The Turban: How it Traveled from East to West
April 12, 2025 10 am PT / 1 pm ET / 6 pm BST – London
Virtual via Zoom
Free registration
A turban is a strip of cloth folded and wrapped around the head; however, this description includes multifarious forms of the garment across space and time. This program follows the turban as it moves from the Arabian Peninsula through the Ottoman Empire to Europe and the Americas. It addresses traditional and religious uses of the turban in the realms of international trade, Renaissance art, and contemporary fashions. Turbans, as this talk will show, have moved in and out of Western culture, at times archaic and forgotten, then noticed and reinstated as major accessories. Today Sikh men are recognized by their distinctive headwraps, and the turban remains an important part of Black culture. The turban, wrapped in many styles, has many adaptations worldwide.
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Image: Bashi-Bazouk, Jean-Léon Gérôme French, 1868–69, Met Museum of Art. Gerome painting of soldier in a turban.
