Sartorial Orientalism: Cross-cultural Dressing in Colonial Algeria and Metropolitan France in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This article will address the broad issue of the role of dress as a means and an indicator of cross-cultural encounters in a colonial context through the example of metropolitan France and colonial Algeria (1830–1930). It will assess the links between imperial power relations and cross-cultural dressing. The example of colonial Algeria is particularly relevant for a study of the inner motivations, expectations and tensions at stake in sartorial Orientalism as it was then home to three communities with very different cultures and dressing patterns: French settlers, Algerian Muslims and Algerian Jews.