The dressed body, material and technology: Rethinking the hijab through sartorial sociology

Abstract

This article explores the opportunities provided for dress and fashion studies by an analytical focus on garments through a number of disciplinary and conceptual lenses. Drawing upon sociological sources, including Bourdieu's practice theory and Alfred Gell's insights of human/object agency, as well as anthropology, considerations of material technologies, and clothing physiology, a framework is developed for depicting the many roles that textile materials and garment objects play in knowledge-creation, individual experiences of wearing garments, and the operation of habitus. In my case-study analysis of female Islamic veiling in Finland, I draw upon both primary data and secondary sources that take account of historiesinvolving individual histories, socio-cultural histories, histories of technological and material developments, and histories of transnational trade-routesand materialities, including the physicality of garments, human bodies and physical and spatial environments.

What is ‘space’ for dress? Theoretical considerations of a spatial turn for fashion studies

“…All too often, one's dress and appearance revealboth intentionally and unintentionallywhether one fits the ideology of the built environment or not, whether one is desirable in the environment or not. This is the basis of some individuals becoming more or less visible in spaces according to their visual 'fit' (Almila 2018b). Certain kinds of garments fit with certain kinds of architecture and spatial organisation.…”

Introduction: Fashion/Religion Interfaces

“…Although fashion and religion have been historically considered as strictly separate, and often conflictual, systems, such a distinction is also borne out of specific historical and geographical conditions, namely in 'modern' (western) Europe, where fashion was first institutionalised (Lipovetsky 1994). Emerging from the secularisation of the public sphere (particularly in post-revolution France, which was the primary centre for fashion institutionalisation in the 19th century), and in a time when religion increasingly lost control over other spheres of life, fashion's association with the secular seemed unavoidable (Almila 2018a).…”