Staging the Emperor's New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah

Abstract

One of the most enduring legacies of Reza Shah's rule is the problematization of dress in Iranian politics. In the course of the twenty years that he was in power, the state promulgated a number of policies that had a deep, and at times traumatizing, effect on the everyday lives of Iranians. Following the example of Turkey, but unlike other Muslim governments in the Arab world, in South Asia, or in Southeast Asia, the first Pahlavi state set out to standardize and Europeanize the appearance of its people. This policy led to state-society and intra-societal conflicts that flared up again after the Islamic revolution of 1979. This article analyzes the state's dress policies, argues that they were mainly meant to promote nation-building, and ends with a translation of a short story that, better than any official documents or historical accounts, illustrates the impact of these policies on the everyday lives of ordinary people.