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The secret life of Syrian lingerie By Darren Garnick Tags: thongs, Israel, Fashion  Intimacy and Design, by Malu Halasa and Rana Salam. Chronicle Books -(in association with the Prince Claus Fund Library), 176 pages, $24.95 -(paperback) Historians have seemingly turned over every empty bullet shell from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, paradoxically marking that event as the time when Israeli overconfidence deflated and the Arab armies got their mojo back despite the final "W" in Israel's column. But that war also had unexpected economic reverberations with a far more subtle impact on the Middle Eastern balance of power; such as its unsung role in launching the Syrian bra industry. "You cannot celebrate when you're afraid," recalls Nihad Tabbakh, a lingerie shop owner in Aleppo's Old City. "After a war, there were many weddings, and women [for the first time] began to wear sexy lingerie." Advertisement Tabbakh is one of the numerous fashionistas featured in "The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design," an irreverent new coffee table book that oscillates between academic study and a spoof of a Victoria's Secret catalog. London-based authors Malu Halasa and Rana Salam say this kitschy Syrian approach to women's underwear - examples of which range from cutesy bird's-nest bras to bondage thongs made from black leather gloves and fake red fingernails - cuts through the image of the burka in a way that Western feminists have never been able to do. "Doesn't matter whether you wear a miniskirt or a hijab, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to put on some of those outfits," Halasa said in a recent phone interview with Haaretz. "Rana and I ended up admiring those women, and we thought some women in the developed world could use a little joy like that in their lives." Asked to elaborate, the author said she'd be most amused if Kadima leader Tzipi Livni slipped into something more comfortable: "She could consider working out her excess energy in sex rather than F-16 air attacks." Halasa, an American-born journalist whose father is Jordanian-Palestinian, and Salam, a graphic and interior designer originally from Lebanon, largely avoid the Arab-Israeli conflict in their book. Not because they don't have strong political opinions; Halasa's Livni wisecrack is hardly ambiguous; but more likely because United Nations resolutions are irrelevant on one's wedding night. Demilitarized zones give way to erogenous zones when these "indoor clothes" are revealed. Syria, which ranks fourth in the world in organic cotton production, is far from monopolizing lingerie manufacturing in the belly-dancing region. Egypt has a thriving exotic undergarment industry, and both Israel and Jordan have factories for Victoria's Secret. But Syria's niche brand, created by a few sewing machines at a time in Damascus basements, stands out for its humor and offbeat imagination. One innovative fashion is called "The Curtain," a wire frame with retractable drapes covering a woman's privates. "The Syrians are known for being blunt and forthright in matters sexual," the authors write, "as seen by some of the country's popular jokes and sexual innuendos." At private bachelorette parties the night before a wedding, it is customary for the bride's friends and relatives to wear revealing clothing. Following Islam's mandate for a wife to entertain her husband, it is not uncommon for a woman to have more than two dozen sexy outfits for her wedding night. Having a packed lingerie closet could serve a Syrian woman well as long as the undergarments actually fit. Most of the bra designers there are men, and they guesstimate measurements using mannequins. Tweety Bird thong American and European undergarments might be more comfortable, but they are also more boring. Syrian designers, the authors joke, seem like they're trapped in a "1970s transvestite disco." A Tweety Bird thong plays music from Kajagoogoo, a British pop band best known for its 1983 anthem - Too Shy." When squeezed, an orange daisy bra will play the "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" nursery rhyme. Fur-encrusted toy cell-phone thongs and plastic-scorpion panties boost the playfulness factor even further. "There has to be laughter in the bed," says Muhammed Emad Haliby, a novelty underwear buff whom the authors tracked down in a Damascus market. "If the man doesn't make the woman laugh, the sex is dead." Syrian lingerie kitsch is more Las Vegas Liberace or Austin Powers Fembot than Miss Universe nationalism. There are no Syrian flags hanging from G-strings or Wonderbras calling for the return of the Golan Heights. San Francisco publisher Chronicle Books, which specializes in pop culture, casts these goofy bedroom fashions as the private version of the Harajuku craze in Japan, where young women publicly dress up as maids, goths or anime cartoon characters. Among the charmed is former Meretz party chairman Yossi Sarid. Responding to a Time magazine feature on Syrian lingerie before the book was published, Sarid wrote in his Haaretz column that this subculture defies the preconceived image of Israel's enemy being a "dull-as-a-dishcloth country" that is "locked into a chastity belt of fanaticism." "They have life there in Damascus, and they love their lives, and will not readily give them up," he wrote, suggesting that hopes for peace may lie in the underwear drawer. "And if their president goes mad and decides to destroy their lives, they will view this as a mortal, below-the-belt blow." "Would the styles fly off the shelf in Israel?" Halasa asked rhetorically. "Well, I'd say that what the Arabs usually like, for example, in food, the Israelis seem to like. ... Or at least the Syrians' and the Israelis' interest in women's bodies would at least give them enough common ground to start exploring peace." The birth of Syria's homegrown lingerie market dates back to the mid-1970s, when Gulf countries started investing heavily in Damascus commerce. Before that, many Syrian women used thick elasticized bands for breast support, according to the researchers, who blame the lack of bras on "border closures, corruption, and scarcity of modern materials and machinery." Once a major supplier of men's underwear to the former Soviet Union, Syria now exports the raciest, laciest women's stuff to Saudi Arabian malls, Egyptian shops, and marketplaces throughout the Middle East. However, in a nod to the modesty laws of the Koran, Syrian women are never used as fashion models. That job is outsourced to Eastern Europeans, whose photos dangle from the clothing, along with the price tags. "It is sold openly [in Syria] and exported, but nobody really knows, in the region or in the West, that the Syrians have cornered the market on sexy fantasy lingerie," Halasa said. Open secret or not, the bigger question is whether Tweety Bird thongs and bunny rabbit bras can really be a sexual turn-on. In the book, lingerie designer Firas Nabulsi insists that in a culture where men rarely see semi-naked women, everything is alluring. He also markets lingerie as a tool to "keep husbands away from prostitutes." But from a practical perspective, how wearable is underwear weighed down by plastic trinkets or electronic gadgets? "I don't know how comfortable the cell-phone thong is," Halasa said. "We collect pieces, but never try them on; they are too precious to us." Darren Garnick is a New Hampshire writer and filmmaker with an appreciation for Middle East kitsch. He can be reached at www.cultureschlock.com. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Gilad or Gilad? Olmert is too focused on the wrong Gilad. Take this waltz "Waltz with Bashir" was not made for Hollywood, it was made for human beings.

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