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The Guardian // Entertainment // Art

Women behind the lens: ‘The bridal dress is meant to present her as a queen … but to me it always felt like a cage’

Wednesday 4th June 2025, 6:00AM

The work of the Moroccan photographer Sara Benabdallah explores ritual and repression in her country’s marriage traditionsThrough my series Dry Land, I explore the deep contradictions embedded in Moroccan marriage traditions – how they oscillate between sacred ritual and social imprisonment. This image was taken on the arid outskirts of Marrakech, where the earth is cracked and open, a stark contrast to the heaviness of the dress the woman carries on her body. It shines beautifully but restricts, almost theatrical in its weight.The woman stands still in a traditional Fassi bridal garment, a piece that is both exquisite and nearly unbearable to wear. It is a dress I grew up seeing and quietly fearing – not just for its grandeur, but for what it symbolised. Continue reading...

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