I recently attended a henna night and wedding for an Emirati couple for which I gleefully had to purchase some nice kaftans or jalabiyas to wear to. I’d been wanting to buy some of these ever since I moved to Dubai, so it was a good excuse to finally do so.
The henna night, or Laylat al Henna, (and definitely not to be confused with a hen night) is a traditional ladies-only celebration a few days before the wedding. Normally henna decoration would be applied to the bride-to-be and the females in attendance, but things in Dubai are not quite so traditional any more, so there was no henna (which I was kind of bummed about). In this case, the celebration is sometimes called instead Laylat al Arabiya, the “Arabian night”. Lack ‘o henna aside, it was a beautiful evening of Arabian decor and fashion, food, music and celebration. For this event I chose something a bit more casual and bohemian…
{ kaftan by Hemant & Nandita }
…and for the wedding I went for something that had a bit of a fancier or more evening-wear look to it. Although, not evening-wearish enough. I felt (and looked, I guess) pretty under-dressed for the wedding, where people dressed like they were about to accept an Academy Award. Oh well. I pulled my dual-toned hair back into a simple, sleek ponytail to make up for the omgaccessoriesandprintoverload! going on with the rest of the outfit.
{ kaftan by Mimosa | clutch by Aila | necklace by Assad Mounser }
