Muslim women push European fashion boundaries

PARIS (RNS) It is hard to associate Saadia Boussana’s stylish bonnet with the traditional Muslim head covering that has drawn sneers, protests and injunctions in cities across Europe. But 29-year-old Boussana, cradling a coffee at a Paris-area Starbucks, was indeed wearing a hijab — sort of — that offered an elegant finish to her jeans […]

PARIS (RNS) It is hard to associate Saadia Boussana’s stylish bonnet with the traditional Muslim head covering that has drawn sneers, protests and injunctions in cities across Europe.

But 29-year-old Boussana, cradling a coffee at a Paris-area Starbucks, was indeed wearing a hijab — sort of — that offered an elegant finish to her jeans and black embroidered shirt.


“There are times I can dress really extravagantly,” said Boussana, the communications manager for MWM, or My Woman Magazine, a new French online publication for Muslim women.

Long derided by Western critics as a dowdy symbol of female oppression, hijabs, or Islamic headscarves, are at the forefront of a fashion revolution in Europe as young Muslim women mix, match and borrow from a wide array of styles to create their own look.

A new wave of educated, vocal and socially active women are turning their backs on the traditional apparel of their mothers — often first-generation immigrants — and are blending their European and Muslims identities with style.

They’re layering dresses over pants, wrapping headscarves into bandanas and matching hooded kaftans with spiky boots. And they are showing that Islamic dress codes — covering all but feet, hands and face (headscarves are a matter of debate) — do not have to be stodgy.

“In a sense they’re using fashion to try to contradict the idea of the hijab being just about politics, traditionalism or piety even. They’re modern, and they want to be seen as modern,” said Emma Tarlo, a British social anthropologist and author of a new book, “Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith.”

Much of the fashion action is happening in Britain, where cultural diversity is more tolerated than elsewhere in Europe. Up-and-coming designers like Sarah Elenany and Sophia Kara are even attracting a non-Muslim clientele with their edgy styles, bold colors and loose, full outfits.

But Tarlo has seen new fashion styles bubbling up in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany — all countries where being “visibly Muslim” is not always well received.


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France, with its reputation for haute couture and a Muslim population estimated as large as 6 million, appears another promising market. Yet Islamic wear collides with France’s staunchly secular creed.

In 2004, the center-right government banned pupils from wearing headscarves and other “ostentatious” religious accessories in public schools. This spring, French lawmakers are expected to pass legislation banning or severely restricting women from wearing the face-covering veil, or niqab, in public spaces.

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Within an overall atmosphere of skepticism, and sometimes naked hostility toward their religion, many conservative Muslim women are fearful of standing out, prompting some to hew ever closer to a strict interpretation of Islamic dress code.

“In England or in the United States, Muslim women have fewer complexes. They like dressing well,” said Chahira Ait Belkacem, MWM’s executive director. “In France, it’s still somewhat badly viewed for a woman to be chic” while asserting her Muslim identity.

But that appears to be changing. While many young French Muslim women have long shunned the veil, blending seamlessly into the crowds, their more conservative counterparts are crafting their own look from mainstream department stores like Zara and H&M — in part because of few trendy Muslim shops.

“We’re seeing women who are intellectual, cultured, completely Western and who aren’t going to be wearing ugly `Muslim wear.’ They’re the ones who’ll be looking for the latest bag to buy,”‘ said 22-year-old Mariame Tighanime, who co-founded another webzine, playfully titled Hijab and the City.


The women running both magazines wear veils — a personal choice, they say, even as they strive for a broad audience.

“We want to give women a voice,” Tighanime said. “In our readership we have women who are veiled, not veiled, Muslims, not Muslims, North Africans, Turks. All points of view are welcome.”

In neighboring Netherlands, a few non-Muslim designers like Cindy van den Bremen, who markets a sleek and sporty line of hijabs, are getting into the business, intrigued by the creative challenge of reconciling Western and Islamic values.

“I realized the problem was the way (in which Muslim women) were covered — not the covering itself,” said van den Bremen, who designed her first sports-friendly hijab a decade ago, after a girl wearing the garment was expelled from sports class over “safety concerns.”

A few years later, van den Bremen began marketing her Capsters brand of head coverings on the Internet. She was stunned by the demand — not only from Dutch women, but from those as far away as Dubai and the Maldives.

“The stores are not meeting women’s needs,” she said. “But if you Google `hijab’ or `Muslim fashion,’ it’s amazing what pops up.”


The aim, said “Visibly Muslim” author Tarlo, is making fashion statements that counter boilerplate perceptions of Islam.

“Fashionable young Muslim women are working hard to develop interesting hijab styles so they become a sort of visual talking point,” she said. “If people ask about their dress, many young women welcome the opportunity to explain it.”

Still, old stereotypes die hard.

“Especially when there’s some kind of anxiety that develops around Muslim dress, there’s a tendency to go back to this idea that it’s essentially about Islam vs. the West,” Tarlo said. “And a lot of Muslim women feel incredibly frustrated about this.”

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