Keyvan Khosrovani; Baluch Needlework, Iranian Identity Worn by a Queen

In official photographs from the 1970s, Farah Pahlavi appears again and again in gowns that may at first seem purely ceremonial. Look more closely, however, and they carry something of a map of Iran: Baluch needlework, gold-woven brocades, Isfahan block prints, and embroidery that traveled from small and sometimes remote workshops to the royal court.

Behind many of these choices was Keyvan Khosrovani, an architect and designer who saw Iranian art and craft not as relics of the past, but as living material for contemporary life.

Khosrovani died in Paris on September 3 at the age of 88. His career moved between architecture, fashion, traditional crafts, restoration and urban preservation, yet one idea connected these seemingly different fields: a search for Iranian identity in what people had made, worn and passed from one generation to another.

Born in Tehran in 1938, Khosrovani studied architecture at the University of Tehran and graduated in 1962 with the highest marks of his class. A French government scholarship then took him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He also spent time in Rome studying the restoration of historic buildings. He returned to Iran in 1966, and a year later designed the lighting of Persepolis and the tomb of Hafez for the first Shiraz Festival of Arts.

For many, however, his name remains most closely associated with the wardrobe of Farah Pahlavi.

For nearly thirteen years, Khosrovani was involved in designing the Queen of Iran's official gowns. The significance of that collaboration lay less in the luxury of the clothes than in the choices behind them. He turned to crafts still being made by hand across Iran, many of them already in danger of disappearing.

Baluch needlework was among the most important.

An art practiced for generations by Baluch women appeared on some of the country's most visible formal occasions. During those years Farah Pahlavi wore gowns incorporating Baluch embroidery, while the gold-brocade dress associated with the 1971 Persepolis celebrations is now held in Paris. Crafts once tied to particular regions were brought before cameras whose images circulated throughout Iran and around the world.

For Khosrovani, such choices carried a clear meaning. The Queen's wardrobe could easily have become a showcase for imported fashion. Instead, he made it a place where elements of Iran's own visual culture could be seen.

In his designs, Baluch embroidery appeared alongside the kalaghei textiles of Osku, Isfahan ghalamkar block printing and cheshmeh-douzi embroidery, and traditional gold-woven fabrics. These arts came from different regions and traditions, but shared one thing: the knowledge and skill of the Iranian hand.

Today, four dresses from collections Khosrovani designed for Farah Pahlavi are preserved at the Palais Galliera, the fashion museum of the City of Paris.

The same way of seeing can be found in his architecture.

The Nain guesthouse, designed in 1967 on the road between Isfahan and Yazd, is among his best-known works. Its forms and spaces grew out of desert architecture and the knowledge of local master builders, yet the building was conceived for contemporary life. Khosrovani was not interested in reproducing the past. He wanted to discover what from that past could still be used.

In Tehran, he designed a library for the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in one of the city's poorer neighborhoods and accepted no fee for the work. He also opened boutiques where Iranian fabrics and patterns found their way into the everyday clothing of a younger generation.

In the autumn of 1977, the same idea took another form.

The municipality planned to demolish parts of Oudlajan, one of Tehran's oldest neighborhoods. Instead of displaying his architectural drawings in a gallery, Khosrovani hung them on the walls of the alleys themselves. Residents stopped to look and saw their own houses and streets on paper. Architecture had left the office and the university and was speaking directly to the people whose homes were at risk. The demolition plan was halted.

After the 1979 Revolution, Khosrovani remained in Paris, but his engagement with Iranian culture and architecture continued. Among his later projects was a proposal for a Persian prayer hall at the Grand Mosque of Paris.

If there is one idea that connects the Queen's gowns, the Nain guesthouse, the children's library and the walls of Oudlajan, it may be the question that returned throughout Khosrovani's career: what should we do with the heritage already in our hands?

His answer was not to leave it behind glass.

Needlework was meant to be worn. Vernacular architecture was meant to find a new life. Iranian textiles were meant to return to the street. And if a neighborhood was worth preserving, the people who lived there first had to be able to see its value.

Keyvan Khosrovani's legacy may therefore lie less in any single dress or building than in this way of seeing: an attention to what already exists within the everyday culture of Iran and is sometimes so close to us that we cease to notice it.

He placed Baluch needlework on the Queen of Iran, but what he brought into view was more than a dress. It was a conscious choice to make Iranian identity visible.