As Egyptian as the sphinx? While Gulf Arabs wear their traditional dress with pride, in Egypt donning the local galabiyya is frequently looked on less than favourably.

Every culture has some form of clothing that reflects a shared identity. Whether kilt, kefiya, blue jeans or kimono, national costumes celebrate and perpetuate traditions, while doubling as a badge of collective pride. Occasionally, however, a style of dress becomes so closely associated with a mindset or ideology that it must suffer the consequences of shifting social and political tides. Such is the case with the galabiyya, that most traditional of Egyptian garments, the floor-length, bell-sleeved dress worn by generations of Egyptian men, Muslim and Christian alike.

While there are no formal statistics, it is safe to say that around half of all Egyptian males favour the comfortable and elegant galabiyya as their daily dress, with the highest concentrations found in rural areas. Around 36% of Egypt's workforce is involved in farming, but the dress emblematic of both farmers and landowners is today considered infra dig. For many 'modern' Egyptians, the galabiyya represents an outdated lifestyle that is better left behind.

Egyptians wearing galabiyyas are refused admittance to all manner of public places, including 5-star hotels, the Cairo Opera House, and even the sporting clubs designated for members of the Egyptian military and their family. That some of the latter also ban bearded men suggests that the galabiyya now carries connotations not only of backwardness but religious extremism.

The Egyptian galabiyya is, however, considered appropriate for governmental officials attending parliamentary sessions, and is mostly worn by those representing rural constituencies. Mostafa El Guindy, independent member of the Egyptian Parliament, recently caused a stir when he demanded that the galabiyya be awarded the status of official Egyptian costume. "Other Arab nations have recognized their versions of the galabiyya as a national costume, so why not Egypt?" El Guindy asks.

Arab visitors wearing their national dress are welcomed in Cairo's upscale settings, while Egyptians suffer discrimination. "If you accept a guy [in a 5-star hotel] wearing a Saudi galabiyya, or someone in baggy jeans with his boxers showing, why can't I wear my Egyptian galabiyya?" El Guindy asks. He suggests the best way to resolve the contradiction and put an end to the discrimination is to rally his fellow parliamentarians and make the galabiyya Egypt's bona fide national costume. If Parliament were to take up El Guindy's cause, it would not be the first time that legislation influenced Egyptian wardrobes, particularly when it comes to headgear.

Egypt's Ottoman Viceroy Mohammed Ali (1805-1848) made the Greek version of the fez, a brimless hat with a silken tassel, a standard feature of military uniform for soldiers and officers alike. A more cone-shaped fez (sometimes with or without the tassel) was soon produced locally. Known in Egypt as the tarboosh (from the Persion 'sar' meaning 'head' and 'poosh' meaning 'cover') the reddish-burgundy hat was worn by all male government officials from the king to his civil servants. "lust like the flag, the tarboosh was a national emblem," writes historian Samir Raafat.

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In Turkey, the fez had replaced the turban, which was banned by Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II for all but religious officials in 1829. Some felt the decree amounted to heresy, and it sparked riots in Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia and Iraq. But fashions, then as now, are always changing. The fez was not only accepted, for nearly a century, it symbolised loyalty to the state.

In the late 1920s, Mustafa 'Ataturk' Kemal went a step further, toppling the fez and replacing it with fedoras and top hats, to signal Turkey's secular modernity, and a break with its imperial past. Not only did European headgear become de rigeur, the Turkish National Assembly was called to order and dispersed in western fashion: when the speaker arrived in a frock coat and removed his top hat, the legislative session began. When he donned the hat once more, it meant the business of the day was concluded.

For Ataturk, both the fez and the yashmak (a transparent veil covering the lower half of the face, worn by women) were detrimental to Turkey's desired image, which was one of forward-thinking modernity, on a par with the West. The process of transforming a society required a change in appearance.

Likewise in Egypt, following the Free Officers Revolution of 1952, the fez was exiled along with Egypt's monarchy. Fezes, which would have been seen as an affront to the military regime, were retired by the millions, and in terms of headgear, nothing has taken its place. The galabiyya, however, has had its post-revolutionary ups and downs.

The fellahin who wore it enjoyed a moment in the limelight when Gamal Abdel Nasser's Soviet-modelled socialism made heroes of farmers and workers of all kinds. Galabiyya-wearing Egyptians were featured on postage stamps; dancers wearing traditional costume performed in the Cairo Opera House, and for a while it seemed that Egypt was proud to embrace its millennial agricultural history. Today that same association is considered a source of embarrassment, if not shame.

Mostafa Guindy, a trilingual, cosmopolitan Cairene, is not the only city dweller who owns galabiyyas as well as Versace suits. But he is one of the few young, iconoclastic members of government who wears one in public settings, not only by personal preference but as a form of protest.

El Guindy become aware of the garment's loss of status one day as he dressed for a television appearance. "My own daughter told me not to wear it," he says. "I had to explain to her that my father, her grandfather, always wore a galabiyya. To refuse to wear it would be like denying his dignity, and denying our family's roots."

When El Guindy announced his wish to see the galabiyya reassessed as a symbol of national identity, some commentators found his cause superficial, saying identity runs deeper than appearances. Nor was the response from the man on the street entirely supportive, since many Egyptians prefer western dress, not as a matter of imitation, but a matter of course. "The whole world dresses this way," journalist Heba Qudsi told the BBC, "[Ours is] an organic identity; it keeps pace with life, it evolves."

But El Guindy asserts that if you can't judge people by their clothing, then they shouldn't be excluded on the basis of it. Moreover, he stresses, "In a galabiyya, you can't tell a George from a Mohammed, or a rich man from a poor one." He's not arguing that everyone should be obliged to wear a galabiyya, only that those who chose to do so be spared the indignity of negative stereotypes.

Egypt's confidence in a shared national identity does not necessarily rely on its choice of a national costume. But the galabiyya, like the fez and the turban, is not just a garment but a symbol. Mostafa El Guindy may not succeed in restoring the galabiyya to its former level of proud acceptance, but he has brought the touchy issue of his society's self-perceptions out of the closet.

MATIA GOLIA REPORTS FROM CAIRO