A thousand years of Ottoman and Anatolian bridal traditions unveiled in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi: Somewhere in Anatolia, a girl was born, and her mother began to sew. A border of embroidery here, a length of lace there, each stitch folded into a chest and kept for the day she leaves home.

In Abu Dhabi this week, that chest is open, and a thousand years of wedding tradition spill out in silk, gold thread and candlelight.

'Bridal Treasures: A Journey Through Ottoman and Anatolian Treasures' opened today at Manarat Al Saadiyat under the patronage of Emine Erdoğan, First Lady of Türkiye, in collaboration with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi.

At the opening reception of the exhibition on Tuesday, Abdullah Eren, President of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), invited guests to imagine the moment a bridal chest is lifted open.

“In Anatolia, when a bridal chest is opened, every object inside has a story to tell, each piece holds a mother’s care in its cloth and a young woman’s hopes in its embroidery," he said paying tribute to women who "have made an invaluable contribution to the growth and continuum of our culture and still is today."

A heritage entrusted

What one generation lays in the chest, the next carries forward. That idea sat at the heart of the remarks by Noora Al Kaabi, Minister of State Minister at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who spoke on behalf of Abu Dhabi at the opening.

“At its heart, this exhibition is about transmission: what one generation chooses to preserve and what it places in the hands of the next,” she said.

Even the language carries the thread, she noted: the Turkish word for trousseau, çeyiz, comes from the Arabic jihaz, “a reminder of the bond between two cultures. In the UAE’s Year of the Family, the family is where heritage first becomes personal.”

Turkish Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin spoke of what the objects say about people everywhere.

“The difference is our richness,” he said, calling family a value that Türkiye and the UAE share. Showing the exhibition in the Emirates, he said, would “provide solidarity and friendship” between the two nations.

A journey in the hall

Visitors step from the bright foyer into a hushed, dimly lit gallery, where spotlights pool on wedding garments and bridal accessories, embroidered coverings and woven cloth, carved woodwork and household pieces, all of which show how women’s skill kept traditions alive from one generation to the next. The exhibition was designed by TEATI Architects, an Ankara-based studio specialising in exhibition design.

In the hall where brides from across Anatolia stand beneath black arches in pink, scarlet, green and cream, their metallic embroidery catching the light. Above the foremost bride, a canopy of white floral garlands falls from a frame of light, as if she were standing in a blossoming tree.

Alongside them are things from the coffee ceremony, the Turkish bath and daily devotion.

In the recreated Ottoman salon, there is faded blue-and-gold walls rise behind crystal candelabra and an ornate carved mirror, and red damask chairs wait on a rose-and-cream rug. At the centre stands a bride in a red veil, her gown scattered with gold. The texts nearby recall the splendour of imperial weddings, among them festivities in 1582 that lasted fifty-two days and nights.

Wall panels in Turkish, Arabic and English follow the trousseau from the Seljuk period to the Ottoman court and linger on the bridal hammam and the ritual of Turkish coffee. One panel gathers the mood in a single line: “Every drop shed upon the göbek taşı (Navel stone of the hamam) carries a woman’s hope for her new life.”

The exhibition will run to October 26 at Manarat Al Saadiyat - Gallery S in Abu Dhabi and is open to all visitors.