Undermined the old traditional culture!

A rude and insult to the people of Abyaneh! Clothes that the women wear and pose in front of the camera in the image below are definitely not Abyaneh's traditional clothing styles.

All of these types of clothing are made up to attract tourists by non-reputable retailers. As long as they can make money, they will continue to undermine the unique culture with its tradition. It seems there is no plan in sight for authorities to stop these type of destruction.

The women's clothing in the images are not Abyaneh's traditional clothing style for girls and women. These photos were taken in Abyaneh and spread on the net as if they were girls and the women's clothing style in Abyaneh. The purpose of this site is to inform foreign tourists not least the domestic and to give a true picture of the village of Abyaneh specially the genuine and the authentic traditional clothing style that the people of Abyaneh have worn for a long time and still wear today.

Objection images above

Image 1a, 1b, 1c

The website's comment 

"Because of their (past) isolation villagers speak a dialect of their own, which retains words of the Persian language spoken prior to the Arab invasion. The colourful patterns of the women's traditional clothing are scarcely aligned with the Islamic rule requiring women to dress modestly. This rule does not apply to Muslim women only: Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments. Second Epistle of St. Paul to St. Timothy:9 - New American Standard Bible". Source: https://www.romeartlover.it/Abyaneh.html. Image title: Day-trippers wearing the festive traditional clothing of Abyaneh

Objection

Image 1a- The girl has the right veil and shirt. But with a very strange skirt representing the clothing style of Abyaneh women. These skirts are created, designed for the commercial purpose. It is a mockery and the biggest threat to the traditional dress style of Abyaneh women.

Image 1b- The girl has the right veil and shirt. But with a fake and strange stitched skirt, which has no place in the traditional clothing style of the women of Abyaneh.

Image 1c- The girl has right veil and the shirt. But with a fake and strange stitched skirt which has no place in the traditional clothing style of the women of Abyaneh.

The website gives a false image of women clothing styles in Abyaneh as well as wrong information. They are trying to give a religious image of the traditional women's dress style in Abyaneh. How on earth did they find out that the style of clothing is imposed by the authorities and the prevailing norms in society.

Image 2

The website's comment

 "This is a iranian girl with custom clothes and she wants to show some poses to her sister in abyaneh city, abyaneh is a historical city near kashan city. I highly recommend to visit this place". Source: https://www.pinterest.se/pin/852235929459145156/, & pictame.com & #instagram#whpillusion. Image title: "This is a iranian girl with custom clothes and she wants to show some poses to her sister in abyaneh - pantea.naghavi"

Objection

The girl's clothes have nothing to do with the traditional, everyday clothing style of Abyaneh women. This girl wanted to create a picture of herself for her sister wearing her own clothes, sits on a tree stump in Abyaneh and poses for the camera. The strange and contradictory thing is that photographer Nemati emphasises in the description that "this is Iranian girl with "custom clothes" and recommends others to visit. This style of clothing is not "custom clothes" as he claims. The message is misleading. We take seriously these distortions about Abyaneh's women's clothing style and find it difficult to see these amateur photographers welcome again.

Image 3

Objection

The veil and the skirt can be said to be OK. But the strange stitched skirt that the tourist woman is wearing is not the traditional, everyday skirt that the women of Abyaneh wear. She is standing, looking at the elderly woman from Abyaneh who is selling small amounts of her probably dried fruits. 

Why not the elderly lady from Abyaneh wearing her traditional skirts? 

The answer is that the elderly, especially women no longer have the energy to wear their heavy skirts. Since the very worst have some type of osteoarthritis, pain in the back due to the hard work they have had during the lifestyle. This style has slowly crept onto older ladies into Abyaneh from the nearby village of "Ta're" one kilometer east of Abyaneh. And been accepted for the better or for worse. But the tourist's strange skirt has never been used by the women of Abyaneh and that it will never be used as it has no place in the diverse culture in terms of clothing style. Some kind of decency is expected of tourists when they visit the small village of Abyaneh. 

Source: Screenshot video clip Youtube, Uppload 9 maj 2023 @Altawalk. Image Title: Walking in Abyaneh Village in Kashan City

Tourists visiting Abyaneh publish on their websites images of the clothing style of women and men taken in Abyaneh. These images often give a distorted view of the traditional style of clothing worn by women and men in Abyaneh.

Tourists rent the clothes small local shops have designed to attract the attention of tourists to add more to the day's coffers. These clothes especially the skirts are different from the full skirts that the women wear in Abyaneh. Commercial skirts for rent are thin, long, multi-coloured and decorated. Genuine traditional skirts are made of particularly thick fabric, coloured black, sewn with a stripe of embroidery a couple of centimeters above the bottom edge. In addition, the traditional skirt weighs at least over 3 kilos. If such a skirt were to be worn by tourists 3-4 times a day, it becomes dirty and unhygienic, as tourists put these on with their shoes on. If they are clean, you have to ask yourself.

Who has time to wash heavy skirts? Is it possible to wash them? How should the skirt be dried? Do local stores have the option to do that at all? Who wants to restore the pleats of the skirt to their original state? Local shops have very little resources and minimal opportunity to wash clothes.

Therefore, it is not cost-effective to offer this type of skirts to tourists. Those who opened such shops have no intentions except to make money and fill their pockets. Unknowingly, they have inflicted a heavy blow on the national and national culture of Abyaneh and continue to do so. Unfortunately, those in charge close their eyes and do not notice the development of this practice, which is destructive to the culture of several thousand years of Abyaneh people.

Given that "Abyaneh traditional clothes have reached the national register. The purpose of the national registration of Abyaneh clothes is to do detailed research and provide the correct pattern to sew and wear it so that these clothes can be introduced and offered to tourists who come to Abyaneh and also be lasting." Source: https://t.me/sedaye_abyaneh/ March 11, 2022

Local guides that are from Abyaneh (Viuna) have been trained to meet tourists and guide them in the right track. Avoid rental cars as a guide that wants to drive you, for example, from Kashan, Natanz or another district to Abyaneh and pretend to be knowledgeable guides. They know how one gets there but do not have the faintest idea about the people of Abyaneh nor about their traditions.

Not all the people you see when you visit Abyaneh (Viuna) with their multi colored clothing are from Abyaneh. They have traveled from different districts and are visitors with their own cultural dress style as the people of Abyaneh find it offensive when the tourist goes out in the media that they are wearing the clothes of the women of Abyaneh. These images spread on social media are perceived by those who visit your websites as Abyaneh's traditional clothing style. This is what makes us sad and disappointed when we look at your published images that have nothing to do with Abyaneh's traditional life and clothing style. We expect you to think about it before you start publishing your pictures. The people of Abyaneh would be very grateful to see that their dignity is respected.

We are aware that a great responsibility lies on our own shoulders to preserve our tradition. It is not easy, to some extent impossible to assert with the high pressure that tourism has brought during all these years to a small village with so few inhabitants.

Tourism has also become an economic source for a small number of greedy individuals who run their business in the name of justice. Som of these individuals have not grown up in this village. They have moved in from large and smaller cities, seeing their opportunity to make money at the expense of Abyaneh's (Viuna's) population. They do not care about preserving Abyaneh's traditional culture. Especially when it comes to the traditional girls and women's clothing. Compare these two images. It should be clear to you why we strive to preserve the rich culture as so unique. Still, our traditional clothing style is incorrectly presented on social media.

On Dec. 2019 we searched keywords " Abyaneh's traditional clothing style images" via Google. The search returned a result of 116000 hits. Of these published images on the internet, about 98% of them were images of women's clothing style taken by different visitors at different times in Abyaneh.

Only 2% of these images were genuine traditional clothing that Abyaneh's women wore. The rest proved to be alien (discordant) to such a rich culture. Mostly people with their own clothing style from remote villages visiting Abyaneh. Those with own design far from the traditional style. It clearly shows that commercial interest has chosen its own way of marketing its ridiculous products to undermine an old culture. The risk is always imminent when they are allowed to penetrate our culture and lifestyle. These unaccustomed clothes (Image) are available in some local store in Abyaneh (Viuna) and are rented out to tourists. The tourists unconsciously put on these clothes, pose in front of the camera, take pictures in the hope of bringing home the pictures as a memory. It is sad that Abyanhe's feminine traditional clothing style are presented in such an abusive and humiliating way in the world.

Hygienic aspects of trying on women's traditional clothing style in local stores. Point out the problems, our views and advice to you when you try to put on female traditional Abyaneh's clothes in the local stores that rent out the clothes.

Our appeal to foreign tourists is to try to get help from trained local guides that are from Abyaneh (Viuna) to get the right information before they start taking pictures of the villager's dress style. It is always nice to ask for permission before pressing your camera shutter button. We are grateful and we ask that you comment that the image is clothing style worn by this woman is Abyaneh's traditional clothing style.