well as a onetime symbol of prestige or social status, the hat was used for non-verbal communication, Shaar said.<\/p>\n
“When a man wanted to woo a beautiful young woman, he used to slightly tip his tarboosh to the left or right,” he said, while knocking someone’s tarboosh off was offensive.<\/p>\n
As successive crises have hit Lebanon, including a catastrophic 2020 port explosion in Beirut and a recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, tourism has diminished.<\/p>\n
Shaar said his “work has slowed, and demand for the tarboosh has dropped” as a result.<\/p>\n
Sales have plummeted to just four or five of his handmade hats a month compared to around 50 before the crisis, he said.<\/p>\n
Recent customers have mainly been music and dance troops, or religious figures who wear the tarboosh covered with a turban.<\/p>\n
Shaar said he used to employ three others but now works alone, selling his handmade hats for around $30.<\/p>\n
But he said he wasn’t about to close up shop or abandon his passion for tarboosh making.<\/p>\n
“I feel like my soul is linked to this craft. I don’t want to shut or to stop working,” he said.<\/p>\n
tez\/lg\/dcp<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nestled among shops in a bustling market in north Lebanon’s Tripoli, Mohammed al-Shaar is at his workshop making traditional tarboosh hats, keeping up a family craft despite dwindling demand. With a thimble on one finger, Shaar, 38, cuts, sews and carefully assembles the pieces of the conical, flat-topped felt hat also known as a fez, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[317,330,1186],"class_list":["post-6278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-clothing","tag-lebanon","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}