Meriam Jelliti
Doha
The ‘Qatari touch’ appeared in various aspects of the first FIFA World Cup in the Arab world - through the design of the stadiums and through the World Cup mascot that represented the ghutra - but the most unexpected and probably the most spectacular of them occurred during the honouring of the Argentine team on the final day of the tournament when the Amir His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani adorned Argentine captain Lionel Messi with ‘bisht’, a Qatari traditional cloak.
Ahmad all Salem, manager of Al Salem Store, said the bisht is made of Japanese Najafi fabric, embroidered by hand. It goes through seven different stages before delivery.
He said, “At the beginning, when we were asked to design this bisht we didn’t know it was for the World Cup champion. We were surprised to see the bisht gifted to Messi at the closing ceremony was from our store. I felt proud when I learned that our store was the first choice for manufacturing this bisht that the Amir His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani put on him on the final day of the World Cup.”
He also said they were surprised to see it on television, adding that the next day fans from different nationalities found their way to the store to try and buy bisht.
“The shop originally made two pieces of different sizes for both Lionel Messi and French captain Hugo Lloris. In addition, there were certain specifications for the bisht,” Salem said. “The required specifications included that it should to be light -- which we understood later and seemed logical to us -- and its purpose was for the winning team’s uniform to appear clearly under the bisht.”
Salem, who has been working in the bisht industry for a long time, pointed out that Al Salem’s bisht is very famous since the days of Sheikh Khalifa, which gave them the confidence to design the bisht for the ruling family in Qatar, in addition to many ambassadors and diplomats.
He said, “The World Cup fans of different nationalities came to learn about the bisht and the way it is made. We never expected this kind of jump in sales, but the global interaction with Argentine star Lionel Messi wearing the bisht made it possible.
“We inherited the shop from our late father, who himself inherited it from our grandfather. The shop was established in 1958 in Souq Waqif and specialised in making Qatari bisht through hand sewing since then. Our father used to make the Qatari bisht with his own hand, then the work mechanism developed, so there was a manual bisht made by hand and a machine-made. After the passing away of our father, we developed the work. So, we opened a complete workshop for the Qatari bisht industry.”
He added that there are various types of bisht according to the fabric use, with the best quality and most expensive being the one made with Najafi cloth and first-class German saree, which can cost as much as QR9,000.
According to him, the making of bisht by hand may take up to 10 days of work, because it goes through several stages, adding that bisht is available in five colours - white, summery, usual, sugary and black. Light bishts are worn in the morning and dark ones are worn in the evening.
He said the prices of the handmade bisht range, according to the materials used, from QR1,500 to QR9,000, while the prices of the machine-made bisht range between QR250 to QR1,000 only.
