Ramadan, Van Salee, and ancestry. Inspired by Strawberry Singh and Helen Boyd.

I'm a member of an online transcommunity run by author Helen Boyd.  I've been a member of that community for 11 years, the only online community I've followed longer is Slashdot.  Yes, I know...Slashdot. /me shakes head sadly at my own nerdosity.

Last week Helen did a post about Ramadan's History in America.  Which is a VERY long history, much longer than most modern American's think.  Upon seeing that post one of my first thoughts was ... "Berry's going to be doing her annual Ramadan post soon."  Which she did, the next day.

It also reminded me of my own small connection to Islam in America. It might be surprising to some, but yes, I do have one.  While as my readers, acquaintances and friends know, I'm mostly of Celtic ancestry on both my mother's and father's side, but that's not all my ancestry.

I'm descended from one of the first Muslim settlers in the New World, in New Amsterdam aka New York City, actually. And his Q'uran is the oldest known Q'uran in America.  To those who know their history those facts alone are enough to identify him, Anthony Janszoon Van Salee.

Yes, that means I have Moroccan ancestry.  And yes, that also means I'm descended from the woman variously described as Manhattans first "lady of the night" or "The Carrie Bradshaw of Colonial America", Grietse Reyniers.

So inspired by Berry, and my ancestry I decided to do a post with some "ethnic" clothing.  First I did some googling about women's clothing and fashion in Morocco, and after seeing some pictures decided to try to find a kaftan, which I did.  Then I was thinking that perhaps I should search Berry's Blog for a "less pale" skin, but while I was looking through more pictures of Moroccan fashion I found a woman that made me go "squee" and say to myself.  "I guess I really don't have to change my skin...or my hair color."

That woman is the Her Royal Highness, Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco:

Who is an awesome redheaded fashionista-princess-engineer with REALLY nice shoes. She knew she had it "goin on" there.  Google her, she's fabulous.  Yes, she's ethnically Moroccan, there are redheads among the Berbers.

The kaftan I found was the Bilo Rani "Sabah", as it turns out, Berry wore it back in 2013.  The girl always has the scoop, she's the Berry!  I wore it in green because there was a famous utterly fabulous green kaftan that Lalla Salma wore and redheads look good in green.  Sadly, this kaftan shows more cleavage than I wanted, but I like it anyway.

Belleza Betty skin, Hucci Jacmel pumps.

 Of course I needed some fabulous jewelry.  (The Princess has some REALLY nice stuff.).  As non-luck would have it, I have the Maharani set from Maxi Gossamer, which I picked up from May's Uber, if I recall correctly.  When I saw the display and the model I thought:  "That model looks like Berry."   "It IS Berry, well who else would you want to model that set?"  The set has two metal choices and several gem colors.  Sadly you have to click on each piece individually, there's no HUD to set them all at once.  Hair is Truth Harmony (Ponytail)

 As you can tell, those are not my usual green eyes, but brown ones.  Ikon "Charm" eyes in Chocolate.

Since I was wearing the Maharani set, I went ahead and put on the nose chain, the mang tikka, and the Zaara Chandni Lehenga in Scarlet, to take some pictures of the full set and the Chandni, which I've had for a while.  Might as well go full on Berry-clone, except for the paleness.

I adore the Chandni in this color.  While I adore it, and think it's beautiful, I probably won't pick up the other colors as much as I might want to.  Pale Celtic redheads, even those with Moroccan ancestors, probably shouldn't be wearing lehenga's too often.

Truth Sally hair, which always reminds me of one of the hairstyles of Mad Men's Sally Draper.

SLURLS:

Sabah kaftan at Bilo Rani

Chandni Lehenga in Scarlet from Zaara

Maharani Jewelry set from Maxi Gossamer

Belleza Betty skin

Ikon Charm eyes

Truth Hair

Hucci