Listen to a verbal description of the object intended for someone with low to no vision, or anyone looking for a closer look at the object.

Transcript:

This garment is a Mushruu, Mushruu is spelled M u s h r u u. The robe was made in Syria in the 19th century and measures five feet six inches tall by four feet five inches wide. The garment is made of silk and cotton thread and metallic embroidery. The robe is hung on a T frame with the arm sleeves stretched out, and the back of the garment facing the viewer. A dense pattern of stripes and arrowhead shapes define this women’s robe from Syria. The robe’s hem extends down to the wearer's knees, and the long sleeves reach to their wrists. Let’s start by talking about the pattern on the outside of the garment. Long, thin, vertical stripes alternate in cherry red, black, and light pink. Layering on top of these stripes are horizontal bands of white arrowhead shapes, which create a complex illusion of depth. By contrast, the inside of the robe is lined with a soft cream-white cotton. The inside of the sleeves are decorated with a cotton ikat cloth with blue and white stripes. Now let’s focus on the structure of the garment. The body of the robe is made of three vertical panels of fabric, roughly equal in size, that hang down separate from one another, so you can imagine how they might sway and twirl as the wearer moved about. To join these panels together and close up the robe, the wearer would fasten a series of balls and loops found along the edge of each panel, which is scalloped with a repeating triangle pattern. As we zoom into that edge, notice how metallic thread is embroidered into decorative designs, adding weight and stiffness. The rest of the robe is thin and lightweight. The surface - silky-smooth. This comes from the blend of fibers used here: silk for the warp threads, which run vertically, and cotton for the weft threads, which run horizontally. This type of silk-cotton blend is called Mashru, an Arabic word meaning permitted or allowed. Mashru cloths were worn by men and women across the Islamic world. In some Islamic cultures, Muslims are not permitted to wear pure silk garments, so textile makers in India experimented by adding cotton into the silk weave, creating a garment that was soft and lightweight, but also acceptable to wear.