West Bank Fashions...

Over the last few years, more and more dress shops are opening in Luxor, and on the West Bank. The vast majority do appear to specialise in wedding dresses - which here look like a huge meringue! Lace, 6 layers of stiff underskirts until the bride ends up looking a fairy on the Christmas Tree.

However, there are some that are more in tune with modern Arabic fashions, like this first floor shop near where I live. When I first saw it a few weeks ago, I almost thought that there were people in the window! And this shop is in one of the poorer areas of the West Bank! To me it shows how things have changed over the past few years as prosperity grew, due to the tourist presence. Now with diminished (hopefully temporarily) tourism, such shops must be finding times are harder now.

But after the peaceful celebration of the revolution a couple of days ago, maybe tourist confidence will return, and modish girls on the West Bank will again be able to afford new outfits!