Soft power: How Arabs spread the warmth in the US
IF YOU’VE EVER WRAPPED YOURSELF IN THESE ABSURDLY SOFT, WARM AND HIGHLY COLOURFUL BLANKETS, YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THE FEELING
Subhi Taha wanted to give a special thanks last week to what he called the “one and only reason” he didn’t suffer frostbite during the deadly winter storm that recently left millions without heat in Texas, where he lives. “That thing is this blanket,” Taha said on TikTok, pointing behind him to an ornate hunter green and rose pink bedspread printed with large flowers.
These blankets are “literal lifesavers,” said Taha, who calls himself “just an average Muslim American” on his YouTube channel, where he has about 250,000 followers. “Even when our heater was down and it was literally blowing cold air,” he said, “this blanket was so effectively insulating, I got hot under it. I woke up hot!”
If you’ve ever wrapped yourself in these absurdly soft, addictively warm, highly embellished blankets, you’ll never unknow the feeling. They may not have a widely agreed-upon name (some call them “flower blankets,” “mink blankets,” “ethnic blankets” or, as Taha put it, “immigrant blankets”), but they’re not just any blankets.
Sense of belonging
For a handful of cultures around the globe, the Arab world among them, tucking into one is a lineal link that offers a sense of belonging even from a distance. Their large-scale patterns, which play out in a spectrum of colors, conjure visions of thick, richly hued Persian rugs that line family homes from wall to wall, or of bright fabrics blowing in openair markets (a knowing wink between those who get it). Their warmth — they’re most often made of a hypersoft polyester fabric called minky - is rivaled only by their distinct appearance and softness for many of those who adore them.
“I think they’re beautiful objects,” Farah Al Qasimi, an Emirati artist based in New York, recently told me. She has about 10 blankets and is always open to collecting more. Stretched across her bed is one that evokes watercolor blooms — the blanket is splashed in pinks, blues, greens; it’s topped with matching pillowcases. There’s a pile of them in her studio forming what she called a “blanket nest” for her and her dog to sink into.
“When I sit on one, I feel like I’m falling into a mystical garden,” she said. “It’s like a warm hug from an angel.”
Although her mother has a more American sensibility when it comes to decor, she said, her extended family always had these blankets along with cushions on the floor in what she called more traditional-style sitting rooms.
Adding to the collection
Lana Kesbeh, 30, a Palestinian American living in Charlottesville, Virginia, recently got married and brought two blankets with her to add to her Egyptian husband’s collection. Kesbeh takes them on road trips and picnics, and she curls into them for cozy movie nights on winter evenings. They go perfectly, she said, with Netflix and a warm mug of sahlab (a thick, sweet Middle Eastern hot drink that Kesbeh summed up as “creamy deliciousness”).
She recalled a Palestinian store owner in Houston, where she grew up, who ran a wholesale blanket business. Her family bought “like a dozen” from him, she said.
Al Qasimi’s collection is a mix of those she bought on visits back to the UAE and those she bought closer to her apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. “There are so many stores in and around New York that sell them,” she said, making clear that she is referring to outer-boroughs shops, those found more densely in the Queens neighborhoods of Jackson Heights and Ridgewood.
They generally cost about $30 to $50. And while dollar stores sometimes sell cheaper versions, king-size sets with embossing can be upward of $200. “You wouldn’t really find them in a shop in Manhattan,” she said.
Exported around the world
Ranya Marrakchi, 25, who lives in Howard County, Maryland, picked up the favourite of her seven blankets not long ago on a trip to Morocco, where she’s from. Whenever she wants more, though, she has an in: Her uncle makes them in Tangier. He ships them to different countries in Africa, she said, and to some places in Europe. But mostly, he sells them to store owners in Morocco.
While these blankets are produced across the Middle East in factories like Marrakchi’s uncle’s and by major distributors like Santamora, in Egypt, they’re more often manufactured in China and Korea and exported around the world.
“I really think of them as a sort of Chinese export that just happened to have made their way into Hispanic, Arab and Russian homes,” Al Qasimi said. “It’s kind of like this weird cultural relic that just surpasses geography in so many ways.” After Taha posted his TikTok, he was surprised when blanket fans from around the world responded. “I didn’t realise this is a widespread, global thing,” he said. “I’m half Palestinian and half Filipino, and I know at least in Palestine, these are everywhere.”
Part of the adventure woven into these blankets alongside the vibrant fibres is that for decades, they have been given as gifts to honour life’s biggest occasions, like weddings, send-offs or to celebrate a new baby. But despite these blankets’ rising profile in digital realms, for those looking to buy one, they are not readily available online. “What’s really incredible about them is trying to find them on Amazon,” Al Qasimi said. “They don’t really exist on the internet.”
They are beautiful objects. When I sit on one, I feel like I’m falling into a mystical garden. It’s like a warm hug from an angel.”
Farah Al Qasimi | Emirati artist in New York