There is no window-shopping in Cairo without passing by all kinds of spacious displayed fabrics. Whether you walk through shopping malls, the streets downtown or across markets, the colorful materials, rich of ornaments and weaves, leap to your eyes everywhere, and you probably will regret, if you have no current need and no extra luggage space for a new cover for that whole upholstered corner unit at home. Yet, it needs only a little imagination to find a place where one could use such a nice, woven souvenir. Your old chair at the veranda, for example, or your mother-in-law’s bathroom window.
One of the best and most entertaining places to buy fabric in Cairo is the Wekalat Al-Balah, a whole neighborhood dedicated to that stuff – and to spare parts, car covers, all sorts of new and second hand clothes and plenty of other goods. Motorbike and power saw chains, for example. I know tourists normally aren’t very keen on such things, but a complete alley only for motorbike chains – that looks very impressive.
A large selection of fabrics, curtains, lace panels is sold at the Wekalat Al-Balah in numerous little cubbyholes, outside in the alleys by street vendors and in large, palace-like shops, often two or three stories high, supported by beautiful white pillars soaring skyward, a breath-taking revolt from tasteless clutter.