About the Author

While living in Morocco from 1963 to 1977 Marie-Rose Rabate became a passionate ethnographer of the country. The study of traditional crafts became her main subject, resulting in her PhD. thesis on jewellery from Southern Morocco in 1972. During her many field trips she has collected and documented jewellery and textiles used as costumes South of the Atlas. Jewels and textiles, often hardly known at the time, became the focus of a further, still ongoing study of Berber art, with combined field trips in Morocco. Over the last years, her access to many private collections and her association with Frieda Sorber has helped her to deepen her knowledge of decorated garments. Frieda Sorber,art historian and textile technician, is the curator of the historical collection of the Fashion Museum in Antwerp (Belgium). Her interest in silk weaving technology before the advent of the jacquard loom around 1800 was the motivation for her first trip to Morocco. Over the last few years she has collaborated on several important exhibitions on Morocco (Belgium, United States of America), published specialised articles on costumes and other textiles and regularly lectured on Moroccan textiles and costumes in Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States of America and Switzerland.