TUNIS// In a shabby-chic chamber fitted with mirrors in the centuries’ old Tunis medina, Mohammed ben Aba meets clients to iron out the deals that keep an equally old profession ticking for now.
The 62-year-old commissions and sells chechias, or woollen Tunisian hats, a trade that has seen brighter days.
Fast falling out of fashion, with few takers in the local markets, most chechias head to neighbouring countries’ markets. Traders from Libya, Chad, Nigeria and Niger routinely make the trip to Tunis’ handful of chechia sellers. About 80 per cent of the chechias are exported to other parts of Africa from Tunis.
Traditional Tunisian chechias are plain, woolen dark red but those made for neighbouring countries have different styles. Benghazi ones are red with a half-inch “antenna” at the back, while the Tripoli ones are similar but in black. The hats are believed to have originated in Uzbekistan and entered Tunis in the 17th century via Iraq and Kairouan in Tunisia. Today, one can also spot piles of Malaysia-made cheaper and gaudier version in different colours with sequins and golden and silver thread.
Mr ben Aba works with Libyan traders but since the civil war broke out there in 2011 following the death of Muammer Gaddafi, his business has suffered.
“We are coping a little bit with the local market and we are decreasing production,” he says.
Lower local and international demand, a lack of specialised artisans and unwillingness of young people to join the sector paint a bleak future for a craft that once enjoyed pride of place in the Tunisian society.
Currently, there are about 10 chechia producers and sellers, also known as chaouachis, at the markets in Tunis medina, which is located in a fertile plain region of north-eastern Tunisia, and a few kilometres from the sea. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were an estimated 400 of them housed in the three covered souqs in the medina. Now, most of those shops are rented out to sellers of tacky tourist souvenirs or have been converted into cafes.
Some chaouachis say they tried to innovate the product with brighter colours and sequins, for instance, marketing it to women, but the trend was shortlived.
Mr ben Aba made an attempt by manufacturing a chechia like a baseball cap about eight years ago. It worked for a couple of years before the buyer enthusiasm petered out.
“Often, there is reluctance and resistance to innovation, and the connection between artisans and designers have not been met,” says Leila ben Gacem, a Medneta senior consultant for the Association of Medina Preservation (ASM), an agency of the Tunis municipality. Medneta is an EU-funded programme for socio-economic development of Mediterranean countries. ASM surveyed the sector and proposed an overhaul of the manufacturing processes of the chechia.
While there is a certification for artisans in the medina and their work is protected by law so, if the professional designers from outside the medina design the hats, their work will not be copyrighted and other manufacturers can copy these designs.
“One of the other challenges is you need a lot of cash to buy the raw material, and then wait three months to sell a finished hat,” Mr ben Aba says.
As most individual chaouachis get orders but do not have the cash to buy the raw material, the traders buy it together in bulk. It can cost 360,000 Tunisian dinars about (Dh675,000) for 12 tonnes of wool. Local wool is not soft enough, and the raw material is imported from France, Australia, Italy, Romania, New Zealand and now China, even though it means high customs duties for makers.
An equal amount of money – 360,000 Tunisian dinars (Dh675,985) – is needed to turn the wool into finished hats. The traders now import around 30 tonnes of wool per year, down from 120 tonnes in 1980, an indicator of the decline of the segment, according to Mr ben Aba.
“If the government is serious about creating jobs, the handicraft sector should be revived,” he says.
The unemployment rate in Tunisia was about 15.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2014, up from 12.40 per cent at the end of 2007, and higher among the youth.
Most of the machinery that are used to fashion a chechia such as boiling and dyeing the wool are antiquated. A building in El Battan, about 40 kilometres west of Tunis, is the only place where the wool is boiled and dates back to 1901. A government study in 2006 found it would cost 440,000 dinars to renovate the facility.
Last year, ASM studied the possibility of restoration of Battan felting factory, water treatment system and artisan development to increase women home-based producers. It said cost to restore the facility is now 600,000 Tunisian dinars.
The chechia making sector partially reflects the state of Tunisia’s economy. It is trying to break from the past and despite the potential is hampered by the lack of investment and antiquated market regulations. While Tunisia has not seen the turmoil of Egypt, Libya and Syria since the 2010 Arab Spring, its economy has been sluggish. GDP last year came in at US$47.13 billion, hardly changed from $44.86bn in 2009, according to Trading Economics. Sectors in which investment faces restrictions account for over 50 per cent of the Tunisian economy, according to a World Bank report from last year. Retail, distribution, telecoms and tourism are among a host of others that discourage new competitors by law.
Mohammed Mehdi Troudi, 33, studied maintenance of IT equipment, worked for a bank for a year, and left it to join his family business started by his great grandfather. About 60 per cent of the products are exported and the rest is sold in Tunisia, from where it is re-exported.
“The production has gone down [in general] because there is no one to help continue the activity,” he says. “For instance, if I was not here, my father would have rented the shop for something else.”
Mr ben Aba’s son, a university graduate, worked in the family business for four months, before leaving it to join a Qatari conglomerate in Doha. Mr ben Aba’s family has been in the business since 1936.
Rents for the shops in the historic medina are more than a shop selling chechias can make annually, prompting many owners to rent it out rather than continue with a sick sector.
The hat sellers also control the whole chain of chechia making, from the buying of wool to engaging villagers to make it, and finally putting it in the market. It can cost anywhere between 10 dinars and 70 dinars for a chechia, depending on the quality of wool.
There are about 10 villages around Tunis where residents make the traditional hats. With the slowdown in demand over the years, their production levels have also been falling. Every month, Mr Troudi says he gets 1,500 hats made.
But the political unrest in the neighbouring countries means even that is uncertain, says Fathi Blaich, 76 . “The Libyan revolution and Nigerian events are impacting the sales and both are big buyers,” he says.
As the market includes unstable countries, the export value of chechias vary as well. Hats worth a total of 1 million dinars were exported in 2013, up from 863,880 dinars in 2012, when the situation was worse in the neighbouring countries. The quantity produced in 2013 was 52 tonnes, up from 42 tonnes in 2012 – a rare rise resulting primarily from the violence in 2012 that curtailed trade by about 20 per cent.
Mr Blaich’s grandfather opened the pea green shop with delicate painted pink flowers on the panels in 1924. His son, who went to the university to study IT, is unlikely to join the business.
“This is the kind of business you need to start at a young age, you need to start early to learn all the steps and manage the processes,” Mr Blaich says.
For the moment he will continue to open the shop at about 8am and close by 4:30pm, meeting friends and reading newspapers as he awaits customers.
“I don’t have other things to do, and I am used to the souq,” he says. He acknowledges buyers are a rare commodity nowadays.
“I am not here to sell, but read newspaper, it’s my shop.”
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