he kaftan is a garment that every great imperial power has known under one name or another. In ancient Persia, Greek authors describe the kandys, a sleeved coat fastened at the shoulders. The word kaftan itself comes to us from Turkish, where it named the long formal coats of the Ottoman court. In Poland, the kontusz, which came from Turkey by way of Hungary, took hold among the nobility in the 16th century.
It is therefore a generic term, covering various long robes worn in the great empires. The rulers of the East also made it a gift of honor. In Cairo, in 1324, the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad would thus present complete robes of honor to Mansa Musa, king of Mali, to his courtiers and to his whole retinue.
In Morocco, the kaftan is a long one-piece robe, open at the front. Weavers, tailors and the makers of buttons, braid and embroidery combine their skills in it, and in 2025 UNESCO inscribed it on the list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
The front is trimmed with a braid of plaited silk, the sfifa, and closed by a row of small buttons, the aakad. In Sefrou, near Fes, woven buttons remain a specialty, carried on today by a women’s cooperative. The town also celebrates its cherries every year, a festival UNESCO inscribed in 2012.
This very old garment would nonetheless go through many changes over its history.
The birth of the kaftan
When did the kaftan appear in Morocco? The sources disagree. According to Mufida Kassir, author of a 1978 study of the kaftan’s history, it appeared in the 12th century, under the Almohads. The Metropolitan Museum in New York places its arrival rather in the 16th century, and the Encyclopedia of National Dress says it came from Iran to al-Andalus in the first centuries of Islam, before reaching Morocco with the Andalusian refugees.
What is certain is that the Muslim West had by then mastered the great luxury textile. Ibn Khaldun reports that the first Almohads, taught religion and simplicity by Ibn Tumart, were too austere to wear garments of silk and gold, and had no tiraz workshop; their successors would partly restore it. The monastery of Las Huelgas, in Burgos, keeps a large Almohad hanging, which tradition says was taken from the caliph al-Nasir at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212.
The spread of the kaftan
Toward the end of the 15th century, the kaftan took a new turn with the arrival in Morocco of the Andalusians driven out of Spain. In Tetouan, it was Sidi al-Mandari and his Granadan knights who, in the generally accepted view, would raise the town from its ruins, and that emigration would be the origin of its revival.
The Saadian era would mark another turning point. According to Kassir, women then took up the kaftan, which began its feminization. Sultan Ahmed al-Mansur is also credited with the mansouria, a tunic of fine muslin worn over the kaftan, said to bear his name. His contemporary, the historian al-Maqqari, mentions it as a garment known in Morocco.
The kaftan in European art
The Alaouite era was also one of embassies to Europe, where the sultans sent their diplomats to negotiate peace and trade. European painters would not fail to portray them. Mohammed Ben Ali Abgali, Morocco’s ambassador to Great Britain from August 1725 to February 1727, would sit for the painter Enoch Seeman, in traditional dress.
Other European painters and travelers passing through Morocco would in turn capture the Moroccan costumes of the past on canvas.
Some depictions of Moroccans by European artists.
The modern kaftan
This is how the kaftan has passed through the ages and generations, with different cuts, colors and fabrics. It remains deeply rooted in Moroccan culture. Having become over the centuries the great festive garment of Moroccan women, it is still worn by men too: UNESCO today describes it as a garment worn by people of all ages and all genders, at weddings, naming ceremonies, coming-of-age rites and festivals.
Designers would play a major role in modernizing it, and its know-how is now passed on in workshops and families as well as in training centers and fashion schools. While ancient civilizations abandoned their kaftans, in Morocco it has remained a marriage between tradition and modernity.
Today, the Moroccan kaftan crosses the borders of the Kingdom and shines internationally, worn not only in the Maghreb and the Middle East but also in Europe.
- Rüdiger Schmitt, “Candys,” Encyclopædia Iranica, December 15, 1990. https://iranicaonline.org/articles/candys-gk
- Ofir Hizkiyev, “Kaftan,” Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology, March 19, 2022 (citing Charlotte Jirousek, 2010, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Encyclopedia of National Dress, 2013). https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/kaftan/
- Wikipedia (en), “Kontusz,” and its sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontusz
- Boston University, African Studies Center, “Kingdom of Mali,” quoting al-Umari, Masalik al-absar. https://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/ordering/handouts/k_o_mali/
- UNESCO, Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, decision 20.COM 7.b.33, « Caftan marocain : art, traditions et savoir-faire », New Delhi, December 2025. https://ich.unesco.org/fr/D%C3%A9cisions/20.COM/7.b.33
- Kathleen Curtis Wilson, “Woven Buttons of Sefrou, Morocco,” Textile Society of America. https://textilesocietyofamerica.org/8067/woven-buttons-of-sefrou-morocco
- UNESCO, “Cherry festival in Sefrou,” Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2012 (decision 7.COM 11.23). https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/cherry-festival-in-sefrou-00641
- Mufida Abdlnor Kassir, Historical Development of the Caftan Costume, master’s thesis, Oklahoma State University, 1978. https://shareok.org/handle/11244/18614
- Turismo Castilla y León, “Museum of Medieval Fabric,” monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, Burgos (Pendón de Las Navas de Tolosa). https://www.turismocastillayleon.com/en/art-culture-heritage/museums/museum-medieval-fabric
- Jacques Revault, Lucien Golvin and Ali Amahan, Palais et demeures de Fès, I, Paris, CNRS/IREMAM, 1985, introduction (after Ibn Khaldoun, Histoire des Berbères, III, pp. 240-241). https://books.openedition.org/iremam/2313
- Museo del Ejército, Toledo, collections, “Uniformidad” (marlota attributed to Boabdil). https://ejercito.defensa.gob.es/museo/en/colecciones/uniformidad/
- Jean-Louis Miège, M’hammad Benaboud and Nadia Erzini, Tétouan. Ville andalouse marocaine, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2001, « La création andalouse de Tétouan », pp. 12-16. https://books.openedition.org/editionscnrs/1263
- Latifa Babas, “The Mansouria, when fashion becomes a political statement,” Yabiladi, November 12, 2024 (citing Nabil Mouline, Le Califat imaginaire d’Ahmad al-Mansûr, and al-Maqqari, Nafh al-Tib). https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/156170/mansouria-when-fashion-becomes-political.html
- Wikipedia (en), “Mohammed Ben Ali Abgali,” and its sources (Rosemary Baird, Goodwood, 2007). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Ben_Ali_Abgali
- Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 1958, ch. III, section 34. https://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter3/Ch_3_34.htm
