ISTANBUL
— The models, tall and lithe and strutting down the runway to the beat
of Moroccan-themed house music, are from Russia and Eastern Europe. They
could be displaying the latest designer styles in Paris or New York,
but instead they are here, in Istanbul, wearing high heels, flowing
tunics and colorful head scarves.
The fashion show, part of Istanbul Modest Fashion Week, was held at an Ottoman-era railway station, with old-fashioned train cars and vintage luggage as props.
This
is not the Islamic fashion of Riyadh or Kabul, nor is it the dark and
dreary dress stereotyped in the West. Islamic fashion here is a
colorful, creative and joyful enterprise. It is also a huge business.
“We’re taking over,” said Dina Torkia, a Muslim fashion blogger
from London, who wears a head scarf and was mobbed by fans hoping for a
photo. “There are a lot of us Muslim girls who wear the hijab, and we
like fashion.”
Photo
 |
| A fashion shoot in Istanbul for Ala, a magazine in Turkey for conservative women. Credit Monique Jaques |
Istanbul
has sought to become an Islamic fashion capital, an ambition that
reflects the degree to which Turkish society has been reshaped under the
Islamist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Under
Turkey’s old hard-line secular system, the head scarf, or hijab, was
seen as a symbol of backwardness and banned in government offices and
schools. In recent weeks, as France debated the burkini, Turkey again
chipped away at old taboos, allowing female police officers, for the
first time, to wear head scarves on the job.
No
longer an object of derision in Turkey — and with the backing of the
Islamist government — the head scarf has spurred an Islamic fashion
revolution, complete with fashion houses, magazines, bloggers and
Instagram stars. Powerful women in the region, like Mr. Erdogan’s wife,
Emine, and Sheikha Mozah, a wife of a former emir of Qatar, have become
fashion icons for young conservative women.
“Everyone
was like, ‘Muslim market?’” said Kerim Ture, a former technology
industry executive who now runs the Islamic fashion house Modanisa, based in Istanbul.“Black burqas. That was the stereotype.”
Mr.
Ture employs several in-house designers, and has partnerships with
brands in Dubai and Malaysia. Popular colors these days are yellow and
baby blue, as are camouflage and tropical leaf patterns. Saudi Telecom
has invested in his company.
“Our main purpose is to make women feel better,” he said. “To feel the glamour and the shine inside, even if they are covered.”
Mr.
Ture said he did not come from an especially religious family, but he
has supported Mr. Erdogan, whose policies, arguably, have made his
business possible.
“My mother is covered,” he said. “My sister is not covered. It’s a Turkish family.”
Mr.
Ture organized the Istanbul Modest Fashion Week, the fancy affair held
at the train station, in May, the city’s first such event. Designers
from around the Islamic world unveiled their collections there. But most
of the models in the show were not Muslim. Russian and Eastern European
models tend to be taller than Turkish women, Mr. Ture said, and are
better able “to carry the stuff, easier to show the glamour.”
One
of the designers in the show was Loubna Sadoq, a Muslim woman in her
40s who lives in Amsterdam and began wearing a hijab a few years ago.
“I was on a religious journey, and I wanted more peace in my life,” she said.
Her
new fashion sense, though, did not last long. “I have another
lifestyle,” she said, mentioning bikinis and bars. “But I am still
religious. I still pray. And I wear a scarf when I go to the mosque.”
Now she is an entrepreneur, selling head scarves made from natural
fibers, like bamboo.
Muslim
fashion designers are essentially trying to answer a single question:
How can a woman be fashionable and true to her religion at the same
time?
“God
doesn’t send in a fax, or email, of how we are going to be wearing
things,” Mr. Ture said. “Don’t be a sex object on the street for men.
That’s the message. Don’t provoke them.”
Ms.
Sadoq said the rules of Islamic dress were simple. “There is no
difference between modest fashion and mainstream fashion,” she said.
“You just have to adjust some things, like the length and width. You
shouldn’t see skin, and it shouldn’t be tight. That’s it.”
But
as secular Turks fear religion encroaching on daily life, Turkey’s
conservative Muslims fear the opposite — that Islam is becoming watered
down by commercialism.
A
small group of conservative Muslims protested outside the fashion show,
chanting, “God is great!” One of the protesters, a man, told the
gathering that the Quran is clear that women should be veiled, and he
lamented that God’s instructions have become “a tool for the immorality
called fashion.”
Some
of the clothes displayed at the show seemed to push traditional
boundaries: slightly form-fitting tops, a little skin here, a plunging
neckline there.
“Lengths
got shorter, everything got tighter,” said Gamze Ucar, 38, whose family
runs a textile business and believes that some items worn by Muslim
women nowadays violate Islamic rules. “Trousers are everywhere.”
As
the market for couture Islamic clothing has grown in recent years,
mainstream designers have sought a piece of the action. DKNY and Tommy
Hilfiger have designed Ramadan collections, and Dolce & Gabbana sells abayas, long outer garments, priced at more than $2,000 apiece.
Noor Tagouri, a journalist
from the United States who has said she wants to be America’s first
hijab-wearing television anchor, said she often receives emails from
Christians who say, “We like the clothes, but we are not Muslim.”
Her response: “O.K., you can still wear it. You can still rock it.”
Ceylan Yeginsu and Safak Timur contributed reporting.
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