‘Discover the Beauty of Modesty’

Fashion and Faith: Islamic Dress and Identity in The Netherlands

“…Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful." (Quran, chapter 33, verse 59, Shakir translation) Across Europe, a cohort of young Muslim women is at the vanguard of new styles of modest fashion, combining mainstream trends with inventive forms of hijab and Islamic clothing (Bartels 2005;Lewis 2013;Moors 2007Moors , 2013Rambo and Bauman 2012;Tarlo 1996;Tarlo and Moors 2013;Van Nieuwkerk 2003a, 2003b. The same phenomena can also be seen specifically in the Netherlands (Bartels 2000;Moors 2007;Van Nieuwkerk 2003a, 2003b, Finland (Almila 2016); Sweden (Roald 2004(Roald , 2012, Scotland (Boulanouar 2006); Germany (Özyürek 2010, 2014) and France (Bowen 2007(Bowen , 2010.…”

“…Recent decades have seen the growth and spread of debates about the visible presence of Islamic dress in the streets of the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, France and Scandinavia (Cesari 2005(Cesari , 2009Hass and Lutek 2018;Moors 2007Moors , 2013Tarlo and Moors 2013;Vroon 2014). Moors and Tarlo claim that these debates have intensified after 9/11, with a focus on the apparent rights and wrongs of covering, hijab and face veils, and whether their use is forced or chosen, and to what extend they might indicate the spread of Islamic fundamentalism or pose concerns for security (Moors 2013;Tarlo and Moors 2013).…”

“…Recent decades have seen the growth and spread of debates about the visible presence of Islamic dress in the streets of the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, France and Scandinavia (Cesari 2005(Cesari , 2009Hass and Lutek 2018;Moors 2007Moors , 2013Tarlo and Moors 2013;Vroon 2014). Moors and Tarlo claim that these debates have intensified after 9/11, with a focus on the apparent rights and wrongs of covering, hijab and face veils, and whether their use is forced or chosen, and to what extend they might indicate the spread of Islamic fundamentalism or pose concerns for security (Moors 2013;Tarlo and Moors 2013). Furthermore, the scholars claim that most of these debates ignore the development and proliferation of what has become known, in Muslim circles and beyond, as Islamic fashion and how the emergence of such a phenomenon does not necessarily signal Muslim alienation from European or American cultural norms, as complex forms of critical and creative engagement with them (Bartkowski and Read 2003;Cesari 2005Cesari , 2009Moors 2007;Tarlo and Moors 2013).…”

“…Thus, taking a critical distance from the popular assumption that fashion is an exclusively Western or secular phenomenon allows us to understand that the complex dynamics of the fashion industry are in no way limited to the Western world. Rather, Islamic fashion engages with and contributes towards mainstream fashion in various ways, so Muslim critiques of fashion share much in common with critiques from secular and feminist sources (Mernissi 1987;Mernissi 1991;Moors 2013;Tarlo and Moors 2013). The hijab, a head covering worn by tens of millions of Muslim women in the world, is at the forefront of this debate, and will be returned to throughout this article.…”

“…Here, in this paper, we specifically focus on dress and covering as an active probe. It will be explained how these choices can be about fashion and anti-fashion (Tarlo and Moors 2013), the aesthetic of covering (Tarlo and Moors 2013;Moors 2013), through a theoretical framework of modesty (Boulanouar 2006;Moors 2013;Siraj 2011;Stephens 1972), and how through these choices, women express their (a) agency, which is their ability to choose and act in social action, (b) and their identity, as they push the limits of archetypal Dutch identity, while simultaneously stretching the meaning of Islam to craft their own image influenced by themes of immigration, belongingness, knowledge, ethnicity, religious knowledge, higher education and gender.…”