Samira Yama was sweating under a blue burqa as she stood in the long queue to cross the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan. It was October 2021, and for the first time in her life the 28-year-old Afghan fashion designer and feminist had been forced to cover her face and body.
"I was very angry, I was very uncomfortable, it's heavy and it's hot. You can't see to the side, so when you cross the street it's very dangerous," she told ABC RN'S Blueprint for Living.
A friend suggested to Yama that she burn her burqa in protest against the oppressive Taliban regime, when she arrived safely in Pakistan.
"[But I thought] if I burn it here, the history will finish here and be forgotten here. I should do something that will be like a voice for other women," says Yama.
In late 2022, after she had settled in Australia, Yama took her burqa and her design ideas to an Afghan tailor in Sydney.
At first he laughed at her request, but when she explained that it was a form of protest, he told her she was brave for breaking taboos.
Yama's final designs were stylish cocktail dresses that contravene all the modesty rules of the Taliban regime: one is sleeveless and the other ends well above the knees.
They're currently on display at the Newcastle City Library as part of the exhibition Social Fabric – Afghan-Australian Stories in Thread.
Warning: This story includes graphic content.
The exhibition, which was developed by Yama alongside curators Alissa Coons and Katrina Gulbrandsen, was inspired by the hashtag #DoNotTouchMyClothes, which was spawned in the wake of the Taliban's return to power in August 2021. As a strict dress code was enforced, Afghan women around the world posted photos on social media wearing their colourful traditional dresses.
Coons had been in contact with Yama as she was fleeing Afghanistan; the two had been eagerly watching the protest unfold online.
Coons explains: "[This protest] was a way to say, 'Here I am, as an individual' and was a way to push back against the public erasure of women by the Taliban."
Embroidery is bittersweet
The Social Fabric exhibition was envisioned as more than just a showcase of Afghan women's fashion; the curators also hoped it would be a vehicle for forging connections between women in the local community.
Coons and Gulbrandsen are the co-directors of Shared World Collective, a participatory arts organisation in Newcastle.
As part of Social Fabric, the organisation has been running embroidery and storytelling workshops with women who recently arrived from Afghanistan, as well as those who have been living in Australia for years.
Workshop participants have shared their heritage, embroidering scarves with traditional designs passed down through their families.
Seema (who didn't want to share her last name), one of the workshop teachers, told ABC: "[In Afghanistan] I had nine sisters-in-law and they sat with my mother-in-law doing embroidery work, and when I saw them I wanted to learn that as well."
The workshops have been especially important for Seema – although she is highly skilled at embroidery and design, this is the first job the mother-of-four has ever had.
Gulbrandsen says Seema has realised that her skills and creativity are valuable.
"That really hit us hard. For her to actually say, 'This made me feel empowered as a woman. I can do something, I've got something to give', that was really special."
But there's also a bittersweet feeling.
Seema grew up during the first Taliban rule (1996-2001), when women were not allowed to gain an education. Confined to their homes, one of their few sources of income – and connection – was embroidery.
Gulbrandsen says Afghan women in the workshops told her: "[We also embroidered] to keep us busy, to keep us occupied, to keep us sitting in our circles and sharing.
"It was a bit of a lifeline … So they're very proud of their skills but also it's one of those mixed feelings."
The current Taliban regime has reinstated its ban on education for girls and has circumscribed the kinds of paid work women can undertake, so many women in Afghanistan have again been forced to return to embroidery to earn money.
Najia — another workshop facilitator who didn't wish to share her last name — was able to come to Australia because her husband and brother worked for the Australian Defence Force. But her sister, who's a doctor, is stuck in Afghanistan and cannot work.
Najia's sister used to resist their mother's efforts to teach her how to embroider, sew and design.
"[My sister would say:] 'When I get married and finish my education I will have my own job, why should I do this embroidery? I have my pen, I have my computer, I have my mind, I don't like to do needlework.'"
Since the Taliban took over in 2021, Najia's sister has been in hiding in Kabul, moving house each month to evade the regime.
"She can't go to work, she can't go to her clinic," says Najia, who explains that the Taliban are "hunting" her sister because of the family's links to the ADF and their father's progressive views on women's rights.
"Just a few months ago they kidnapped one of her co-workers and cut her head off and just threw it in the street, which was very stressful for my sister."
Najia's sister has turned to embroidery to feed her family.
Gulbrandsen says: "There's mixed feelings around the ethics of this sort of handwork, and when it's freely done and when it's culture and it's something special, or when it's like, 'we have to do this because there's no other options for us'."
While embroidery work was key to women's economic survival during both Taliban regimes, in the period in between the tradition had started to die out, as girls went to school and women were able to work outside the home.
One mother and daughter who took part in the Shared World Collective workshops demonstrated this skills gap: The mother had done some embroidery, but the daughter, who was in her early 20s, hadn't.
"[The daughter had] been at school, which has been wonderful, but she's never actually had the chance to learn that [embroidery] skill. So she was very proud," says Gulbrandsen.
It's not just Afghan women who are learning to embroider through the workshops: Additional events are open to the wider community, who can learn traditional Afghan embroidery while sitting on Afghan rugs and sipping Afghan green tea.
These events take Seema back to Afghanistan.
"I have worked with Australian ladies. When I saw them drinking green tea, it was a very happy moment for me. It makes me feel like I'm in Afghanistan with my Afghan ladies," she says.
Fashion as protest and expression
There are a number of antique traditional pieces of Afghan design and embroidery in the Newcastle exhibition – and of the newer pieces, many couldn’t be made or displayed in Taliban Afghanistan.
A scarf created by Aziza Anwari, a teacher in the Social Fabric workshops, is embroidered with an arresting image of a woman in a traditional blue burqa playing a musical instrument, while over her shoulder a Taliban soldier is threatening her with a gun. The piece, titled Silent Love of Afghan Women, was inspired by the Kabul street art of Afghan artist Shamsia Hassani.
Anwari says: "Afghan women are in a bad situation, and really need to express their voice and feelings.
"Doing embroidery helps me express my feelings. It brings back memories from Afghanistan, working together as a family, my happy and peaceful life."
The exhibition also includes works by an exciting group of fashion designers of Afghan heritage working in Australia.
Anjilla Seddeqi's dresses are feminine and sophisticated. Her Hope collection was created in response to the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and was designed around the traditional Afghan proverb "Hope keeps the world alive".
Maryam Oria takes traditional dresses made in Afghanistan and recycles them into contemporary items, such as her colourful "Bon Bon" purses.
Lida Mangal specialises in colourful, handmade traditional designs that she sells primarily to Afghan clients.
Mariam Seddiq creates haute couture pieces. Her lavender-coloured gown, with silver leaves and beads on the skirt and bodice, provides one of the exhibition's show-stopping moments.
Curator Alissa Coons explains: "The skirt and bodice were made by Afghan women that she's employing in Sydney, and the top was embellished and made by her mother, who escaped Afghanistan in the late 70s. So it's an interesting collaboration with new migrants and with her mother. And it's also just this very colourful, very dramatic statement piece of a dress."
Then there's Samira Yama's transformed burqa dresses.
When she puts them on now, she feels far away from that moment on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"I enjoy wearing my new dresses because they are very comfortable; it makes me happy," she says.
"But on the other side, I feel very sad, because the women in Afghanistan can't wear new dresses like the ones I made. Fashion is destroyed in Afghanistan now."
Social Fabric — Afghan-Australian Stories in Thread is on at the Newcastle Library until June 24.
