Abstract
Significant discrimination is directed toward Muslim women who dress modestly. Despite this Muslims will spend an estimated US$75 billion on modest fashion by 2020, a 70% increase since 2015. Past research in modest fashion has focused on influencers, the industry, or on veiling. Muslim women’s everyday dress practices and their lived experiences have not been studied. Through an intersectional framework, this research uses wardrobe interviews with sixteen Muslim women and digital storytelling with four of them to explore how they embody their identity through modest fashion, how intersectionality impacts their clothing choices, and what contexts influence their sartorial decisions. Three themes emerged: what influences their style; how they shop and style outfits; and what consequences are faced. My research found that by prioritizing modesty as a sartorial practice, these women are diverting the Western gaze, navigating away from superficial and oppressive Western beauty ideals, and challenging narrow Islamophobic stereotypes. Keywords: modesty, female modesty, sartorial agency, dressed bodies, fashion, hijab, Muslim, Islamophobia, intersectionality, fashion diversity, Western gaze, Orientalism
Highlights
Significant discrimination is directed toward Muslim women who dress modestly
Setting aside the many studies that have been done by Reina Lewis, Elizabeth Bucar and others in Muslim countries, this review looks at studies done in Western European and North American (WENA) and in each one the focus is on the practice of veiling rather than the individual and how her intersectional identities inform her sartorial practices and broader identity (Anderson & Greifenhagen, 2013; Lewis, 2015c; Mansson McGinty, 2014; Marcotte, 2010; Peterson, 2016; Ramachandran, 2009; Williams & Vashi, 2007)
Scholarship is either focused on the sub-cultural trend of the rising demand and economic vitality of the modest fashion industry that dresses the body, or scholarship focuses on the head to discuss political, racial, and social issues having to do with veiling practices essentially decapitating the Muslim woman from her body through a Western fetishization of the hijab (Ramachandran, 2009)
Summary
Significant discrimination is directed toward Muslim women who dress modestly. Despite this Muslims will spend an estimated US$75 billion on modest fashion by 2020, a 70% increase since 2015. I have found scholarship has focused on the business of modest fashion and its influencers (Akou, 2007, 2010; Lewis, 2010a, 2015b; Peterson, 2016), has used problematic frameworks and analysis when exploring Muslim women (Kavakci & Kraeplin, 2017; Williams & Vashi, 2007), or focused solely on veiling practices, lacking an intersectional understanding of the whole person (Anderson & Greifenhagen, 2013; Mansson McGinty, 2014; Marcotte, 2010).
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