Islam Makes Modest Inroad in Fashion
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Liz Gooch, The Age (Melbourne), November 26, 2008
THE shorter, tighter and more revealing the better may be the rule on most catwalks, but there is not a miniskirt or plunging neckline in sight as Malaysia’s Islamic Fashion Festival gets into full swing.
Models covered from head to toe are strutting down catwalks in Kuala Lumpur wearing designs from around the world during the week-long festival, which emphasises fabric over flesh.
The event is becoming a regular fixture on the fashion calendar in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Dubai as organisers seek to transform the three cities into the London, Paris and New York of the Islamic fashion scene.
This week’s festival, the sixth since the show began in Kuala Lumpur two years ago, features Islamic designs for every occasion, from office wear, prayer wear and bridal wear to swimwear, couture and avant-garde.
The festival’s founder, Rezza Shah, says his aim is to show that Islamic clothing can be fashionable.
“When I say ‘Islamic fashion’, they think it’s a fashion show where you can see two eyeballs. Even Muslims themselves think this,” said Mr Shah, a former model and actor who used to run his own modelling agency. “I do agree that women should be covered but they should be allowed to express their fashion, because we are living in a modern world.”
While there are no official statistics indicating the value of the Islamic fashion industry, some have estimated that it could be worth $US96 billion ($A152 billion) a year at least.
“A lot of ladies are covered but are dying to dress up well,” said Mr Shah, adding that he aimed to show clothing that ranged from minimal to maximum coverings. “It’s not about saying what’s right or wrong. It’s about showing variety.”
He believes Islamic fashion can help Western fashionistas learn how to use more material and still dress well.
“In mainstream fashion, less is more—less material, more skin; but in Islamic fashion, less is more means less skin, more material,” he said.
The designers involved in the festival come from Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, India and Malaysia, and more than half are non-Muslims.
“Fashion can unite people and, for us Muslims, we can also be proud that the word Islam doesn’t frighten everybody away,” Mr Shah said.
Italian label Etro, which created special Islamic designs for the event, is the first European company to join the festival.
“There’s a very large Muslim market out there,” said the executive director of the Malaysian branch, Monique Abdullah. “If we don’t accept the fact that there’s this big market, it’s a missed opportunity.”
Malaysian designer Tom Abang Saufi said that Muslim women wanted stylish outfits too.
“They want to have elegance and the young ones want to look trendy, even when one covers one’s head,” said Ms Saufi, who sells her designs in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Brunei, and is starting to export to the US.
  This and other stylish fatwa-approved swimwear can be seen here. |
(Posted on November 26, 2008)
Comments
“A lot of ladies are covered but are dying to dress up well,” said Mr Shah…
More like ladies are dying when they fail to be “covered” as prescribed.
Posted by Jane T. at 7:10 PM on November 26
“Muslim women may be covered head to toe, but they can be stylish, too”
Oh yes, and sexy too. Proof of that is evident when one of them stretches her arm out in front of her a bit and reveals her wrist, and all the male Muslims go crazy with desire.
But the downside is that afterwards she’s thought of as a slut who is unfit for marriage.
Posted by ice at 9:29 PM on November 26
Radical feminism has paved the way for this.
And no, don’t dismiss me as a crazed redneck ranter (in fact, I have a lot of respect for rednecks).
I went to one of the most liberal universities in the country.
One boasting one of the most robust women’s studies departments around.
And let me tell you, it’s all about criticizing, undermining, and destroying our culture, rather than building a new one.
As the cliche goes, however, nature abhors a vacuum. I’m increasingly convinced Islam will fulfill it.
Take a look at these stylish burkhas ladies. This is the future, your future. Get used to it.
Posted by at 9:45 PM on November 26
It was these sort of cultural difference that lead to the 2005 Cronulla riots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots
Middle Eastern men sleazing on Aussie beach girls because of the way they dress. Surf lifesavers had to defend the girls and so on.
2004 Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins is a good example of a Sydney beach girl who has done good.
http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com/a/002844.html
I suppose when your hairy knuckled woman look like klinger from M.A.S.H. in a dress.
But really it is an insult to the men of Islam that they can not be trusted seeing a bare elbow or whatever.
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The following is from the infamous(down here) “woman are like uncovered meat” speech that the Mufti of Australia made in late 2006, there was a huge outcry even from moderate Muslims and this Mufti was replaced in June 2007 admid much debate.
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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20656690-601,00.html
…………..If I come across a crime of rape - kidnap and violation of honour - I would discipline the man and teach him a lesson in morals, and I would order the woman be arrested and jailed for life.
Why, Rafihi? He says, because if she hadn’t left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it. If you take a kilo of meat, and you don’t put it in the fridge, or in the pot, or in the kitchen, but you put in on a plate and placed it outside in the yard. Then you have a fight with the neighbour because his cats ate the meat. Then (inaudible). Right or not?
If one puts uncovered meat out in the street, or on the footpath, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, then the cats come and eat it, is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem! If it was covered the cat wouldn’t have. It would have circled around it and circled around it, then given up and gone.
If she was in her room, in her house, wearing her hijab, being chaste, the disasters wouldn’t have happened. The woman possesses the weapon of seduction and temptation. That’s why Satan says about the woman, “You are half a soldier. You are my messenger to achieve my needs. You are the last weapon I would use to smash the head of the finest of men. There are a few men that I use a lot of things with, but they never heed me. But you? Oh, you are my best weapon.”
Posted by GenX in Oz at 12:23 AM on November 27
To 9:45:
I noticed that. Feminists support radical moslems. There are been too many examples of feminists supporting moslems demands that there will be separate programs for moslem women. Feminists are silent about honor murders, and FGM. Their silence is supportive.
Feminists so hate western men, that they will support the enemies of the west. When they will be forced to wear a burka, I am sure feminists will accpet this without protest.
Posted by flyingtiger at 12:25 AM on November 27
I’ve literally travelled around the world, and to this day, it’s still difficult to conceive of a woman who, after reaching young adulthood and being of even marginal intelligence, would consent to being treated as human property with a rigid dress code.
With full respect to different cultures, the extremes put upon muslim women is just unimaginable to me. Imagine knowing that all of your life you will always be marginalized, and then ordered, under the threat of severe punishment to include death, to act and dress in a dimished capacity.
21st Century, meet the 10th century.
Posted by Proactive at 12:41 AM on November 27
Re feminists. You’d never imagine, but those loons often do support burkhas, Islam etc. One I know even went so far as to convert (just how faithfully, who knows?) and drape herself in Islamic bedsheets. There’s no depth there; it’s pure show. Look at me, look at my exquisite tolerance. That’s what happens when you make a virtue of openly hating your own.
Posted by at 1:13 AM on November 27
Hmmm…in the Victorian times the fashion wasn’t much revealing, too, except maybe for the necklines at the evening occasions. Some of these islamic fashionable dresses are quite interesting.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2178/2052664982_67e383ee0c.jpg?v=0
http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/cnishared/tools/shared/mediahub/06/19/87/slideshow_287196_Ifash6.jpg
And if there’s a market for this, why not?
A Czech emigre into Lebanon, Blanka Matragi, is very appreciated for her formal and wedding designer dresses among the Arabian sheik wiwes and daughters. The dresses aren’t exactly Islamic, though, but in the more conservative European style.
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/561818838oYGiuv
Posted by EW at 5:39 AM on November 27
Actually Muslim women can be pretty stylish if they want to. In Iran many were well dressed and carefully made up. Expensive high heeled shoes, a well cut pantsuit, the head scarf can look reminiscent of the 1950’s glamour girl when matched with sun glasses.
You guys may laugh but some of those women are quite beautiful and it shows. Beauty is not all about showing skin you know. Many Iranian women are slim with lovely facial features and bone structure, the hijab does not make them ugly by any standard.
Posted by Sonya at 7:54 AM on November 27
That woman in the photo looks a bit ridiculous on the beach in that bikers outfit. In places like Turkey were the women only have to cover their hair in a simple headscarf, it actually looks attractive and it was something many Western women did back in the 60s. But sequined evening burkhas? No.
Posted by at 12:25 PM on November 27
“The event is becoming a regular fixture on the fashion calendar in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Dubai as organisers seek to transform the three cities into the London, Paris and New York of the Islamic fashion scene.”
Let them have their ridiculous fashion shows in their own countries, so long as we stick to ours — and everything else that’s Western — in London, Paris and New York.
Posted by Kevin at 6:05 PM on November 27
If you look at all the pictures none of these fashions look glamorous in the least. In fact, they look like something reminiscent of a cheesy 1960s scifi movie.
Posted by at 9:48 PM on November 27
What Westerners need to understand about all this is…
Even the fatwah-approved beachwear pictured above — which Victoria herself would’ve considered prudish — is from the more free and “sexy” end of the Muslim “fashion” spectrum. Compared to the body-tent of a full hijab — the “eyeballs only” covering the designer in the article mentions — the Islamic lifeguard in the photo is a Baywatch babe.
And remember: the more free and “sexy” end of the Muslim fashion spectrum is ALWAYS at risk of being purged or persecuted or fatwah’d by the fundamentalist end of the spectrum. To the average al-Qaida member, the Middle-Eastern beach bunny in the photo is already showing too much of her feminine wiles — I mean, LOOK how tight those leggings are! Also, she is carrying a surfboard, which is an infidel pastime and a device of the Great Satan America! This scarlet Whore of Babylon will surely tempt our good Muslim brothers if she is not stopped! Stone this unholy woman! Stone her! STONE HER!
Groucho Marx used to define an oxymoron as “Military intelligence.” We could now define “Islamic fashion” the same way.
Posted by at 10:06 PM on November 27
That woman in the photo looks a bit ridiculous on the beach in that bikers outfit. In places like Turkey were the women only have to cover their hair in a simple headscarf, it actually looks attractive and it was something many Western women did back in the 60s. But sequined evening burkhas? No.
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They don’t have to cover their hair but they can. Turkey is strictly secular.
Turkish models:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FciDxssO3g
And yes, flyingtiger is right. Feminists often support women “oppression” in the “dressing freedom” sence. They are mostly silent on honor killings which take place mostly in the Eastern Turkey (mostly Kurdish and Arab dominated, however we used to hear in the news, it also happens in Istanbul, of course due to immigration from the east.
I think radical islam is being supported by gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia everywhere on the globe, even in the USA (check the mosques in the USA).
Posted by William Cutting at 11:56 PM on November 27
I used to be surprised that feminists never criticized Muslims and their treatment of women. Then I figured out that they do have things in common. In particular they both are against women looking pretty and attractive. Both Islam and feminism want men to go through life never seeing attractive ladies in public,they are both against women wearing cosmetics, and both have the view that women looking sexy is a form of exploitation.
Posted by Jay at 3:08 AM on November 28
Sonya,
If a hijab enhances a woman’s facial beauty, then it is anti-Islamic and condemned by Muslim men. The purpose of the hijab, properly worn, is to cover the hairline and chin so as to purposely make the woman look unattractive and, therefore, undesirable. The Benazir Bhutto look of the diaphanous scarf draped over the head with lots of make-up was resentfully and hostilely condemned by the Arab Muslim men I knew…as was Paula Abdul and any other woman who presented herself as Islamic but flouted Islamic dress and tenets. Non-Islamic Western women…well, that’s another case altogether. They acknowledge we’re all sluts and therefore have no qualms about helping themselves hypocritically to all that exposed “raw meat.”
Islam, in all its forms, must be destroyed. It is not a religion but rather an evil, sick, twisted political belief system with world domination as its goal.
Posted by at 9:06 AM on November 28
William Cutting wrote
>They don’t have to cover their hair but they can. Turkey is >strictly secular.
Thank you Mr. Cutting for setting the story straight.
>Turkish models:
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FciDxssO3g
They are hot! Being Turkish, I can say for certain there are many hot Turkish women. :)
>And yes, flyingtiger is right. Feminists often support >women “oppression” in the “dressing freedom” sence.
Feminists are confused women.
>They are mostly silent on honor killings which take place >mostly in the Eastern Turkey (mostly Kurdish and Arab >dominated, however we used to hear in the news, it also happens >in Istanbul, of course due to immigration from the east.
Yes, the same thing happens in Germany too. Most of the “Turks” there are actually Kurds/Arabs and because of these Kurds/Arabs, us Turks get a bad rap.
Posted by Young Turk at 10:41 AM on November 28
> Paula Abdul and any other woman who presented herself as >Islamic but flouted Islamic dress and tenets.
Despite her Arab sounding last name, Paula Abdul is Jewish.
According to wikipedia
“Her father is a Syrian Jew who was born in Syria, raised in Brazil, and subsequently immigrated to the U.S.[9] Abdul’s mother is also Jewish and originally from Saint Boniface, Manitoba, Canada. Her maternal grandfather was named William Rykiss and was a proprietor of the general store in Minnedosa, Manitoba.”
Posted by Young Turk at 10:57 AM on November 28
@9:06: “Islam, in all its forms, must be destroyed. It is not a religion but rather an evil, sick, twisted political belief system with world domination as its goal.”
Fat chance.
Again, the Swiss model may be our only option at this point: carve out a defensible enclave, arm ourselves to the teeth, and let the larger world do what it will.
Posted by at 3:24 PM on November 28
I think radical islam is being supported by gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia everywhere on the globe, even in the USA (check the mosques in the USA).
Saudi Arabia RULES and CONTROLS the muslim world, NOTHING happens in the muslim world from terrorism to street swweeping that the Saudi royals don’t control and they hate America and Americans or any free thinkers for that matter.
Posted by Skip at 6:27 AM on November 29
Young Turk,
The fact that Paula Abdul is of Syrian Jewish ancestry doesn’t change the fact that the Arab Muslim men I knew in years past thought Paula Abdul was Arab Muslim or, at least, was presenting herself as such with an Arabic name. They despised her for her sexy videos. Likewise, they heaped scorn on Benazir Bhutto and any other Muslim woman who appeared to be scoffing at Muslim law.
It is very important in Islam that a good Muslim have an Islamic name. Thus you see American converts to Islam changing their names.
And yes, 3:24 PM, I agree that there is no chance of Islam being destroyed. Lawrence Auster’s proposed solution is the more practical (i.e., reversing the flow of Muslims into the West and containing them within their historical lands, where they can stew in Islam all they like), but yours is even more so.
Posted by at 9:16 AM on November 29
No chance of Islam being destroyed? Of course Islam can be destroyed—if you’re willing to toss “humane” and “civilized” behavior out the window. Read Tom Krautman’s “Caliphate” for a description of an event* that effectively would have ended Islam, had the aggressive USA of that novel not failed to treat the crisis growing in Europe…
*During the future administration of the fictitious President Patrick Buckman (gee, with a name like that, I wonder who he’s based on?)
Posted by Noop at 10:06 PM on November 30
Young Turk wrote that Paula Abdul isn’t Arab because she’s Jewish. As a matter of fact, Arabs can be of any religion and yes, it is possible to be both Jewish and Arab. There are Arab Jews just as there are Arab Christians and Arab Bahai. “Arab” is a linguistic group, not a racial group and not a religious one. Hence many Sudanese are Arab even though they are black as are many Syrians even though they’re white. Most Muslims are not Arab but most Arabs are Muslim.
Posted by jewamongyou at 4:26 PM on December 1
Muslim women deserve what they get. Muslim women in the US should get rid of the shrouds. Idiots!
Posted by Flag at 3:52 PM on December 2
jewamongyou, with all due respect, I always thought Arabs to be a separate racial group because of the Old Testament story of Abraham and his son Ishmael.
Ishmael was the result of an extramarital relationship between Abraham and his wife’s servant girl Hagar. Ishmael as a boy was jealous of Abraham’s other son Isaac, who was subsequently born to Abraham and his wife Sarah. Because of Ishmael’s jealousy and mean treatment of Isaac, Sarah asked Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away, which he did. Ishmael’s descendants then became the Arab race, and Isaac’s descendants became the Jewish race.
So, while it is true that Arabs can be any religion (as long as they are not executed by the Muslim community for apostasy), they are a distinct race, according to the Old Testament. Of course, if they marry outside their race, they become mixed.
Posted by at 10:26 PM on December 2
Anonymous at 10:26 claims that, according to the Bible, Arabs are a race. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of today’s Arabs being descended from Ismael is more legend and folklore than historical fact. It is possible that the original Arabs, who hailed from inner Arabia, had such origins - but the vast majority of today’s Arabs are simply descendants of those who were conquered by those tribes or heavily influenced by them. Even taken at face value, this legend does not make Arabs a race but rather an ethnic subset of a branch of the Caucasian race, just as the original Jews were an ethnic subset of the Mediterranean branch of the Caucasian race. The Jews and Arabs are no more “races” than today’s Irish or Swiss are races. In fact, much less so.
Posted by jewamongyou at 8:33 AM on December 4