TEHRAN -- The third national Iranian Vest event, themed “Iranian Splendor,” will bring traditional dress, textile practices and contemporary design together in Shiraz from 12 to 16 October 2026.
A garment can be a small archive. In Iran, the jelīqa—the waistcoat or vest—has long occupied precisely this territory: functional yet ornamental, regional yet adaptable, and capable of carrying distinctions of place, community and craft. 
Encyclopaedia Iranica traces the Persian jelīqa to the French gilet, describing it as a waistcoat worn by men from at least the eighteenth century, while noting the existence of longer, more durable rural versions and more colorful forms worn by women.
It is this layered history that the third national Iranian Vest event seeks to bring into dialogue with contemporary fashion and design. 
Taking place at Shiraz Art Bazaar (Bazaar-e Honar) in Shiraz, the five-day program is organized by Parnian Honar-e Iranians Institute, with Parvaneh Amirian serving as the event’s secretary. 
Iranian media reports that the exhibition will present 14 specialized data-x-items alongside educational programs, workshops and related activities.
The choice of Fars Province is significant. The region’s dress traditions encompass a wide range of forms associated with its diverse communities, including nomadic traditions. 
At the event, traditional knowledge will not be presented simply as something to be preserved behind glass. Workshops will explore Fars dress and regional needlework, as well as mohlou traditional jewelry, giveh making, rendbafi, traditional spinning, Qashqai weaving traditions, accessories, modbafi, flat and raised embroidery, Kerman pateh, and textile painting, printing and dyeing.
The emphasis on transmission is central to the project. For the first time within the event, Amirian says, traditional and modern educational approaches will operate side by side. 
The intention is to connect the 
expertise of master craftspeople with contemporary requirements in fashion and product design—an approach increasingly relevant to debates around craft as a living, adaptive practice rather than a static heritage category.
The event will also include a design competition for Iranian vests, positioning the garment between cultural memory and the creative economy. Its stated ambition extends beyond revival: to encourage design, production and eventual commercialization while retaining connections to regional identity.
A dedicated children’s program, presented by the Museum of Local and World Dolls in Evaz, will introduce younger audiences to Iranian dress and traditional arts through a more playful museum experience.
In this sense, the Iranian Vest event is less about resurrecting a costume than reconsidering what a garment can do in the present. The vest becomes a meeting point: between archive and runway, handwork and design education, regional identity and contemporary production. 
In Shiraz, five days of exhibitions and workshops will test how much of that cultural memory can be carried forward—not unchanged, but newly made.