Wafa Ghnaim is a dress historian, curator, author, and fashion researcher specializing in Palestinian embroidery and dress history. In 2016, she established the Tatreez Institute as a space where scholarship, oral history, material analysis, and dressmaking practice unite. She specializes in the authentication of Palestinian and Syrian dress by time period, technique, and construction.

The Tatreez Institute is both an educational initiative and a study collection. Over the past decade, Ghnaim has taught Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian dress history and embroidery techniques to thousands of students, beginning with the Smithsonian and continuing across universities and museums worldwide. Her work has been featured in major media outlets, she has published articles, book chapters, and essays, and has extensively served the museum world by identifying dress collections and correcting their archival records.

The Tatreez Institute dress collection began in 2021 as an endeavor by students to purchase Palestinian dress and donate them to Ghnaim for study. This effort quickly spread after the publication of her book THOBNA (2023), where Ghnaim continues to accept donations and stewards dress from across Southwest Asia and North Africa, rematriated from estates, vintage stores, and households worldwide. Through ongoing research, education, and restoration, the Institute supports the continued study, practice, and transmission of embroidery and dress, including the practices, skills, knowledge, and rituals, across generations living in exile.

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