"I say, in one word, that all the women of my country,
are women and half."

Podcast

Just ahead  Tatouine, Guermessa is a Tunisian village nestled in the mountains.

Alexia and Caroline dump their suitcases here, new step of their ITINERANCE project. For this edition, the eponymous village reveals the women's laughters which sound to Mohamed Sghaïer Ouled Ahmed's words.

At Guermessa, one of these women remembers a past life,

Wearing the traditional clothing which highlights her identity. She tells before - before the year 2000, when she lived higher in the mountains.

The other didn't know that time and has a different love for this garment full of history. She likes to wear it during celebrations, but not making it, leaving this task to elders.

The youth is also emancipated from traditions, getting clothes from shops of Tatouine or in Tunisian thrift shops - The transmission carries out not by imposing itself and the codes evolve without fundamentally changing.

Indeed, progressivism is not the prerogative of Western world, proof is the news. In Tunisia, the adoption in 1956 of the personal status Code مجلة الأحوال الشخصية leads to a State Feminism. Women's rights recognition, articles for gender equality laws and upheavals of social codes: when we come from far, the revolution cries out for its equality wishes.

Guermessa's women are women and half. They are free to love what they wear, they do it with heart and colors, shinings and spontaneous.

In songs and laughs - so much laughs that it is not necessary to speak the same language to participate. They embroider Ouled Ahmed's words on the shirts, half made by Sousse's seamstresses, half found in thrift shops  of Hafsia district at Tunis.

« I wrote, I wrote
Until I wrote everything
I described, I described
Until I described everything
Then, by going away,
In one word, I say:
Women of my country
Are women and half !»

Briefly

I say

Half Letter

I wrote

again and again

write

Letter Kaf

Letter Waw

I go on

Women

My country

Emna

Ahlem

Najete

Kalthoum

Jamila

Jalima

Khadija

Jamila

Marwa

Esma

Emna

Afef

This edition overcomes the gender issue through unisex garments - shirts, bucket hats, pants.

Gone to meet Guermessa's craftswomen, ITINERANCE's creators initially had the will to dig into ancestral know-hows from Berber people while participating to the valorization and the emancipation of these women.

An generator of economic autonomie as well as social link for Guermessa's embroiderers.

Once the bases of the project set, Alexia returned to Paris, leaving her sidekick to direct the production site.
Far from imposing herself as simple leader, Caroline lived with them, sung with them, laughed with them.

Wore traditional clothes during the village annual celebration, questioned, heard, looked. Brought back in her suitcases a colorful and unisex edition, in the spirit of the equality words of a committed poet.