The Lost World - Vintage Afghan Fashion

Coat of dreams, come to mama! 

So what is an Afghan coat? Usually made from sheepskin or goatskin with the fleece on the inside and soft, suede-like leather on the outside, they were developed from the traditional overcoat worn by the Afghan tribe known as the Pashtuns and originate from the Ghazni province situated between Kabul and Kandahar. Afghan coats were first imported to the UK in 1966 (the best year known to man, but of course I'm biased) by Craig Sams, who sold them through hippy boutiques including the legendary Granny Takes A Trip. By the late 1960s, Afghan coats were Afghanistan’s biggest fashion export, frequently featured on the pages of Vogue and copied by designers for the chicest hippies longing for adventure along the Silk Road.

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I've wanted an Afghan coat for as long as I can remember. When 1970s fashion had a revival in the early 2000s I bought a caramel-coloured fake suede one from River Island's sale, it was passable but, like all repro, lacked the integrity of the real thing and eventually got donated to the charity shop. I'd always had my eye on my Mum's which was off-white,colourfully embroidered and stunk of patchouli oil but, after she died, my dad had started to lose his mind and it vanished, never to be seen again. 

About eight years ago Jon and I spotted a beauty at a car boot sale but it was £100 and we didn't have enough cash with us. I've kicked myself ever since - after years of searching I rarely find anything for less than £150. 

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A few weeks ago I had a bit of a tidy up and decided to stick a few of the bits and pieces I'd rescued from the parental home on eBay - figuring that I'd hardly miss stuff that had been stuck in a drawer for over a year. I was stunned at how much a few empty antique jewellers' boxes, eyeless teddy bears and tarnished EPNS sold for and decided that, after buying a few pieces for the house, I'd treat myself and placed a bid for an incredible blue Afghan coat that I'd spotted on Ebay. However, I'd forgotten that it's currently the silly season and most of the world are obsessed with buying Xmas tat, so I won my coat for less than half the price I'd been prepared to pay! Hooray!

WEARING: Afghan coat with a 1970s block printed Indian cotton maxi by Dagina (eBay), a 1970s felted wool hat (charity shopped in 2015) and a vintage tooled leather shoulder bag (Charity shopped in 2011)

It arrived yesterday and hasn't been off my back since. I suspect that, like the Afghan dress I'm wearing underneath it below, it'll be a permanent fixture in my Winter wardrobe for decades to come.

WEARING: Afghan coat with vintage Afghan dress, 1960s lace-up boots and a wool felt fedora (Originally Aldo, charity shopped in 2017)

I love that my coat was made by hand in a little shop in Afghanistan just like this one, snapped by intrepid traveller, Peter Loud in 1974.

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Firmly on the overland trail in the 1960s & 1970s, I've spoken to many an old hippy who recalls with fondness the time they spent in Afghanistan. Once legendary for the quality of its hashish, the hospitality of its people and its stylish architecture, it's hard to imagine that it's the same Afghanistan we see portrayed today, decimated by thirty years of war, and now a broken, almost Medieval country. 

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Kabul was once known as the Paris of Central Asia and pictured above & below is Afghan designer Sarfia Tarzi in the late 1960s.

In 1969, American Vogue, led by photographer Fred Maroon & accompanied by a team of stylists, flew to Kabul to shoot Afghan Adventure which featured both the sights and the fashions of Afghanistan and was published in the December 1969 edition.

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The fashion story saw beautiful models posing in front of various backdrops of the hippie trail, blazed by an endless stream of young Americans and dope-smoking Europeans searching for alternative tourism since the 1950s*. 

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In the background of photo above is the ancient ruin of the 175-foot-high Buddha statue, the tallest in the world, which was destroyed entirely in March of 2000 by order of the Taliban, on the grounds that they were an affront to Islam. Where Genghis Khan had not succeeded in fully destroying the statue during his 13th century siege of the valley, the Taliban finished the job 8 centuries later, taking something from Afghanistan that could never be returned, leaving nothing but an empty shell. In the valley that once marked the cultural meeting point of East and West, its archaeology revealing a blend of Greek, Turkish, Persian, Chinese and Indian influence, the carvings and caves of the Bamiyan cliffs now only serve to house Afghan refugees made homeless by decades of war and chaos*.

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 Another of the photos captured the model wearing sheer trousers and sitting for afternoon tea near the Russian with the elder Kochi tribesmen. For travellers of the Silk Road, the Afghans had a great tradition of hospitality towards visitors and valued the well-being of a guest over their own*.

*Courtesy of Messy Nessy Chic

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Testament to the skills and resilience of the Afghan people is how they turned their troubled history into an art form.

This is my War Rug (or Baluch) which I found in a charity shop a couple of years ago. Afghan rug makers began incorporating the apparatus of war into their designs almost immediately after the Soviet union's invasion of their country in 1979 and continue to do so today in the wake of the United States' 2001 invasion which ousted the Taliban government but sadly failed to bring an end to the violence.

By strange coincidence the dress shares its name with one of my favourite books, a Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, written by Eric Newby who was, like me, born on December 6th.

It's my birthday tomorrow so I thought I'd buy myself a present with the leftover funds I was intending to spend on my Afghan coat. I've worn my other Afghan dress such a lot that I thought I'd better get myself another just in case I wear the first one out (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) Luckily for me, it wasn't listed in the vintage section of eBay so it sneaked under the radar of the other collectors. I've got a couple of birthday outings to look forward to so it'll be worn in the next day or so (under my Afghan coat, naturally!)

See you when I'm 52!