Islam, Faith, and Fashion: The Islamic Fashion Industry in Turkey 9781474234375, 9781474234405, 9781474234382

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ISLAM, FAITH, AND FASHION

Dress and Fashion Research Series Editor: Joanne B. Eicher, Regents' Professor, University of Minnesota, USA Advisory Board Vandana Bhandari, National Institute of Fashion Technology, India Steeve Buckridge, Grand Valley State University, USA Hazel Clark, Parsons The New School of Design New York, USA Peter McNeil, University of Technology Sydney, Australia Toby Slade, University of Tokyo, Japan Bobbie Sumberg, International Museum of Folk Art Santa Fe, USA Emma Tarlo, Goldsmiths University of London, UK Lou Taylor, University of Brighton, UK Karen Tranberg Hansen, Northwestern University, USA Feng Zhao, The Silk Museum Hangzhou, China The bold Dress and Fashion Research series is an outlet for high-quality, in-depth scholarly research on previously overlooked topics and new approaches. Showcasing challenging and courageous work on fashion and dress, each book in this interdisciplinary series focuses on a specific theme or area of the world that has been hitherto under-researched, instigating new debates and bringing new information and analysis to the fore. Dedicated to publishing the best research from leading scholars and innovative rising stars, the works will be grounded in fashion studies, history, anthropology, sociology, and gender studies. ISSN: 2053-3926 Previously published in the Series Angela M. Jansen, Moroccan Fashion Angela M. Janson and Jennifer Craik, eds., Modern Fashion Traditions Heike Jenss, Fashioning Memory Paul Jobling, Advertising Menswear Maria Mackinney-Valentin, Fashioning Identity Forthcoming in the Series Nancy Fischer, Kathryn Reiley, and Hayley Bush, Dressing in Vintage Elizabeth Kutesko, Fashioning Brazil Kate Strasdin, Inside the Royal Wardrobe

ISLAM, FAITH, AND FASHION The Islamic Fashion Industry in Turkey

MAGDALENA CRĂCIUN

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 Paperback edition first published 2019 © Magdalena Craˇciun, 2017 Magdalena Craˇciun has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vii-viii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series cover design: Untitled Cover Image © FILIZ YETIM KÜÇÜKGENÇAY All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cræaciun, Magdalena, author. Title: Islam, faith, and fashion : the Islamic fashionindustry in Turkey / MagdalenaCræaciun. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, An imprintof Bloomsbury Publishing Plc,2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017039482| ISBN 9781474234375(hardback) | ISBN 9781474234368(pb.) Subjects: LCSH: Muslim women--Clothing--Turkey. |Clothing and dress--Turkey--Religious aspects--Islam. | Clothing and dress--Economic aspects--Turkey--History--21st century. | Fashion--Turkey--History--21st century. |Clothing trade--Turkey--History--21st century. Classification: LCC BP190.5.C6 C73 2017 | DDC391/.208829709561--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039482 ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-3437-5 PB: 978-1-3501-0573-7 ePDF: 978-1-4742-3438-2 ePub: 978-1-4742-3439-9 Series: Dress and Fashion Research Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgments vii

1 Introduction 1 2 The veiling debates: Islamic dress, Islamist headscarves, and Islamic fashion 25 3 A sector with flexible boundaries 47 4 Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals 65 5 Fashionable garments 95 6 Fashion images 131 7 Becoming fashion professionals 149 8 Conclusion 173

Bibliography 179 Index 187

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12

The “classic” wrapping style. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ 97 The “Arab” wrapping style. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ 98 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: S¸ eyma ALAN CIVAN 99 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Gul Begin Aida MUSTAFA 105 Engagement outfit. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOSÇ 108 Festive aesthetics. Copyright: Kübra BIRIKTIR 112 Festive aesthetics. Copyright: Filiz YETIM KÜÇÜKGENÇAY 113 Festive aesthetics. Copyright: Filiz YETIM KÜÇÜKGENÇAY 114 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ 117 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Gul Begin Aida MUSTAFA 118 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ 132 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ 133

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am greatly indebted to the fashion professionals I spent time with in Istanbul. Although I cannot mention their names here, I hope they know how much I value their willingness to share their opinions and experiences with me. Throughout my shorter and longer stays in Istanbul, I benefited from the generous support of my friends. I thank Ali Cem Gülmen, Altuğ Yanardağ, Su Deniz, Gurur Altun, Meral Bahtiyar Aydıner, Ufuk Aydıner, Alper Cengiz, Natali Çetinoğlu, Cem Kurter, Yeliz Inci Balkaya, Mihtat Balkaya, Nermin Mollaoğlu, Mehmet Demirtaş, Tuğba Yaşar, Ozkan Uner, Roni Avigidor, and Elcin Gurer for their friendship. Meltem Maralcan Gülmen offered the joy of sisterhood without suspicion, for which I remain grateful beyond words. During my second stay at University College London as Marie Curie Fellow, I benefited from the continuous support of my mentor, Susanne Kuechler, and from the collegiality of other members of the Department of Anthropology, especially Haidy Geismar and Allen Abramson. Paul Carter-Bowman, Martin O'Connor, and Pascale Searle helped me navigate the complicated paths of administration. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude. The Department of Sociology at Bosphorus University offered affiliation in Istanbul, and I would like to thank Zafer Yenal for being so welcoming and supportive. I am especially indebted to Daniel Miller, who read the manuscript in its entirety. I am grateful to my Turkish friends, Sertaç Sehlikoglu and Besim Can Zırh, for their feedback on my work, Ştefan Lipan for helping me to write better stories, and Janine Su for spending time searching for the best words and formulations and improving my English. I was fortunate to work with Bloomsbury Academic, and I would like to thank Hannah Crump, Ariadne Godwin, Frances Arnold, and Pari Thomson for their commitment to this project. My special thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers for their expertise and time. Finally, I thank my family in Romania for thinking of me while I was away in Istanbul and London.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Research and writing was funded by the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/20072013) under Research Executive Agency (REA) Grant Agreement No. 327169. The book manuscript was revised during April 2016, the month I was a visiting researcher at Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies, Free University of Berlin.

1 INTRODUCTION Hidden dynamics in an Islamic fashion show “You do know there is a fashion show this afternoon, don’t you?” Ebru asks. I nod in agreement. I first read about it in an Islamic fashion magazine, where it was being publicized as the “first online Hijab Fashion Show in the World” (Dünyanın ilk online tesettür defilesi1). Curious, I avidly started following the organizer—an online retailing company advertising its products as “Islamically appropriate garments” (tesettür giyim)—on Instagram. The event was being presented as a unique opportunity to discover the newest creations of “famous designers.” I tried but eventually failed to secure an invitation. All morning I have been waiting for the right moment to ask Ebru if she could help me get in; I try to make my voice sound casual and enquire, “Do you really think they’ll have so many people, especially foreigners, watching the show online?” Ebru shrugs her shoulders. She is preoccupied with something else. She explains that the retailer has entrusted an Islamic fashion magazine with compiling the guest list. Consequently, she, who works for a competing fashion magazine, has not been invited either. The best way to solve this problem is to directly contact the hosting company. In her usual confident voice, she calls the company, explains that she is a fashion editor interested in the show, and asks for the address. She also adds that a foreign journalist will accompany her, explaining to me later that it is better to introduce me like this. About an hour and a half later, we have arrived at the front of the venue. Upon seeing a fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing woman, a harried usher apparently sees no reason to consult the guest list or

1

These are the company’s own original Turkish wording and English translation of the slogans used to advertise this event locally and internationally. As will soon be explained, the preferred English term in this book is Islamic fashion, and not Hijab Fashion, as appears in the above-quoted slogan. Moreover, as will soon become evident, the translation of the Turkish term tesettür defilesi through the English term Hijab Fashion Show is not exactly straightforward. Two years later, in 2016, the same retailing company organized another fashion event, this time calling it Muhafazakâr Moda Haftası in Turkish and Modest Fashion Week in English.

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enquire who her companion is. She just tells us to go to the first floor as quickly as possible because the fashion show is about to start. The catwalk theater is crammed of people. Headscarf-wearing women and a few men are seated on upholstered benches on both sides of the catwalk. Ebru finds a seat in the second row. I squeeze myself between two friends on the opposite side of the catwalk. They are Demet, a fashion designer who recently entered this sector, and Funda, an advertising sales representative who works for the Islamic fashion magazine that had helped organized the show. Both of them are also Ebru’s friends. Demet tells me enthusiastically, “The show is being live-streamed on the Internet!” Leaning toward me, Funda whispers in my ear, “I’m so happy Ebru has managed to get an invitation for you. You are both cross with me, but there was nothing I could do: she works for a different magazine and you don’t work in this sector.” Demet adds, “Look around you. Everyone is here! Isn’t it great?” Indeed, many popular headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are in the catwalk theater. The show starts. Music is blaring, models are moving down the catwalk and photographers are shooting. While the models walk past us, swinging their wide full-length skirts, I ask Demet what she thinks. She seems to be looking for the right words and finally says, “This is the first fashion show I have attended. It’s strange for me to see veiled women (tesettürlü) striding like this. These models don’t understand the demands of conservative clothing (muhafazakâr giyim).2 I know this is a fashion show, but still.” Funda voices her outrage, “This can hardly be called design. The cut of these dresses is almost identical. Everything looks so provincial.” Other attendees also exchange (inaudible to us) impressions and snap pictures and (presumably) share moments of the fashion show with their social media followers. The show lasts about fifteen minutes. The small talk, selfies, and group photographs afterward take far longer. The CEO of the online retail company invites his guests to the garden, where light refreshments are available. He makes sure that he talks with all the guests. If someone introduces herself as a fashion designer, he offers her his business card and enquires whether she would be interested in collaborating with his company. If someone informs him that she is an Islamic fashion media professional, he warmly advises her to share her impressions of the event with her readers and social media followers. The guests are headscarf-wearing fashion professionals who know each other quite well and meet quite often at the various events in the sector. They take advantage of this meeting to update one another about their professional and personal lives. Demet decides that it is time to leave; it is the rush hour traffic that worries her. She pushes Funda to hurry up and say her goodbyes. She also invites me and Ebru to dine with them back in their neighborhood. The busy fashion editor excuses herself for not being able to join us on this occasion; her workday is not over yet.

2

All translations from Turkish in this book are my own, the few exceptions being signaled in footnotes.

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On our way back, we have plenty of time—stuck as we are in the congested traffic—to share our impressions and ask our questions about the fashion show. Demet and Funda complain that the organizers had been rather parsimonious. They wonder who could have possibly decided that light refreshments—in the form of a few cookies, a glass of water for each person and, even worse, singleuse tableware—were appropriate for such a glamorous event. They laugh and describe for me the poor buffet at the last collection launch they attended. They had thought at the time that this was the worst reception they had ever seen in the sector, but after this afternoon they have changed their minds. Demet concludes, “I would say the hosting company did a lousy job.” Her friend adds, “The whole thing was lousy indeed.” This being out of the way, Funda directs the conversation toward other topics. After a while, and in a serious tone of voice, Demet shares that the CEO had invited her to collaborate with his company. She wonders if this is a good idea for someone who has recently entered this sector. She had checked the company’s website after the conversation, but could hardly say that she liked the products. Funda thinks that this sort of collaboration could help Demet reach a wider clientele, although the garments would be necessarily unpretentious. The online retailer significantly increases the prices of these products. As a result, the designer can make a profit only if she offers clothes that do not cost much to manufacture. She could see for herself at the fashion show what kind of products the company retailed. Demet admits that her first reaction was surprise. She thought that those simple clothes were not worth promoting on the catwalk. On second thought, she appreciates the company’s honesty in presenting the sort of products it actually offers to its customers. Demet’s second question takes the conversation in a different direction. Demet has recently veiled herself. Her new bodily habitus informed her reaction to the CEO. She recounts that there was something in the way this man looked at her and shook her hand that signaled to her that, despite running a business specializing in garments for headscarf-wearing women, he himself was not a religious person. Her friend confirms. He is a businessman who has noticed the growing demand for fashionable garments among headscarf-wearing women and accordingly has opened a business in this sector. Demet wonders aloud whether she would have to interact directly with this man. Funda reckons that the chance of interacting directly with the CEO is small, with the company’s employees most probably dealing with the designers. She adds that in 2013 many headscarf-wearing women, herself included, boycotted the company’s products because the CEO had openly supported “the Gezi incidents.”3 Almost a year later, in May 2014, 3

In the summer of 2013, a protest against the demolition of the Gezi Park in Taksim Square started in Istanbul and then turned into anti-government protests and civil unrest that spread to much of Turkey. Funda, a voter for the governing party, the AKP, disagrees with the protests (like other pro-government people, she calls them “incidents” (olaylar), and not “protests” (protestolar) or “resistance” (direniş)).

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headscarf-wearing women, she included, attended this company’s fashion show, but she cannot infer from this that they have stopped boycotting the company’s products. Demet nods her head pensively. I also have a question to ask. Ever since I walked into the catwalk theater and saw that some of the most popular headscarf-wearing fashion professionals were in the audience, I wondered for whom this event was organized. A moment of silence follows. Then Funda emphasizes that she would state the obvious for my sake: headscarf-wearing fashion professionals knew that they were invited to the fashion show so that the company could reach their hundreds of thousands of followers; in fact, they were specifically asked to publicize the event on their social media accounts; they accepted the invitation because working in fashion meant attending such events; a few years ago there was nothing like this, but now they took advantage of these chances. During our dinner, Funda posts pictures from the event on her Facebook page. The first version of the accompanying text reads “marvellous” (muhteşem). She hesitates and asks for our opinion. I wonder if this adjective is really appropriate. I remind her that she was not really pleased with some of the organizational aspects and reckon that other attendees must also have noticed these faux pas. She says nothing. Sensing the gathering clouds, Demet changes the subject. In the end, Funda posts the following message: “The whole lot came out to the [company]’s fashion show” (cümbür cemaat [X]’nın defilesine geldik). The next day I notice that the messages about this fashion show posted on social media by other attendees abounded in superlatives.

Entrepreneurship in Islamic fashion and its challenges This online retailer is only one of many local enterprises of various scales that manufactures and mediates fashionable clothes for observant Muslim women, responding to—as well as stimulating—the ever-increasing demand for such garments in Turkey. The country is just one of many countries around the globe with a fast-growing sector targeting such consumers. The news media offers snippets of this “global boom in Islamic fashion,”4 covering not only its development in Muslim-majority countries,5 but also the launch of lines for observant Muslim

4

Sherwood, H. (2016). “London show reflects global boom in Islamic fashion.” The Guardian (May 29, 2016) http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/may/29/london-show-reflects-global-boom-inislamic-fashion?CMP=fb_gu. (accessed May 30, 2016). 5 Deasy, K. “Don’t be so modest: How Islam is upending the fashion world.” Global Post (September 10, 2012) http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120910/dontbe-so-modest-how-islam-upending-the-fashion; “Is Muslim fashion finally ‘on trend’”? The Guardian

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women and special “Ramadan collections” by global fashion brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, DKNY, and Tommy Hilfiger, as well as high-street brands such as Mango, Uniqlo, and H&M.6 The media also emphasizes that pious Muslims represent a significant and, more importantly, largely untapped global market. A much-cited report, the Global Islamic Economy Report, estimates that Islamic fashion will be worth $327bn by 2020.7 A field of opportunities is thus signaled on the assumption that entrepreneurs will try to take advantage of this new market. However, the very articulation of faith and fashion seems to many oxymoronic, generating confusion and engendering condemnation. For some, religiously mandated clothes are outside fashion and modernity, and Islamic fashion is a perplexing development. For others, to bring these garments within the sphere of fashion, to stylize and to commodify them, is tantamount to tainting their spiritual purpose, de-sanctifying veiling and tempting pious consumers to neglect the pursuit of piety and concentrate on fashionability. From this perspective, the articulation of faith and fashion is a condemnable enterprise. There are also other people for whom Islamic dress, fashionable or not, represents a symbol of political Islam and a sign of the radical “otherness” of Muslims. Therefore, despite

(April 26, 2012). http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/apr/26/muslim-fashion-ontrend; Bilefsky, D. (2012). “A Fashion Magazine Unshy About Baring a Bit of Piety,” The New York Times (May 29, 20212) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/world/europe/a-turkish-fashion-magazine-alais-unshy-about-showing-some-piety.html “Hijab couture” The Economist (April 26, 2014) http://www. economist.com/news/international/21601249-designers-are-profiting-muslim-womens-desire-lookgood-hijab-couture; Habib, S. (2015). “Faithful is the new black: How Muslim hipsters and chic Sikhs are expressing their style.” The Globe and Mail (September 23, 2015) http://www.theglobeandmail. com/life/fashion-and-beauty/fashion/faithful-is-the-new-black/article26455445/; Nicholas, J. (2015). “Why this political science student founded a fashion site for Muslim women that’s now a global phenomenon” Business Insider (November 2, 2015) http://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-ecommerce-is-opening-the-door-for-muslim-women-2015-1; Naib, F. (2015). “Sweden’s ‘hijabista’: Selling Muslim fashion.” Al-Jazeera http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/swedenhijabista-selling-muslim-fashion-151022111549949.html. “Mipsters: like hipsters, but Muslim” (2016) The Guardian (April 20, 2016) http://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2016/apr/10/mipstermuslim-hipster-exploitative-marketing-term-growing-urban-trend (accessed May 31, 2016). 6 Haris, R. (2016). “D&G’s hijab range is aimed at people like me—so why do I feel excluded?” The Guardian (January 11, 2016) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/11/dolce-gabbana-hijabcollection-muslim-women-western-fashion; Alleyne, A. (2016). “Dolce & Gabbana debuts line of hijabs and abayas.” CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/07/fashion/dolce-gabbana-muslim-hijab-abaya/ Halime, F. (2016). “Meet the first hijab-wearing model in an H&M ad.” Fusion (September 25, 2015) http://fusion.net/story/203380/mariah-idrissi-hm-hijabi-fashion-model. Sanghani, R. (2016). “How the hijab went high-fashion and divided Muslim women.” The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ women/life/how-the-hijab-went-high-fashion-and-divided-muslim-women/ (accessed May 31, 2016). 7 Sherwood, H. (2016). “London show reflects global boom in Islamic fashion.” The Guardian (May 29, 2016) http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/may/29/london-show-reflects-global-boom-inislamic-fashion?CMP=fb_gu. Benmayor, G. (2015). “Thomson Reuters’s figure on Turkey’s spending on Islamic clothing is wrong.” Daily Hurriyet http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/thomson-reuterssfigure-on-turkeys-spending-on-islamic-clothing-is-wrong-.aspx?pageID=449&nID=86747&NewsCat ID=402 (accessed May 30, 2016).

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seeming so economically promising, this sector might present many difficulties for those operating within it, whether they are expected or unexpected. This book sets out to explore what it means to run a business in Islamic fashion. To a certain extent, these are “ordinary” businesses in fashion: their object of activity is chosen because it seems to be in demand; however small this area of trade might be, they require investment, planning, and networking like any other businesses do; they involve careful balancing of cultural and economic calculations (Fine and Leopold 1993; Amin and Thrift 2004); and they necessitate the transformation of unstable and changing aesthetic value into stable and calculable economic value (Aspers 2001; Entwistle 2009). If, as indicated above, others are puzzled or disturbed by the very object of activity, what might be the conditions, challenges, and constraints an entrepreneur or a fashion professional faces in the Islamic fashion sector? How does he or she deal with them? What makes a fashionable outfit Islamically appropriate? What makes an Islamically appropriate outfit fashionable? What makes a fashion image with and for headscarf-wearing women appropriate? How does one market these objects? How does one legitimize these images? Does one have to define his/her professional identity? Does one have to position himself/herself with respect to the veiling debates? These sorts of questions guide the present discussion and betray its anthropological orientation toward the embeddedness of businesses. The introductory ethnographic vignette has already brought to the foreground some of these other, less “ordinary,” characteristics of the field of Islamic fashion (e.g., the importance of religious identity, political views, gender relations). The book selects a setting that is almost ideal for the exploration of this topic, that is, Turkey. This is a country in which Islamic fashion began to develop earlier than in other countries, a response to the participation of women to the Islamic revivalist movement. The first set of mass manufacturers of religiously appropriate clothing appeared in the 1980s, while the first Islamic fashion show was organized in 1992. Nowadays, this is a thriving sector, in which people with divergent political views and religious practices activate, and in which numerous companies and fashion professionals vie for national and international recognition. This is also a setting that analytically is exemplary in terms of the social, moral, and political challenges it poses to the reconciliation of Islam and fashion: challenges that in other Muslim-majority countries are less evident. This is the only Muslim-majority country that has been established as a modern secular state under a Kemalist8 project that placed at its center an explicit rejection of Islamic influences on dress. This is the only Muslim-majority country in which the authorities enforced a ban on the wearing of headscarves for all students 8

The term Kemalist refers to the state ideology promoted by the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal.

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and civil servants for almost two decades and in which the politicization of the headscarf has fragmented the society. In this country, the secular elite, donned in modern clothes, have long proclaimed themselves the sole practitioners of modernity. The recently emergent religious elite have challenged this claim, fashionable Islamic dress being one of the instruments they employ to construct their own version of modernity, and the fashion industry becoming one of the cultural arenas they aspire to conquer. Since an Islam-rooted party, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), took power in 2002, the balance of power has shifted, with the old secular elite being marginalized and a religiously conservative elite taking on a hegemonic position. The country is currently experiencing “an Islamist ‘revolution from above,’” which frames “the Kemalist republic as a ‘parenthesis in history’” and “seeks to refashion Turkey’s society along the lines of a programme of political Islam” (Öktem and Akkoyunlu 2016: 473). Islamic fashion is a cultural project appropriate for “pious Turkey” that the ruling party is currently encouraging through various educational and cultural policy developments (Lüküslü 2016). Nevertheless, the political support, however indirect, for Islamic fashion contrasts with its condemnation by religiously conservative critics on moral and religious grounds. In addition, the book focuses extensively on the experience of a particular category of participants in this sector. These are headscarf-wearing fashion professionals (i.e., designers, editors, stylists, journalists, and bloggers). They have recently entered into the sector, and their engagement is not simply commercially motivated. They are highly visible practitioners of Islamic fashion. They portray themselves as individuated style seekers and act as trendsetters, being the most active contributors to the development of new aesthetics in this sector. However, they are also the most exposed to the criticism that Islamic fashion engenders on conceptual, moral, and religious grounds. In this era of social media, they can easily be questioned about and held accountable for their products and practices as individuals—and not as corporate individuals. They also enjoy political support as promoters of a new aesthetics of modernity in the “new Turkey.” This double particularization—Islamic fashion in Turkey and headscarf-wearing fashion professionals—enables a deeper perspective on the characteristics of businesses in Islamic fashion. Islamic fashion is about fashionable clothes and fashion images for observant Muslim women, that is, in this book, women who cover/veil themselves. In a narrower sartorial sense, veiling refers to a person’s dress as interpreted from the Quran and, for some Muslims, the Hadiths (reports of the Prophet’s sayings) and the Sunnah (reports of the Prophet’s deeds). In this book, veiling refers to women’s veiling, although Islamic principles of modesty regulate a man’s dress and conduct as well. In an extended sense, it indicates practices of modest behavior—from covering the head and, sometimes, the face, hiding the body shape under loose garments and avoiding attracting attention to oneself—to

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the spatial segregation of men and women, religiously defined relationships between men and women and the authority of men over women. There is no single interpretation of what veiling materially consists of: Muslim communities all over the world identify different combinations of clothes as representing the “proper” form of Islamically appropriate clothing. These interpretations might change over time within the same location and in relation to wider social and political phenomena and developments in aesthetics. There is also variation in the religious significance attributed to veiling, some Muslims considering veiling as a means by which to create a pious self, others interpreting it as an expression of piety, and yet others not considering it a mandatory religious prescription (El Guindi 1999; Mahmood 2005; Moors and Tarlo 2007; Tarlo 2010; Tarlo and Moors 2013; Jouili 2015). (The next chapters will detail the revivalist notion of veiling that prevails in contemporary Turkey, introducing the concept of tesettür, emphasizing its normative weight, and describing the combination of clothes that is considered its proper materialization.) The present analysis draws upon studies about observant Muslim women’s consumption of fashionable dress, focusing in particular on mundane clothing dilemmas, strategies of assembling fashionable Islamic outfits, and modalities of arguing that the realms of faith and fashion are compatible. These studies demonstrate that neither outfits nor arguments are strictly products of religious motivation, women’s choices being informed by various factors, from piety and modesty to generation, class, ethnicity, nationality, aesthetic preference, and fashion trends (Sandıkcı and Ger 2005; Jouili 2009; Gökarıksel 2012; Gökarıksel and Secor 2009, 2012; Jones 2007, 2010b; Moors 2007, 2010; Tarlo 2010; Ünal and Moors 2012; Tarlo and Moors 2013). A small number of studies have focused on commercial projects of bringing together faith and fashion, with this book incorporating their observations regarding the means and strategies employed (Gökarıksel and Secor 2010b; Jones 2010a; Tarlo 2010; Moors 2013; Lewis 2013a). Another body of literature taken into consideration explores how Muslim identities are constructed through commodities and consumption practices (Öncü 1995; Saktanber 1997, 2002b; Abaza 2001; Salamandra 2004; Harb and Deeb 2007; Fealy and White 2008; Fischer 2008; Pink 2009). The analysis also builds on a body of work that explores the production, circulation, and consumption of representations of Muslim women in the global economy and the definition and expression of Islamic piety and femininity under the impact of capitalist consumer culture (Russell 2010; Lewis 2010; Jones 2010a; Gökarıksel and Secor 2010a). The current work complements this literature, with its focus on commercial projects of articulating faith and fashion and extensive documentation of the experiences and explanations of women who are simultaneously creators, promoters, and practitioners of Islamic fashion. This work also corrects a tendency to gloss over the particularities of these commercial projects. Moors and Tarlo (2007: 138), for example, state that

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“an Islamic consumer sector . . . explicitly forges links between religiosity and fashion [and] encourages Muslims to be both covered and fashionable, modest and beautiful,” but do not analyze how these links are created or if they are actually realized and promoted. Gökarıksel and Secor (2010a: 144), to give another example, argue that “the fashion industry is actively shifting the frontiers and diversifying the realm of tesettür [veiling],” basing this argument on their conversations with consumers who not only select from the offering on the market garments that conform to their interpretation of Islamic modesty, but now also pay attention to how these garments are marketed and how their labeling might change in response to observers and circumstances. The analysis does not start from the premise that the objects of this economic activity—that is, garments for observant Muslim women and their visual presentations—represent “religious commodities,” “pious goods,” and, respectively, images of “pious femininity.” Such a premise has structured other studies, resulting in, for example, the location in the image of “pious femininity” of the opposed notions of virtue and value (Jones 2010a) or, to give other examples, the methodological search for the Islamicness of “veiling-fashion” (Gökarıksel and Secor 2010b) and the un-problematized location of businesses in Islamic fashion within “Islamic capitalism” (Gökarıksel and McLarney 2010). Conversely, such a premise has resulted in the analytically stifling criticism of this economic activity as mere commercialization of religion (Carrette and King 2004). In contrast, the study builds on Moors’ observation (2012: 276) that “things do not have either a religious or a secular, non-religious, status; rather, the ways in which forms become or cease to be religious may well shift in the course of their production, circulations, and consumption, and depend on the intentions of those engaging with them.” In this study the term Islamic in “Islamic fashion” is not a priori emphasized. The investigation focuses on who highlights it, when, and why. Simultaneously, in this study the relationship between these goods and images, and the expression of piety, is not taken for granted, but considered an object of analysis. However, it builds on the premise that Islamic fashion is fashion in its own terms. In theoretical terms, this means distancing from a tendency to consider fashion as a uniquely Western phenomenon and an inclination to label as “ethnic,” “traditional,” or “religious” the clothes that Muslims, even Muslims from the West, wear (Balasescu 2003, 2007; Niessen, Leshkowich, and Jones 2003; Tarlo and Moors 2013; Crăciun 2017). It implies embracing Wilson’s (2003: 3) argument that in today’s world “no clothes are outside fashion; fashion sets the terms of all sartorial behaviour” (emphasis in original). It further entails the recognition of the existence of “multiple fashion systems” operating within the frame of “multiple modernities” (Lewis 2015). In analytical terms, it involves a focus on the dynamic nature of Islamic fashion and its engagement with mainstream (secular) fashion. It also means being attentive to the fact that observant Muslim women’s dress changes over time, in response not only to distinct religious interpretations

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ISLAM, FAITH, AND FASHION

but also to aesthetic developments. This premise guides the ethnographic documentation of the efforts to have Islamic fashion recognized as fashion and headscarf-wearing fashion professionals as legitimate practitioners of fashion within the chosen research setting. In addition, the analysis incorporates theoretical arguments about the importance of the materiality of (fashionable) clothing to understand its making, mediation, and consumption (Kuechler and Miller 2005; Woodward and Fisher 2014). The more general argument reads as follows: “The dissection of clothing into pattern, fibre, fabric, form and production is not opposed to, but part of, its consideration as an aspect of human and cosmological engagements. The sensual and aesthetic—what cloth feels and looks like—is the source of its capacity to objectify myth, cosmology and also morality, power and value” (Miller 2005: 1). This argument acts as a correction of the tendency in fashion studies to point out the ephemerality and mutability of fashion and, as a consequence, characterize fashion as “immaterial” and sideline material properties and the processes of materialization (Entwistle 2000; Barnard 2007). The more specific arguments elaborate how the material qualities of clothes play a crucial role in how they are able to co-construct and externalize specific categories of identity (Bayly 1986; Weiner and Schneider 1989; Keane 2005; Woodward 2007). In Woodward and Fisher’s (2014: 9) words: “Clothes do not represent us, but rather they are ‘us,’ because it is through engaging with clothing and their properties that we interrogate who we are or can be.” The analysis also makes use of another notion in material culture studies. This is Keane’s (2006) notion of “bundling,” according to which any given object’s properties and qualities are always bound up with other properties and qualities. This particularity gives things an inherently open-ended and vulnerable character. It also gives people the option of selecting some among the properties and qualities “bundled” together in an object, and to present them as salient, valuable, useful, and relevant. Furthermore, the analysis integrates a theoretical point from the current turn to materiality in the study of religion. This illuminates the contestation of the importance of material form in the expression and practice of religion. In Moor’s (2012: 276) formulation, “Religious actors as well as secular publics, who deny the relevance of form, considering it superficial and not pertaining to what religion ought to be concerned with (interior belief or faith) overlook their own engagement with form . . . . Their concern is not with form in itself, but with those forms they do not consider religiously permissible.” This idea helps orient the present analysis, though not only toward the form itself, but also toward its characteristics (shape, texture, length, form, volume, and color) as sites of debate over the religiously permissible. These, I argue, are the appropriate theoretical and analytical choices for a study of how entrepreneurs and professionals in Islamic fashion deal with the

INTRODUCTION

11

challenges and tensions in the articulation of faith and fashion. In this case, either prioritizing the first term of this pairing (the Islamic in “Islamic fashion”) or dismissing as inaccurate the second term of the pairing (the fashion in “Islamic fashion”) diminishes the chances of capturing the dynamism inherent in attempts to articulate faith and fashion, and to obtain results that are aesthetically satisfactory, religiously appropriate, ethically legitimate, politically valuable, and economically profitable. This book focuses on how producers and mediators themselves define their products and practices, how they position themselves and their businesses within and without the sector, and how they recognize, emphasize, argue against, and deny the very existence of a separate sector of Islamic fashion. Moreover, it explores the reasons behind the elaboration of these distinct definitions, and the circumstances in which they are elaborated and promoted, and the commercial and noncommercial agendas of those engaging in these businesses. Furthermore, this work takes into account the larger economic, political, and moral contexts in which this reconciliation of faith and fashion takes place. These theoretical and analytical choices permit the foregrounding of the multiple, and sometimes conflicting, demands on businesses in Islamic fashion. They also enable the illustration of the manoeuvers, compromises, contestations, and negotiations that the differently positioned participants in this sector execute and experience. In brief, it is the contention of the book that these choices enable a better understanding of the inner workings of this sector, one of the most intriguing current developments on the global fashion scene. The demands on businesses in Islamic fashion can be approached with reference to aesthetics, ethics, and politics. In this book, aesthetics refers both to “the made,” “the beautiful,” and “the sensible,” involving not only multisensory encounters with materials and objects, but also perception and imagination (Morphy and Perkins 2006). Entwistle (2009: 9) points out that fashion is about aesthetics: “Fashion [is] not simply [about] new clothes, but clothes that are promoted and popularized as ‘attractive,’ ‘beautiful,’ ‘stylish,’ or ‘chic.’” In addition, “Fashion is not just about changing clothes, it is also about changing ideals as to the design and look of clothes” (emphasis in original). In other words, to run a business in fashion necessitates not only to manufacture and/or mediate garments, but also to produce and propagate aesthetic values around these new garments and their visual presentations. Islamic fashion is about aesthetics as well, involving experimentation with materials and forms, stylistic innovation, the aesthetic qualification of garments, and the formulation of aesthetic ideals. Islamic fashion is also about (apparently) un-changing ideals as to the design and look of religiously appropriate clothes. Islamic fashion is also about ethics. In this book, in accordance with recent developments in anthropology, ethics refers to the recognition and pursuit of

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ISLAM, FAITH, AND FASHION

the good and the right. Ethics can be located within religion—with words and deeds being ethical only to the extent that they relate to the rules, norms, and codes of a particular religion (Mahmood 2005, 2012; Hirschkind 2006). Ethics can also be placed outside the religious domain. Lambek (2012: 354), for example, has insisted on the need for this separation, for “ethics always needs to provide a space for argument, if not simply conversation, which religion may sometimes appear to enhance and at other times to close down.” Such a broad understanding of the relationship between religion and ethics enables attention to the ethical considerations of both secular and pious people who are active in and comment on the development of this sector. Moreover, whether it is located inside or outside the religious domain, ethics is conceived not as a system of abstract rules, norms, and codes, but as referring to a process of making oneself and others into ethical subjects, with particularly valued sensibilities, skills, and qualities and in relation to the moral rules, norms, and codes that suffuse social and/or religious life. Ethics is interpreted as being a dimension of action rather than an aspect of thought. Veiling itself is an ethical practice. The adoption of veiling signifies the spiritual transformation of the individual. Its performance is essential for the fashioning of an ethical subject and, at the same time, acts as a guarantor of the moral character of the performer. Ethics thus depends on consciousness, that is, on explicit religious knowledge and personal self-disciplining. Ethical reasoning and action are grounded in assertions of faith. Piety is the very form that ethical life takes (Keane 2014). Furthermore, ethical life is a dimension of everyday life (Das 2010). For Lambek (2010: 1), “Ethics is intrinsic to speech and action.” For George (2016: 54), ethics are “worked out not just in the intersubjective play and politics of language, but also in encounter with, in dwelling with, material and visual substances and forms.” This understanding of ethics contrasts with its more common conceptualization in dress and fashion studies as pertaining to sustainable fashion, eco-friendly and environmentally conscious fashion, socially responsible fashion, or fair trade practices (Black 2010; Black et al. 2013; Gordon and Hill 2015). As veiling—fashionable veiling included, according to the practitioners of Islamic fashion—is part of a process of ethical cultivation, actors in the Islamic fashion sector are expected to approach the making and mediation of covered garments and outfits from a position of ethical responsibility, to specify the religious appropriateness of products and not to deter the observant woman from the pursuit of piety. Islamic fashion is also about politics. More precisely, it is about the politics of aesthetics, that is, a power struggle over fashion as a locus of aesthetics (Negrin 2012) and, equally important, a locus of modernity (Calinescu 1997, quoted in Wilson 2003). In the case being analyzed here, it is a power struggle over who has the right to define what is fashion, who has the right to participate in the

INTRODUCTION

13

making of fashion, and who has the right to consider herself to be in fashion and call herself modern. These are instances of the “cultural wars” in which old and new elites are caught in contemporary Turkey. In addition, in this case, it is also a power struggle over the very definition of religious yet modern aesthetics. The struggle is being mobilized around who has the right to define both what is religiously acceptable and aesthetically modern. A business in fashion can fail to convince in aesthetic terms. Potential customers judge garments aesthetically and select “clothes that ‘look good’ within the terms of taste of the day” (Entwistle 2009: 9). They not only respond to the discursive proclamation of their aesthetic value but also perceive garments and images of garments multisensorially. In a business in Islamic fashion, there are other challenges as well. There is the risk of failing to persuade in ethical terms. Potential customers—as well as observers—may evaluate objects and the conduct of their makers and mediators with respect to religious requirements and moral norms, and find them inappropriate and unethical. In addition, there is the risk of failing to persuade in political terms. Customers—as well as observers— may appraise individual projects of being fashionable yet heavily dressed and the collective project of Islamic fashion, and challenge their empowerment potential at the individual level and contest their transformative potential at the societal level. Businesses in Islamic fashion—in particular their products and initiators, be they practitioners of Islamic fashion or not—are open to aesthetic appreciation, ethical evaluation, and political validation. Islamic fashion as a topic of scholarly investigation brings to the foreground novel ways in which aesthetics, ethics, and politics are articulated in ordinary conduct and everyday life.

A foreigner researching Islamic fashion in Istanbul This book is based on ethnographic field research conducted largely between April 2012 and July 2014 in Istanbul. The city is the capital of Islamic fashion in Turkey. It is also, in Stokes’s (1994: 21) words, a city that “continues to emblemize modern Turkey more than anywhere or anything else. . . . It has lost none of its contradictory force as an image of the East in the West, and the West in the East.” I have continued to follow developments in Islamic fashion in Turkey via the news media and social media since the completion of my fieldwork. I used different methods of data collection, from formal semistructured interviews and countless informal encounters to (participant) observation in designers’ workshops and showrooms, boutiques, malls, open-air markets, fashion shows, fashion photo shoots, and the 2012 Islamic Fashion Fair. Throughout my stay in Istanbul I was mobile, traveling around this huge city to meet my interlocutors

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ISLAM, FAITH, AND FASHION

and attend various sector events, but the neighborhoods and districts that I visited most were Nişantaşı, Ümraniye, and Fatih. I was also immobile at times, spending time in front of the computer or on my tablet. My research involved visual and content analysis of fashion magazines, blogs, and newspaper articles. To transcend the possible limiting impact of my position in the field as a foreign, non-Muslim woman, and in recognition of the important role the internet played in the lives of my interlocutors, I collected social media commentary. In my analysis, I compared and complemented my own interviews and casual conversations with headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, with their mass media interviews and social media posts as well as the social media commentary on their work and personae.9 My entrance into this field was facilitated by the launch of Âlâ, the first Islamic fashion magazine, in the summer of 2011. The contemporary fashion system is “a system of names,” the function of a fashion magazine being to make particular names, and their work, known to the readers (Moeran 2006: 736). While it was easy to compile a list with the most important producers of garments for headscarf-wearing women, without this magazine it would have been more complicated to figure out who the key people were in this emerging sector. I contacted fashion designers, editors, and stylists who were featured in, or who worked for this magazine. I also asked them to put me in touch with others in the sector. This was therefore partially “network-based fieldwork,” whereby I was passed along a chain of contacts. In addition, I used social media and face-to-face introductions to expand my network of interlocutors. However, as frequently happens in fieldwork, entrance into one group restricted my access to another group (e.g., my friendship with one headscarf-wearing fashion editor triggered a cold reaction from another headscarf-wearing fashion editor in our one and only brief and superficial encounter, since these women were engaged in a bitter dispute over the title of “first fashion editor” in the sector; similarly, my encounters with the founders of a particular fashion magazine did not go unnoticed in this small world and, as a consequence, affected the willingness of staff from other fashion magazines to interact with me). I learned how to navigate this milieu through direct contact and attention to low-key discussion and, to a lesser extent, through information gleaned from social media. Over time, my encounters—those with headscarf-wearing fashion professionals in particular—acquired the ethnographic depth I had hoped for. These changed from short, polite conversations with the “foreign journalist” (as some, accustomed to giving interviews to foreign newspapers and TV channels, labeled me) to warm chats with the “foreign researcher,” whom they got used to seeing at their events, and whom they would invite to drop by their workshops

9

See Hine (2015), for a discussion about “ethnography for the Internet.”

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15

and showrooms. To my mind, a first sign of this transition came through an appreciative comment from one fashion editor. She had been pleased to discover that I was interested in her work, and that I did not ask if what she did constituted a sin—apparently a question she frequently got during encounters with Turkish journalists. Nevertheless, religiosity remained a topic I could not approach as much as I wished. To the non-Muslim researcher, the first stories these women preferred to recount were about the ban on wearing headscarves in universities and public offices, and about how this had impacted on their educational and professional opportunities. They also emphasized that the “secularists” (kemalist) despised them for choosing to wear religiously mandated garments in the public sphere and that their “hate” was still a very central part of their everyday life. On a few occasions, my attempts to discuss the revivalist interpretation of veiling as one possible interpretation among others were politely but firmly rejected on account of me not being Muslim and therefore not knowing first-hand what is written about veiling in the Quran. On other occasions, however, my interlocutors themselves brought up religiosity and modesty in our conversations, wanting to discuss, for example, why Muslim women were required to cover while observant Orthodox women from my native country were not, or, to give another example, whether people could behave ethically outside the religious domain, specifying that some of their “secular” (açık) acquaintances argued that they could and that pursuing the good was not necessarily theologically informed. Moreover, as it happened to other researchers working in the highly polarized Turkish society,10 these deepening relationships with headscarf-wearing fashion professionals had an impact on my everyday life in Istanbul. This is not an attempt to reduce the present social conflict to “secular versus pious Muslim,” although these are powerful constituent elements. The recent literature—especially analyses of the “Gezi uprising”—includes compelling arguments about the limited explanatory power of the “secularism versus Islamism” dichotomy for understanding contemporary Turkey (Göle 2012; Kandiyoti 2012; White 2012; Atay 2013; Öncü 2014; Ozyegin 2015). However, this literature also notes the extent to which “the secular-Islamic divide . . . has acquired the quality of a national obsession in Turkey” (Kandiyoti 2012: 514). This is an account of what it meant for me to research Islamic fashion, a topic that is strongly connected to these categories of identity and opens a window into their affect-laden potential and their strategic deployment in everyday life. This is a tale about how these categories were directly or indirectly mobilized in the interactions I witnessed, or in response to my presence, research project, stories, and questions. This is, at

10

White (2012: 20), for example, writes, “I was disappointed not to have been able to speak with right-wing nationalist youth. Despite introductions, in this polarized climate I was unable to overcome their suspicion.”

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ISLAM, FAITH, AND FASHION

the same time, an ethnographic account of the everyday tensions and irritations that appear in a highly polarized society. I entered the field not as a “stranger” but as a “guest”—albeit not the “guest” of my new “hosts.” Hospitality is a condition of ethnographic research.11 The anthropologist is a “professional stranger” (Agar 2008): to carry out his or her research, the anthropologist tries to become a “guest,” that is, to be granted admission into a house, group, or community, to enter the moral domain of hospitality, and to be socialized and incorporated into the existing order (Bourdieu 1965; Pitt-Rivers 2012 [1977]). I had already lived and worked in Istanbul for three years before embarking upon this research project on Islamic fashion (shorter and longer stays between 2006 and 2011, first as a doctoral researcher, then as a temporary resident). The friends I made during these periods had secular lifestyles (or, to use Atay’s (2013) words, they had “non-religious,” but not necessarily “irreligious,” lifestyles). They also lived in secular neighborhoods.12 Upon returning for a new research project, these friends hosted and helped me overcome the problems a foreigner seemed bound to encounter in Turkey. Nevertheless, they also criticized me for choosing this research topic, not changing it after I secured the funding for another stay in the city, and not finishing the research more quickly so I could focus on “proper” and “interesting” topics. Some enquired about the progress of my research, while the majority rarely missed an opportunity to share their opinions about the headscarf and, more rarely, Islamic fashion. In my stories about headscarfwearing women’s interest in fashion and their work in the fashion sector, they read signs of the inevitable outcome of their “modernization” (modernleşme), that is, un-veiling. They emphasized that, because of my research, they had themselves started to pay attention to and think about things they would have rather ignored. (Some of them had headscarf-wearing women among their university colleagues, co-workers, and business partners, but would rarely have, if ever, considered them their friends.) They also related the topic of my research and the increased public presence of fashionably but heavily dressed women to what they considered to be a sustained assault on Turkey’s secular character. In turn, I noted that discussions about my research topic also elicited self-identifications as “secular” (laik, çağdaş, modern, and more rarely, seküler) and, in some cases, “secularist” (Atatürkçü or kemalist).13 Their category of 11

Hospitality is also a notion that has long been associated with the Middle East (Herzfeld 1987; Dresch 2000; Shryock 2004). 12 In Istanbul, signs that a neighborhood can be described as “secular” include the presence of establishments serving alcohol, public displays of affection, businesses remaining open during Friday prayer time and the predominance of women who do not cover their heads, especially not in accordance with styles that adhere to the revivalist understanding of Islamic dress. These are nevertheless just signs, for neighborhoods might be more diverse in reality. 13 The term “secular-ist” (kemalist or Atatürkçü) connotes active support of the founding state ideology, or Kemalism (kemalizm), after the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal.

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“secular” included people who practiced Islam privately (not to be confused with “secretly”), did not practice a religion, or were nonbelievers. These selfidentifications were accompanied by speeches, ranging from well-articulated ideological positions to, more frequently, presentations of their mundane and leisure habits. This was something that had rarely happened, if ever, during my previous stays in Istanbul. Most of these self-identifications can be situated with reference to what Kandiyoti (2012) calls “the secularism of the street,” being more about a mundane secularity than a Kemalist secularity. My friends also categorized my research interlocutors as “religious” (dindar; kapalı; pejoratively, dinci; for headscarf-wearing women they used the words kapalı and türbanlı; the term Akpli, that is, supporter of the AKP, was also used) and, more rarely, as “Islamist” (Islamcı).14 My new friends and acquaintances, that is, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, were curious to learn about me. They wanted to know why I had chosen this research project. They knew that Islamic fashion was a domain that fascinated foreign journalists and academics (some of these fashion professionals had also met foreign journalists and other academics before my arrival and during my fieldwork). They were not surprised to encounter yet another foreigner interested in their stories. However, they were curious to know my personal motivations for embarking upon this research topic. I often felt I disappointed, if not offended, them with my explanations, however passionate, about the cultural importance my discipline gave to dress and material culture, and my personal fascination with the creativity and dynamism of Islamic fashion. Many times I was told I should not forget that headscarf-wearing women had long been mistreated in this Muslim-majority country. I also felt uneasy about the revanchist attitude of some of my interlocutors (e.g., “it is our turn,” “they [the secularists] have to get used to the new situation,” “they [the secularists] have to understand that our people are in power now”). This characterization remains true to my fieldwork experience. At the time of writing, I also related their reaction to a documented tendency among pious people to insist on their marginalization and injury, even under the current context, wherein an Islam-rooted party has been in power for more than a decade (Kandiyoti 2012). They also asked where I lived in Istanbul. I invariably saw eyebrows raising whenever I said I lived in Kadıköy—a district of Istanbul known as secular— and that most of my Turkish friends also lived there (my interlocutors assumed that my friends were “secular” (açık (literally, open)), the more general term, and kemalist (secularist), the more particular term; on a few occasions, I also heard them using the words dinsiz, Allahsız, and ateist (atheist); and the pejorative

14

In a similar way to “secular-ist,” the term “Islam-ist” (Islamcı) connotes active support of political Islam. In contrast, “Islamic” is an umbrella term that is used here to refer both to politics and to politicians in general, and to observant Muslims, who may or may not have any involvement in politics.

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term laikçi to refer to secular people). I noted that they identified themselves as “religious” (the terms they used were dindar, Müslüman, and muhafazakâr). On many occasions I was told that headscarf-wearing women were not welcome in my neighborhood. On the few occasions when my new friends visited me at home or strolled with me around my neighborhood, they would say that people were staring at them, that this was something I could not understand as an uncovered person, and that they did not feel comfortable (throughout the visit, they spoke about “we” (biz) and “them” (onlar), that is, secular people). For my many “hosts,” I was also a strange “stranger”: non-Western (Romanian), but educated in the West and working at a Western university; nonMuslim, but interested in Islamic veiling; unmarried foreign woman; and Turkishspeaking foreigner. This rather harder-to-pin-down identity was a valuable asset, as on many occasions I could selectively foreground an aspect of my identity that responded well to my interlocutors’ opinions and concerns (and thus became an easier-to-deal-with “guest”). Hospitality implies different things: reciprocity—the “guest” is expected to offer something in exchange for his or her temporary acceptance in the house, group, or community; hierarchy—the “guest” is subordinated to the “host” and can hardly assert himself or herself, make demands, or express criticism; performance—the “guest” is turned into a privileged audience, for which ideal representations of the host and hosting group or community are put forward. As the “guest” of many “hosts,” who seemed to hold diverging ideas about what I could offer in exchange for their hospitality, I was sometimes overwhelmed. I smiled, nodded in agreement, but refrained from promising anything. I tried hard to avoid being co-opted into other people’s projects (e.g., “You too are secular, so you should think like us,” meaning “A modern woman cannot be veiled”; “You are not veiled, but you think like us,” meaning “A veiled woman can also be modern”). Shryock (2004: 60) points out that hospitality will always be part of “what makes ethnography possible” but will also always be “a site of moral uncertainty.” For him, the uncertainty is experienced at the moment of writing the ethnography, when the anthropologist is unsure about how and whether to present the everyday life and opinions of his or her hosts to the readers, that is, an audience who was not necessarily invited to observe. For me, the uncertainty was also part and parcel of my fieldwork experience. Hospitality is a condition of ethnographic research. However, in my case, it was occasionally a burden. I had made that burden heavier as a “guest” of many “hosts”: I often felt I could have only made it lighter as a “stranger.” During my fieldwork, I worried about what I said to whom and about what someone might expect from me. While writing, I have worried about how to present my ethnography and, at the same time, honor the trust my many “hosts” bestowed upon me. This book was largely written between the end of 2015 and mid-2016, a time when societal polarization had reached new levels in Turkey, unbearable even for the foreign observer.

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For these reasons, I have settled on the following strategy: in this book, I use only pseudonyms. To some extent, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are public figures. However, in our encounters, they shared opinions that, if presented in a book, could cause them discomfort and could have a negative impact on their relationships in the sector. Hence I have used pseudonyms or labeled speakers only by their professions. I have also withheld the names of the clothing companies I directly or indirectly researched and have chosen not to reference the newspapers articles I drew upon in my work. In addition, I have concealed the names of my secular interlocutors. If presented in a book, their opinions could cause them discomfort and perhaps negatively affect my own relationships with them. Throughout my fieldwork, I participated in meetings and observed work projects that brought together secular and pious people. (In making this distinction, I mainly relied on my observations about their dress, behavior, and interactions with the opposite sex; direct self-identification as belonging to one category or another would have been strange in such contexts, but see the ethnographic vignettes that open the first and third chapters of this book.) They were engaged in “business as usual,” that is, they were collaborating on projects that they hoped would profit them all. I was also told that these collaborations were opportunities to personally get to know people from outside one’s own milieu, people whom they were used to perceiving in terms of abstract categories—which invited speculation about their moral standing and political views—and whom they were now pleased to discover as human beings with similar joys and problems (see also Ozyegin 2015). However, I also overheard complaints and was directly told by pious people that their secular collaborators might actually despise the headscarf and were only interested in making money in this growing sector of Islamic fashion. Conversely, a few of the secular people who worked in this sector seemed to feel the need to explain to me that they had nothing in common with these religious people, but were collaborating with them for professional reasons. They also emphasized that they were not the only ones: had they not taken the job someone else would have done the same, so they might as well earn some money. The ethnographic material included in this book presents some of the tense exchanges I witnessed, an illustration of the way such exchanges had the potential to erupt at any time between persons with divergent political views or religious practices. This was more the case as this research was carried out during a period that featured not only a boom in the sector, but also a surge in societal polarization. The AKP, which has been in power since 2002, aggressively employed a rhetoric that distinguished those who voted for it from those who voted against it, and proposed or enacted legislative measures many felt would affect their way of life. Some people I met in Istanbul during my fieldwork harbored feelings of revenge. Others experienced resentment.

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In brief, during fieldwork, the dichotomy “secular versus pious Muslim” came to the foreground in comments about my project, in relation to my status as the “guest” of many “hosts,” as well as in comments about work and coworkers in the sector. I was caught in the mundane “battles” between secular and pious people, and experienced the acute local preoccupation with questions of identity. However, I also observed instances of integration and registered positive reflections upon coexistence. The very outcomes of this fieldwork blur this secular/pious line, if indeed such a clear delineation has ever mapped onto reality. They demonstrate that the categories themselves are far from discrete and hint at the current formulation of new fault lines. My ethnography focuses extensively on the work and opinions of headscarfwearing fashion professionals, a new and very active category of actors in the Islamic fashion sector. They are well aware that both secular and religious observers criticize their work, sartorial choices, and mundane conduct . They themselves divide their critics in these categories. At times they also divide the category of religious critics, adding the category of “very conservative” people (aşırı dindar and aşırı muhafazakâr). However, they also deplore their marginalization by both. Troubling for them is the dismissal of their sartorial choices as not being “modern” and “fashionable.” The secularists (still) show intolerance to their presence in public. In contrast, the seculars’ attitudes are harder to ascertain, although many headscarf-wearing women suspect that they are less tolerant than they claim to be.15 Troubling for them is also the fact that their piety and sense of belonging to, in their words, “the conservative segment” of the population (muhafazakâr kesim) is disputed, if not refused.16 As one headscarf-wearing fashion designer declared in an interview, after an Islamic fashion show that was furiously criticized by religiously conservative critics as un-Islamic: They cannot question my Muslimness (Müslümanlık). They might think that the way I dress is inappropriate, but cannot speak against the labour I put into my work. They also wear trousers and cover their heads in different ways, some closely following the shape of the head (sıkmabaş), others using accessories to create ampler forms. So do I. Let them show me the rules of veiling. There are no such rules in the Quran. Does religion really require our isolation? They are trying to standardise us. Where are we going to stand in Saktanber and Çorbacıoğlu (2008) note that headscarf-wearing women are still object of what they call “headscarf-skepticism.” 16 The falling out between then-PM Erdoğan and the Islamic cleric Fetullah Gülen, which became public in December 2013, had affected relationships in what my interlocutors referred to as the “conservative section of the population.” Although some headscarf-wearing fashion professionals I encountered during my fieldwork were known to be sympathizers of this cleric’s movement (Hizmet), I did not explore how the falling out had impacted upon their relationship in the sector. 15

INTRODUCTION

21

this society? How are we to survive if even our own community (camia) is judging us? If my community is going to turn its back on me because of what I’m saying now, and refrain from supporting me materially, so be it. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just doing my job.17 The designer was responding to remarks about the Islamic inappropriateness of her creations and their promotion through fashion shows, that is, Islamically inappropriate events in the opinions of these critics. Her words expose the limitations of such clear-cut categories in the analysis of contemporary Turkey.

Terminology In this book I use the following terms: Tesettür—Veiling Since the 1980s, proponents of the Islamic revivalist movement have argued that veiling must be done as an informed and deliberate act. They introduced the notion of tesettür to designate this consciously chosen veiling (the word tesettür derives from the Arabic root s-t-r and translates as “covering”). In this book, I translate the Islamic notion of tesettür as veiling. The women who took up the veil presented it as an act of individual reappropriation of the Islamic tradition and experienced its adoption as a spiritual transformation. Tesettür modası/muhafazakâr modası—Islamic fashion The literal translation of Islamic fashion into Turkish can be either Islami modası or tesettür modası. To my knowledge, the first term is not used in Turkey. The second term is controversial, with critics and practitioners of Islamic fashion alike arguing that the term is conceptually and ethically impossible. This book explores how and why entrepreneurs in this sector avoid bringing Islam and fashion together in the same expression (see especially the second and fifth chapters of this book), but uses the English term “Islamic fashion” for its potential to signal this inherent tension.18 The term muhafazakâr modası, which translates as “conservative fashion,” is commonly used, precisely because this adjective does not connote religion in the strong way as the other terms, Islam and tesettür, do.

17

I thank Eray Çaylı for his help with the translation. Some scholars have employed the term “Islamic fashion” as well (Moors and Tarlo 2007; Tarlo and Moors 2013), while others have used the terms “veiling-fashion” (Gökarısel and Secor 2010b) and “Muslim modest fashion” (Lewis 2015).

18

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Başörtülü, örtülü, or kapalı kadın—Headscarf-wearing woman The generic term I employ in this book to speak about an observant Muslim woman is “headscarf-wearing woman.” I emphasize the importance attributed to the “proper” covering of the hair—the headscarf is tightly pinned under the chin, completely covering the hair, forehead, ears, and neck, as well as the shoulders and bosom—in the currently dominant revivalist interpretation of veiling. The literal translation of these Turkish terms is “someone wearing a headcover” (başörtülü) or “a covered person” (örtülü; kapalı). Türbanlı kadın—Headscarf-wearing woman This term is usually used by “secularist” people, sometimes also by “secular” people, to refer to women who dress in accordance with the revivalist interpretation of veiling (with particular reference to the tightly fastened headscarf) (see the second chapter of this book). Tesettürlü kadın—Veiled woman This term refers to a woman who dresses in accordance with the revivalist interpretation of veiling. Kapalı kadın—Covered woman My interlocutors distinguish between being “veiled” (tesettürlü) and “covered” (kapalı), elaborating this difference with reference to the clothes a woman wears and their degree of correspondence to the revivalist form of veiling, though without implying that one is more religious than the other. (See the fourth and fifth chapters of this book.) Tesettür giyim—Islamically appropriate clothing My interlocutors used this term with caution, for the Islamic notion of tesettür is ideologically loaded and potentially prescriptive. What one person considers religiously appropriate might be judged as insufficiently Islamic by another. To avoid this problematic characterization, the headscarf-wearing fashion professionals I encountered in Istanbul used the following terms: Muhafazakâr giyim—Conservative clothing Mütevazi giyim—Modest clothing Ölçülü giyim—Covered clothing These terms are often used interchangeably in the ethnographic context. (See the third and fifth chapters of this book for a detailed explanation of these different terms and their strategic use.)

INTRODUCTION

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Structure of the book The second chapter presents the discursive context in which Islamic fashion businesses operate, summarizing past and current interrelated debates about Islamic dress, the “Islamist headscarf” and Islamic fashion. The third chapter chronicles different stages of, and important moments in, the production of fashionable garments for headscarf-wearing women, from the beginning of mass manufacture to the organizing of the first Islamic fashion shows and the launch of Islamic fashion magazines. The fourth chapter introduces the most active newcomers to this sector, that is, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals. The fifth and sixth chapters examine the types of aesthetic preoccupations and ethical considerations that go into the making of fashionable garments and fashion images. The seventh chapter discusses how these newcomers not only make fashion, but also style themselves into fashion professionals, against the common assumption that as headscarf-wearing women—that is, pious persons—they cannot or should not be interested in fashion. The final chapter brings these threads together and argues that a business in Islamic fashion involves not only economic calculations, but also constantly shifting articulations between aesthetics, ethics, and politics. This chapter also discusses the appearance of headscarf-wearing fashion professionals as a development that challenges from within the proclaimed and perceived unity and uniformity of the “conservative segment” of contemporary Turkish society.

2 THE VEILING DEBATES: ISLAMIC DRESS, ISLAMIST HEADSCARVES, AND ISLAMIC FASHION Veiling—and the distinct material forms that it has taken over time—is the object of intense debates inside and outside the realm of religion. Debates that unfold in the domains of aesthetics, ethics, and politics are of particular importance for the argument of this book. Such debates center on Islamic dress, concentrating on its disputed place in a modern society; on the “Islamist headscarf,” relating first to its politicization and, more recently, to its quasi-normalization; and on Islamic fashion, contesting its very existence from a conceptual and ethical perspective, and questioning its forms from an aesthetic viewpoint. This chapter revisits these intertwined debates in order to clarify the chronology of the veiling debates and the larger discursive context within which different economic actors engage in Islamic fashion and in relation to which they legitimize this engagement.

Islamic dress Turkey was established as a modern nation-state under a firm conviction that “modern dress” was crucial for its existence. Although an official definition of what constituted “modern dress” was never provided, it was tacitly accepted that this referred to Western fashions. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Turkish republic, repeatedly spoke about the “universal” character of Western clothes (Göle 1996: 61). Consequently, Islamic influences on everyday dress were explicitly rejected. Religious dress was described as non-modern and, therefore, an undesirable and unacceptable presence in the public sphere of this modernizing society. Legal means were employed to reform clothing, limit the use in the public sphere of garments that connoted Islam and enforce the adoption of Western

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fashions (Doğaner 2009; O’Neil 2010). The most famous of these laws, namely the Hat Law, required (male) civil servants to wear a hat with a brim. This hat was presented as an item of dress that all “civilized” countries used. The official description did not mention the fact that the hat prevented observant Muslim men from touching their foreheads to the floor, as was the tradition during prayer. These laws did not directly address or try to ban Islamically appropriate female dress, arguably to prevent public protests (Norton 1997; Metinsoy 2014). Nevertheless, women were encouraged to take off face veils (peçe) and allenveloping cloaks (çarşaf). Anti-veiling campaigns were officially supported at the local and national levels, especially in the 1920s and the 1930s (Çınar 2005; Adak 2014). Simultaneously, cultural means—novels, magazines, newspapers, and photography exhibitions—and public events—beauty contests, fashion shows, and public balls—were used to promote the new aesthetics and guide the fashioning of the modern Turkish citizen. During the early republican period, the phrase “you look like a European” was considered a major compliment (Göle 1996: 66). The modern citizen dressed in Western clothes and mastered the new postures and body care practices that these clothes required. He or she inhabited public spaces in the company of the opposite sex, and acquired the manners that these public mixed-gender events and activities demanded. The modern Turkish woman, in particular, was portrayed as non-veiled. Atatürk toured the country in the company of his non-veiled daughter and female assistants, and presented women’s unveiling as both a symbol of modernity and a means by which to become modern (Delaney 1994). Concurrently, a process of turning the veiled woman into the “Other” began. She was represented as the opposite of the Westernized, secularized, and progressive Turkish woman. Her entrapment within the confines of the traditional Islamic way of life was deplored. Her garments were derided as representative of a bygone era and out-of-sync with the modern sartorial repertoire. Women’s veiling became “uncivilized,” “backward,” “irrational,” “submissive,” and “oppressive.” It was placed outside modernity and even considered the very antithesis of modernity. In contrast, their unveiling and participation in public life came to stand for modernity (Göle 1996; Saktanber 2006; Libal 2014). With the establishment of the republic, Islamic dress was ideologically and legally confined to the private sphere and to religious institutions. This was a peculiar sartorial manifestation of the centrality of secularism to the construction of Turkish modernity and, moreover, of the particular understanding of secularism as being not only about the separation of religion from the state and its institutional control, but also about the removal of the signifiers of religiosity from the public sphere (Keyman 2007). Nowadays many Turks—both those who identify themselves as “secular” and those who identify themselves a “secularist”—share this view, no matter

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what material and aesthetic forms veiling might take. The words of a secular interlocutor are illustrative of this conviction: “Veiling cannot be modern! You cannot even put these two words together in the same phrase!” This person happened to read in my notebook that one of my other interlocutors spoke about “modern veiling” (modern tesettür). In many of our subsequent meetings, he insisted that this expression was an oxymoron. Similarly, the veiled woman is not and cannot be modern. The discursive strategy of “othering” the veiled woman has long been about placing her outside modernity and portraying her as non-modern. For this reason, for contemporary headscarf-wearing women to feel and be understood as modern is an important part of their subjectivity. And for this reason Göle’s book, The Forbidden Modern (1996)—a book that showed how observant Muslim women’s encounter with and embrace of modernity takes place in practice in Turkey even though Islamism “forbids” it—has been widely read outside academia. This ethnography of engagement with Islamic fashion, especially as a headscarf-wearing fashion professional, will illustrate the importance they attribute to being modern.

The Islamist headscarf Starting in the 1980s, a revivalist movement1 has prompted the resurgence of Islam in the public sphere, arguing that modernization did not necessarily entail secularization and the display of religiosity was not antithetical to modernity. Somewhat paradoxically in this secular republic, this movement found fertile ground for development. In an effort to combat the appeal of communist ideas, the leaders of the 1980 coup d’état2 departed from the strict secularism of the previous period. They allowed the reopening of religious orders, made religious instruction (Sunni Islam) compulsory in primary and secondary schools, increased the number of Islamic high schools (Imam-Hatip Lisesi), and allowed the graduates of these high schools to attend university (Özdalga 1998; Özgür 2012). In Turkey, like elsewhere, the Islamic revivalist movement promoted veiling as a signifier of spiritual transformation (Mahmood 2005; Moors 2009; Ahmed 2011). The performance of veiling is essential in the life of a pious woman, and must be done as an informed and deliberate act. The Islamic notion of tesettür was introduced to designate the consciously chosen veiling—the word tesettür

1

Islamic revivalism is “the unprecedented worldwide engagement with exegetical texts and theological reasoning by Muslims untrained in traditional Islamic institutions” (Fadil and Fernando 2015: 60). 2 The September 12, 1980 coup d’état was the third in the history of the republic. After three years of military rule, democracy was restored.

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derives from the Arabic root s-t-r and translates as “covering.” A combination of an oversized headscarf (başörtü) and a full-length, loose-fitting overcoat (pardesü) was proposed as its “proper” materialization. The headscarf was fastened in a particular way, tightly pinned under the chin, completely covering the hair, forehead, ears, and neck, as well as the shoulders and bosom. Practitioners and observers alike called it the “new veiling.” However, their lines of thinking were distinct. For practitioners, its “newness” came from its difference from the “habitual,” “rural” and “traditional” practice of veiling. They pointed out that this veiling was “inherited” from generation to generation, and that the religious consciousness of its wearer was debatable. They claimed that the loosely tied headscarf, which was used to cover the head, but with no special attention paid to hiding the hair and neck, was Islamically inappropriate. They called it “half-veiling” (yarım tesettür)—even though in many cases their close relatives were those whom they admonished for uncritically reproducing this religious obligation (Özdalga 1998). The practitioners of this “new veiling” emphasized that theirs was a conscious turn to Islam and that they deliberately chose to veil. This was personal conviction grounded in interest in and knowledge of Islamic scripture. The adoption of the veil was a signifier of spiritual transformation (hidayet). The individual choice to be a “consciously” observant Muslim (şuurlu) was described and valued as a signifier of modernity. Moreover, it was presented as a marker of ethical integrity, if not ethical superiority, over the unreflective practitioners of a faith, the less religious persons and the committed nonreligious people (Göle 1996). For secular observers, its designation as “new” reflected their conviction that the practice of veiling was fated to disappear in a modern society (Saktanber 2002a). There could be no continuity between this veiling and that prior to the establishment of the Turkish republic and the adoption of secularism as its founding principles. Consequently, this was a “new veiling.” Moreover, its “newness” came from the fact that it was a political claim, and not simply an expression of individual religiosity. These pious women were previously “invisible,” leading home- and neighborhood-centered lives in the provinces and on the urban periphery, covering themselves in the “traditional” way or not being veiled at all. Involvement in this movement prompted their “forbidden participation in the public sphere” (Göle 1996: 8). Veiled women entered the public sphere, interacted with unrelated men, enrolled in universities, activated in different professions and participated in political life—all these activities counting as modern in this predominantly Muslim non-Western context. As Göle (ibid.: 92) notes, contrary to the stereotypes, veiled women “are not simply conveyors of Islamist ideology [but] active and selfassertive women who seek opportunities in modernism.” In this way, they defied the divide between the religious and secular spheres, and between tradition and modernity. Consequently, they outraged their observers—and experienced

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the “secularist hate” against the headscarf. (Some of my headscarf-wearing interlocutors pointed out that this “hate” still is a very central element of their everyday reality.) With the establishment of the republic, the public sphere had been institutionalized as the site for the implementation and practice of “a secular and progressive way of life” (Göle 2002: 176). Veiled women were excluded from this public sphere. Secularist women in particular felt deeply hurt. As Çınar (2005: 66) observes, those women who “were brought up to believe that their presence and status in society . . . was predicated upon the absence of the mark of Islam, particularly the veil, in the public sphere” became the most vocal opponents of political Islam. The secularists interpreted the increased and highlighted presence of Islamic dress in the public sphere as a violation of the core principle of secularism. Furthermore, they singled out the tightly wrapped “new” headscarf as the symbol of political Islam and labeled it the “Islamist headscarf.” Unlike Islamic dress, which they relegated to the periphery and ideologically placed outside modernity, the “Islamist headscarf” was present in the center of the society (i.e., public squares, universities, and work places), threatening secular modernity. The government reacted to this mounting collective fear and the unprecedented manner in which the authority of secularism over the public sphere was undermined. It implemented a ban on the “Islamist headscarf” in its effort to limit its public presence, especially at universities, the very space of modernity. The ban is a bodily politics of secular governmentality that attempts to regulate female conduct according to a particular notion of the modern nationstate (Asad 2006; Scott 2007). In 1982, the first ban on the wearing of headscarves at universities began to be enforced. In 1984, the Higher Education Council (YÖK) modified the ban, stating that only a “modern” form of headscarf called türban could be worn at universities. This form was modeled on a fashionable type of headscarf that could be seen in Western fashion shows. It covered the head but, unlike the headscarf of consciously chosen veiling, it was tied at the back of the neck. However, the decree produced the opposite of its intended result, with the small number of students who adopted türban integrating it into their religious practice and the larger number of commentators approaching it in religious terms. As Çınar (2005: 79) writes, the result was not the anticipated de-Islamization of the headscarf, but rather an Islamization of the word “türban.” The term has since been employed in the “secularist” discourse to refer to the tightly wrapped headscarf. In 1986, the Higher Education Council passed another decree that annulled the previous one, arguing that the “modern” türban had come to symbolize political Islam as well, and authorizing university administrators to decide what form of headscarf, if any, they deemed acceptable on their campuses. At most universities, headscarf-wearing students were not allowed into classrooms, no matter how they tied their headscarves. They responded with

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protests, petition campaigns, boycotts, and hunger strikes over the subsequent years. They invoked modern values such as freedom of conscience and individual rights. They argued that their persecutors were the non-modern ones for tampering with democracy and human rights in their attempt to suppress their religious expression. In 1997, the politicization of the headscarf reached its climax. The National Security Council issued a memorandum calling for the implementation of stricter measures against political Islam and recommending a ban on the wearing of headscarves for all students and civil servants. The government endorsed this resolution and the ban was strictly implemented throughout the country. This memorandum also initiated a process that led to the resignation of the thenprime minister and the end of his coalition government. February 28, 1997 remains known in Turkey as the date of “the soft coup” or “the postmodern coup”: on this date, while the military did not seize control of the government, it sent out a brief on the “Islamist threat” with recommendations for how to combat it (Cizre-Sakallıoğlu and Çınar 2003). These measures were meant to secure the modern identity of Turkey. During the two decades that had passed since its reappearance in the public sphere, veiling—and especially the tightly fastened headscarf that “secularists” singled out as a symbol of political Islam—provoked some of the most intense protest movements in republican history. It was also one of the reasons a successful political party, the Islamist Welfare Party (Refah Partisi)—which had won the highest percentage of votes in the 1995 elections—was shut down. This party had turned the “headscarf issue” into one of its top priorities, declaring itself the defender of the right of female students to dress in accordance with their beliefs. This was perceived as threatening the founding principle of secularism and, as a violation of the constitution, served as grounds for the party’s closure (Çınar 2005). The “Islamist headscarf” had thus come to objectify the political and religious divisions at the heart of contemporary Turkey, acting as a key marker of identity for those who wore it, becoming an icon of political Islam, and being despised as a sign of “backwardness.” However, in the subsequent decade, the politicization of the “pinned headscarf” (Kavakçı Islam 2010) lost some of its initial intensity. Since 2002, with the coming to power of the AKP, an Islam-rooted party, and its consecutive reelection with a parliamentary majority, the presence of Islamic dress in the public sphere has begun to experience a quasi-normalization. In 2007, Hayrünnisa Gül, wife of the eleventh president of the Turkish republic, Abdullah Gül, became the first headscarf-wearing “First Lady.” Her headscarf caused political turmoil. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) initiated a campaign asserting the impropriety of having a headscarf-wearing woman as a secular state’s “First Lady.” Despite popular support, the campaign had no direct impact on the situation. Shortly thereafter, in 2008 the AKP caused another firestorm of political

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turmoil when it attempted to lift the bans on wearing headscarves at universities and in public sector employment. The proposed legislation was approved in the parliament, where the AKP had the majority, but the result was overruled by the Constitutional Court. The party was then targeted by a lawsuit on the grounds that it had violated the principle of secularism. In the end, the party avoided closure but was financially penalized. The AKP’s efforts were eventually successful, and the ban was lifted in 2013. The AKP presented this as a step toward democratization and took full credit for allowing individual religiosity to be freely expressed in the public sphere. (I often heard my headscarf-wearing interlocutors declaring their gratitude and unconditional support to the party that allowed them to be equal citizens, after years of being ostracized and mistreated.) In October 2013, for the first time in its republican history, four headscarf-wearing MPs from the ruling AKP began serving in Turkey’s parliament in Ankara. This time, the CHP contented itself with an aloof reaction to their appearance.3 The words of a headscarf-wearing fashion designer are illustrative of the impact that this moment might have had on differently positioned individuals. She celebrated the lifting of the ban and left a message for an imagined secular audience on her Facebook wall: “Fear not: this is not secularism (laiklik) fading away, only Turkey normalising.”4 To the contentment of some people and the discontent of others, Turkey has moved away from an aggressive promotion and protection of secularism in the direction of a post-secular society (Göle 2012; Kandiyoti 2012) and, more recently, a society experiencing an “an Islamist ‘revolution from above’” (Öktem and Akkoyunlu 2016). Religion occupies an ever-expanding place in public life. In the public discourse, efforts are being made to expand beyond the rigid interpretative framework of “secularism versus Islamism” and find new ways to articulate between the religious and the secular. Attempts to find more liberal and inclusive interpretations of secularism can also be observed (Walton 2013). Nevertheless, the tightly wrapped headscarf is periodically shifted to the foreground, deeply stirring people of different persuasions. Sometimes it is cited as a warning of the dangers of Islamization. In 2010, in preparation for the referendum on the AKP government’s proposed constitutional amendments, a photo montage appeared, urging voters to reject these changes. It was posted by an anonymous social media user and went viral on the internet. The first photo in this montage showed a woman wearing the “Islamist headscarf” and was followed by a series of pictures in which her colorful headscarf was 3 In 1999, Merve Kavakçı, the first headscarf-wearing woman who was elected as a MP from the Islamist Virtue Party, tried to attend the opening session of the new Parliament. MPs from other parties protested her presence vehemently. She was thus obliged to leave the Parliament without taking the oath (Göle 2002; Kavakçı Islam 2010). Merve Kavakçı’s younger sister, Ravza Kavakçı is one of the headscarf-wearing MPs who began serving in Turkey’s Parliament in November 2015. 4 I thank Eray Çaylı and Janine Su for helping me with this translation.

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gradually transformed into an all-enveloping black cloak and a face veil. The last slide was a completely black frame, signaling the erasure of identity through total covering. The danger was that the country would become another Iran and women’s veiling would become compulsory. At other times, it is employed to revive an old division. The “Kabataş5 incident” is a case in point. In late May and early June 2013, people from all over Turkey protested the perceived authoritarianism of the governing party and its leader. The “Gezi uprising” had started as a protest against the demolition of Istanbul’s Gezi Park, located in the city’s main square, to make way for a shopping mall. For many Turks, this square is a powerful symbol of the republic. The peaceful protest was answered with disproportionate police violence, in turn motivating tens of thousands of people to take to the streets in various cities across the country (Yıldırım 2013; Navaro-Yashin 2013). Drawing upon well-rehearsed polarizing rhetoric, then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told his supporters that a group of half-naked and leather-gloved male protesters verbally and physically assaulted a young mother and her baby in the vicinity of Istanbul’s Kabataş pier. Erdoğan insisted that the protesters attacked her precisely because she wore a headscarf. He and other members of the AKP claimed that video recordings of this grave incident would be released “soon.” This alleged attack is yet to be confirmed (Oruçoğlu 2015). The “Gezi uprising” has demonstrated that Turkey is no longer simply politically polarized but also bitterly divided between Erdoğan’s supporters and opponents. The “Islamist headscarf” has also been used to signal the development of a new fault line among pious Turks. In December 2013, a corruption scandal involving senior government officials and Erdoğan’s closest associates and members of his family marked a falling out between two former political allies, Erdoğan and the Islamic cleric Fetullah Gülen. Erdoğan claimed that the corruption investigation was a “judicial coup” and vowed revenge on Gülen, whom he considered the mastermind of the investigation. Since then the cleric and the movement he heads have been accused of having established a “parallel structure” within the state and plotting to overthrow the AKP government. A crackdown on news outlets and businesses owned by members of the movement has followed. In their turn, Gülen’s supporters have taken to the streets to protest the crackdown. Amazed journalists and social media users point to the surrealism of viewing scenes of riot police beating and tear-gassing headscarf-wearing women (Scott 2015; Akyol 2016). These images are used to convey the idea that pious (Sunni) Muslims no longer form a homogenous community, if indeed they ever did.6

Kabataş is a major transportation hub on the European shore of the Bosphorus, serving ferry, bus, and tram lines as well as a funicular. 6 This fault line is thicker than ever. The cleric Fetullah Gülen is widely believed to be the initiator of the bloody coup attempt that shocked Turkey in July 2016. 5

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Islamic fashion In the 1990s, the emergence of Islamic fashion shows was met with disbelief and dismay. In the 2010s, the launch of Islamic fashion magazines and the increased circulation of images of fashionably but heavily dressed Muslim women on social media intensified criticism. Religiously conservative and secular observers have disputed the conceptual and ethical possibility of the notion of Islamic fashion. Their lines of reasoning reflect distinct positions and interests, in a case of divergent approaches also yielding similar results. Secular observers7 of Islamic fashion have constructed their arguments based on what they consider to be an irrefutable relationship, namely that between fashion, modernity, and secularity. Crucial for the elaboration of this relationship is not only an understanding of modernity as a secular condition (Yeğenoğlu 1998), but also a conceptualization of modernity as an aesthetic phenomenon (Călinescu 1997, quoted in Wilson 2003: 11) and of fashionable clothes (i.e., clothes in the Western fashions) as modern. For these observers, fashion is a modern phenomenon. In contrast, the presence of religious symbols in the public sphere connotes a lack of modernity. The wearing of Islamic dress in public, no matter how fashionable and stylish these covered garments might be, is not and cannot be a modern practice by definition. Fashion is about change, a never-ending parade of styles; in contrast, Islamic modesty translates into unchangeable material and aesthetic requirements. Fashion is a secular phenomenon that frees the body and celebrates its natural beauty (Fadil (2011) points out that this is the hegemonic secular perspective, according to which veiling amounts to a violation of one’s bodily integrity); in contrast, Islamic dress is a religious injunction to hide the body except the face and the hands. Fashion enables individual expression; in contrast, religious dress reflects conformity to community norms and collective worldviews. Therefore, for them, the existence of Islamic fashion is conceptually (because ideologically) impossible.8 The practice of Islamic fashion elicits conflicting reactions from these secular observers. Some deride it as resulting in outfits that are “uniform,” “dull,” and, at

7

Although developments such as the Islamic fashion shows of the 1990s and the Islamic fashion magazines of the 2010s have been extensively covered in the Turkish news media and the streets were full of fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women, some of my secular acquaintances confessed surprise upon hearing my research topic. They would usually say, “I did not know there was such a thing as Islamic fashion,” “I did not know that veiled women were interested in fashion,” “I did not know there were fashion magazines for veiled women,” or “I am happy for them. It is better than walking around in those black çarşafs.” These comments illustrate the kind of blindness toward the Other that exists in a polarized society. 8 I choose to focus here on comments regarding Islamic fashion and leave aside secular feminist comments on the religious practice of veiling and the submission and oppression of women.

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most, “old-fashioned” in the heavy ways in which they cover the body. Others become anxious, for familiarization with the modern practice of fashion might bring their “others” dangerously close. As Göle (2002: 180–1) writes, “This is a closeness that creates more enmity than sympathy.” Other observers shrug their shoulders, signaling the incomprehensibility of this practice. As a secular acquaintance emphasizes, “We do not really understand these fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women. They are neither pious nor modern. Their community criticizes them so much. I think they don’t understand them either.” Yet others celebrate the aestheticization of Islamic garb as a process of secularization, which empties it of the threatening religious and political connotations. They also see Islamic fashion as a potentially “liberating” practice. The new fashionable styles of veiling, in which the headscarves are smaller and the garments are more form fitting, with shorter hemlines and sleeves, are regarded as the first manifestations of an irreversible process of unveiling. While a struggle over fashion comes to light in these reflections, the harsh commentaries uttered about Islamic fashion by religiously conservative critics reveal a struggle over religious consciousness. In contrast to secular observers, religious people build their arguments on what they consider to be an irrefutable claim, namely that fashion is contrary to Islamic values and principles. In addition, some of the most vocal critics publicly reflect on Islamic fashion from a peculiar position: they are famous “Islamist” intellectuals,9 who have formulated academic and political tools for asserting observant Muslim women’s longsilenced difference. They have argued for veiled women’s right to have “a life of their own” (Göle 1996: 22), entering the public sphere and “sharing with [Islamist] men the same urban, political, and educational territories.” Today they deplore the frivolity of the argument that headscarf-wearing women should have “a style of their own” (see the fifth chapter of this book for further details), and, implicitly, refuse to recognize it as a form of agency. They decry the very decision to step beyond the realm of the ethical into the domain of the sensible. They condemn the very attempt to gratify the senses. These pious critics express what Asad (1986: 15) calls an “orthodox” viewpoint, which has the power to “regulate, uphold, require or adjust correct practice, and to condemn, exclude, undermine or replace incorrect ones.” For these critics, veiling is God-given, and its requirements are immutable; in contrast, fashion is created by people and changes incessantly. Religiosity situates the believer within the realm of other-worldly devotion, eternal values,

In writing this section, I draw on opinion pieces published by Cihan Aktaş, Ümit Meriç, Ayşe Böhürler, Fatma Karabıyık Barbarosoğlu, Emine Şenlikoğlu, and Şule Yüksel Şenler. In addition, I made use of G. Çorbacıoğlu’s unpublished master’s thesis (2008). Feminist discussions on the headscarf problem in Turkey: examination of three women’s journals; Feminist Yaklaşımlar, Kadın Çalişmaları Dergisi, Amargi. Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. 9

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and spiritualism; in contrast, fashion places its follower within the realm of ephemeral trends, shallow preoccupations, and this-worldly orientation. Veiling is a religious duty (farz) required of Muslims; in contrast, fashionable covered garments might be seen as a style of dress (tarz), and this is tantamount to de-sanctifying veiling. Veiling is about dressing in conformity with the Islamic principle of modesty. However, this religiously inspired dress is necessarily austere and subdued. Veiling inserts the practitioner into the broader pattern of Islamic conduct, confirms her virtuous character, and informs her sense of self. In contrast, wearing a fashionable covered dress is “mere consumption,” that is, frivolous self-enhancement and self-decoration. The practice of veiling is emptied of any religious significance, no longer functioning as a sign of spiritual transformation, and is guided by aesthetic preferences and a quest for social distinction. Their wearing does not represent a pursuit of piety, but an interest in style. Veiling is a communally mandated religious obligation. Fashion enables individualism and distancing from the community. As an interlocutor stated, “The content of veiling is emptied. The meaning is lost. This harms the believers (İslamî kesim) very much.” Other critics circulated warnings on social media: “Do not obey fashion and do not taint your modesty and honour”; “Do not sacrifice veiling to fashion”; “The veil is a Muslim woman’s identity. Do not give up on yours”; “Allah preordained you to veil your beauty. Allah did not say you adorn yourself with the veil”; and “The one who adheres to faith (iman) wins, and not the one who invests in image (imaj).” Fashion is unethical in its wastefulness, contradicting the Islamic injunction to avoid waste (israf) of any kind. Consequently, for religiously conservative critics as well, the existence of Islamic fashion is conceptually impossible.10 Moreover, for them, the articulation of fashion and faith is ethically questionable. Fashion is seen as having a corrosive effect: Islamic virtues and values become diluted, distorted, and degenerated; even worse, they might be forgotten and lost. Fashion affects first of all the practitioner of Islamic fashion herself. These critics argue that those who follow fashion cannot truly be religious.11 They find unconvincing the argument that the practitioners of Islamic fashion put forward in their own defense. The practitioners argue that they are religious. They claim that they attach importance to and are aware of the importance of veiling.

10

I choose to focus here on comments regarding Islamic fashion and leave aside Muslim feminist comments on the practice of fashion and objectification and over-sexualization of women. However, I recognize that a comparison between the antifashion discourses of secular feminists and Islamist intellectuals is worth pursuing. As Tarlo and Moors (2013: 24) point out, Islamic “counter-fashion discourses intersect with secular anti-fashion discourses in a variety of ways.” They highlight how Islamic antifashion discourses bear much in common with Marxist, feminist, and ecologist critiques of fashion. 11 Other studies present similar criticism pointed toward the fashionably yet heavily dressed Muslim women as well (Al-Qasimi 2010; Tarlo and Moors 2013; Abbas 2015).

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Nevertheless, they are not—and cannot be—fully committed to performing this religious duty in the expected form. They refer to the degree and type of covering through which consciously chosen veiling is said to have been materialized and which they do not thoroughly respect (e.g., they do not tightly wrap their headscarves so that they completely cover the head, the neck, and the ears; they do not wear loose-fitting outerwear). They invoke their youth and desirous selves (nefis)12 to explain this limitation in their conduct. However, for critics, this line of reasoning simply proves that these fashionably dressed women do not live Islam “consciously.” The leading figures of the Islamic revivalist movement once argued that consciously chosen veiling was an emancipatory act that resulted in the transformation of a Muslim woman’s identity (Göle 1996). Today the same intellectuals argue that Islamic fashion threatens this identity. These fashionably dressed Muslims neither possess adequate knowledge nor assume responsibility for their acts. Instead, they are “slaves of fashion” or “victims of fashion.” They succumb to the capitalist temptation of constantly replenishing their wardrobes and their identities to be in harmony with the changes of the fashion system. They busy themselves with aesthetic concerns, disregarding religious injunctions, and evading ethical considerations. They are so immersed in projects of selfenhancement and so preoccupied with sharing their outfits and outings on social media that they no longer pay attention to the world around them. Worse, they no longer see the suffering of others, whom true compassionate believers would try to alleviate. An interlocutor concluded her discussion about yet another Islamic fashion show with the following warning: “The situation is critical: we are sinking.” This critic warned that the fashionable styles of veiling—if they can still be considered veiling—cause social chaos. These clothes no longer fulfil their moral function, that is, they no longer hide a woman’s charms and, consequently, tempt men. Another critical interlocutor linked the promotion of fashionable covered dress to the previous attempt to impose türban, that is, a type of head cover that did not respect the religious requirement to completely cover the hair, neck, and ears. (See the previous section of this chapter.) She posted on her Facebook wall the following message: “Fashion increases the number of türbans and weakens the Islamic veiling (Islami tesettür). The real problem starts now.” In response to an invitation to a fashion show for the “conservative fashionistas” (muhafazakâr kesimin moda tutkunları), a critic tweeted: “Conservative women, who salute the summer at Cemile Sultan Summer Palace, may Syrian children guard your

12 The notion of nefis comes from the Arabic n-f-s and means breath, the self, or the soul. It designates the lower self, which is constantly prone to the temptations of evil. (This notion will be further discussed in the seventh chapter of this book.)

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dreams each night.”13 She elaborated on this tweet in a newspaper article, criticizing the organizers of and participants in this fashion show for their frivolity and irresponsibility. These critics have long denounced the trend toward conspicuous consumption in general, fashionable covered garments being just one iteration component of what they view as a non-pious lifestyle. In the words of a teacher from an Islamic high school with whom I talked, “This culture of spending has reached us as well. Since the 2000s, our Muslims have begun to occupy better social positions and to have more money. They consume fashion and fashion consumes them as well.” He called them “Green Turks.”14 (In contrast, the urban secular upper classes from western Turkey are often called “White Turks.”) He pointed out that this elite group was actually small, but its spectacular lifestyles brought them into the limelight. He clarified that although they might indeed perform their duties toward people of lesser means, it was still debatable if their conspicuous consumption was Islamically appropriate. Furthermore, for these critics, to bring veiling into the fashion system also means to assume no responsibility for the consequences of the act, which might range from corrupting women who are less knowledgeable about veiling and Islam, to playing the game of the capitalist system, which is always in search of untapped markets and tries to satisfy at any cost its need for perpetual expansion. To declare that you are a religious person, but to work in fashion as designer, producer, and promoter of fashionable covered garments is tantamount to disregarding the meaning of veiling or admitting ignorance and, even worse, indifference. In the eyes of these pious critics, fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women exhibit an exaggerated preoccupation with self-enhancement and digital self-promotion. These critics discuss the impropriety of the headscarved cover girls that the Islamic fashion magazines—especially the first launched magazine, Âlâ—promote. Although these commentators are aware that its models are foreign and non-Muslim, they point out that the cover girls not only attract attention, but also stare back at observers in a way that it is unusual in a Muslim context.15 These practices are inappropriate for observant Muslim women and exert a nefarious influence. The debate about Islamic fashion itself is disturbing. Its critics remark bitterly that discussions about Islam and the notion and practice of veiling, and debates about headscarf-wearing women’s right to education and employment have largely been replaced by more frivolous debates over Islamic fashion and

13

The Turkish version of this is, “Cemile Sultan’da yaza merhaba diyecek olan muhafazakâr kadınlar! Her gece rüyanızı Suriyeli çocuklar beklesin!” I thank Eray Çaylı for his help with the translation. 14 Here green refers to the color of Islam rather than ecology. 15 See Sehlikoğlu (2015), for discussion of this Islamic fashion magazine and an analysis of the dynamics of covering the body and, simultaneously, exposing it to the public gaze in a Muslim culture.

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headscarf-wearing women’s consumer rights. As one Islamic scholar tweeted, “We won the headscarf battle, but we lost veiling” (Başörtüsü mücadelesini kazandık ama tesettürü kaybettik). They lament this change, considering fashion to be the domain par excellence of vanity rather than virtue. Divergent opinions about the notion and practice of Islamic fashion notwithstanding, secular observers and religious critics agree that a veiling that consists of colorful and highly fashionable garments and headscarves defeats its own purpose. The seculars, more than the religious critics, use in their critical commentaries a neologism that encapsulates this criticism: süslüman, a portmanteau of süslü, that is, “adorned,” “embellished,” or “dressed up,” and müslüman, that is, “Muslim.” It is a pejorative term used on social media and in mass media as commentary about fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women.16 The term might be elaborated on as follows, “A person who follows a new faith: süslümanlık. She gets in her Jeep without worrying whether she pollutes the air in the city, she pays thousands of liras for a piece of cloth just because it is deemed fashionable and she says that she lives her faith through them . . . interesting indeed.”17 Or, to give another example: “If you invest more than the average salary in your wife’s headscarf just because it is branded, then you are a süslüman.” And, to give a last example: “For this group, the headscarf is just an accessory. Those for whom veiling is a fundamental religious duty are very disturbed by this group. Contrary to the perspective that is widespread in this dictionary, religious conservatives (kapalılar) are not a homogenous group.”18 The term has ethical connotations and is used to point out the contradiction between conduct and consumption practices and, on the other hand, the modesty that is expected from a self-proclaimed pious person. Religiously conservative critics, more than secular observers, circulate warnings such as “Veiling means ‘do not look at me’; it does not mean ‘do not pass by without noticing me’.” For all these critics, Islamic dress effaces the wearer and limits her appeal; in contrast, fashionable Islamic dress confers upon her a heightened visibility. Islamic dress shields a woman’s body from the predatory male gaze and declares her a forbidden woman; in contrast, fashionable Islamic dress might attract the male gaze. Therefore, on a more general level, all these critics share a conviction that Islamic fashion is an oxymoron.

16

The term can also be used to refer to observant Muslim men who indulge in conspicuous consumption. To my knowledge, a non-headscarf-wearing journalist, Nilay Örnek, first used this word in 2013 in her piece in Akşam newspaper. Örnek (2013) “Kim Bu Süslümanlar.” http://www.aksam.com.tr/yazarlar/ kim-bu-suslumanlar-sorusuyla-basladi-her-sey/haber-207168 (accessed April 14, 2016). 17 This definition appears in a popular urban dictionary https://www.uludagsozluk.com/k/ s%C3%BCsl%C3%BCman/ (accessed April 23, 2016). 18 This definition appears in another popular urban dictionary https://eksisozluk.com/susluman-2230717 (accessed April 23, 2016).

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A business meeting To illustrate the impact of these debates and the increase of business opportunities in Islamic fashion in the current social and political context, the chapter ends with an ethnographic vignette that describes a meeting between the uncovered fashion designer of a small clothing company and the covered advertising sales representative of an Islamic fashion magazine. The meeting took place on the premises of the company in June 2014. I attended the meeting as the friend of the advertising sales representative, being introduced as a foreign researcher who writes about “conservative clothing” (muhafazakâr giyim). Elif meets us in the entry hall and then leads us to her office. While we are waiting for the tea, she shows us a few samples of her work and demonstrates how the various pieces could be combined to create distinct outfits. Sibel congratulates her for thinking of thrifty women like her and creating versatile garments. Elif emphasizes that her creations represent, in her words, “modern Islamically appropriate clothing” (modern tesettür). The secretary interrupts the conversation, serving us the tea and updating Elif about the day’s fabric deliveries. Sibel thanks Elif for squeezing this meeting into her busy schedule. She also thanks her for allowing us to see her office. A fashion designer’s office has always been a fascinating place for her, the very place where fashion is made. The designer smiles softly. Once the pleasantries are exchanged, Sibel switches to her well-rehearsed sales speech and presents her magazine as the right venue to reach a readership potentially interested in this company’s new products. The designer nods her head, apparently in agreement. However, when the speech is over, she announces that she does not intend to buy advertising space in the magazine anytime soon. She was employed by this company just two months ago and has only recently begun to work on the Autumn/Winter 2014 collection. Consequently, there is nothing to advertise at the moment. Sibel makes another pitch for her magazine and suggests that they can organize the launch of her first collection. Looking pensively at the clothes on the rack, the designer does not comment on this proposal. We drink our tea in silence. Sibel wonders aloud whether or not the entire production process is carried out at this facility. She seems to be asking the first thing that comes to mind just to keep the conversation flowing. Elif replies that the only thing they do here is cut the fabrics, the rest of the work being subcontracted to a network of trusted workshops. Sibel also wants to know if the designer has any catalogues featuring the company’s summer products. A shadow passes over the designer’s face as she reveals that her first attempt to produce a catalogue had been unsuccessful. Sibel rushes to advise her to work with a stylist; she also offers to put her in contact with the best stylist in the

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sector, who is not only very good at her job, but also has thousands of headscarfwearing women as followers on social media. She can thus help Elif’s company reach a wider audience. The designer replies coldly that she does not need a stylist. She herself can do an excellent job. In this case the challenge lies in finding good makeup artists and photographers. Sibel again seems unsure about what to say next. She enthuses once more about the design and craftsmanship of the garments Elif has shown to us. She then offers that the last collection of, in her words, a well-known “conservative clothing brand” (muhafazakâr giyim marka) had greatly disappointed her with its obvious disregard for quality in fabrics and seams. The designer notes without surprise that quality clothes for, in her words, “covered ladies” (kapalı kadınlar) are yet to be produced in Turkey, this brand being just one among many manufacturers of low quality, unfashionable covered garments. Sibel sighs, nodding her head in agreement. The secretary pops in again and invites us all to lunch. We follow her to the top floor, where the company’s small canteen is located. While we are waiting for the food, Sibel realizes that this is a good opportunity to do a bit of publicity for her magazine. She offers all women who are present a copy of the most recent issue of the magazine. None of these women is covered. She approaches them with the same introductory line, “Please have a look. Maybe you’ll find something interesting for you. Maybe you have covered friends (kapalı).” Upon emptying her carrier bag, she returns to the table. She confesses that a thought has struck her that very morning: she, who hardly ever bought a fashion magazine, had ended up working in the fashion media. Elif laughs, “This is something that we have in common. I don’t buy fashion magazines either. And I prefer to dress for comfort.” Her clothes confirm this claim: she is wearing an outfit of crumpled, pale blue linen clothes and canvas shoes. In contrast, the advertising sales representative is dressed smartly, in a long beige tunic, a black vest, black trousers, and black patent leather flats. An emerald green shawl completely covers her head, ears, and neck. Upon hearing this remark, Sibel looks somewhat confused at first, but then smiles back at the designer. While we are eating, the designer begins to recount her experience in “the Islamically appropriate clothing sector” (tesettür sektörü). She studied business management, did an internship at a renowned Turkish fashion brand and later became the manager of one of its shops. She took an opportunity to advance her career and joined a well-known clothing company. Run by a family of observant Sunni Muslims, the company specialized in men’s garments but their stores also stocked women’s clothing. It was Elif’s responsibility to buy these products from the local industry. This proved challenging. She had often discussed her frustration at not being able to find quality stylish clothes for headscarf-wearing women with the owner’s wife. As a headscarf-wearing woman herself, the wife was well aware that such garments were hard to find, and encouraged Elif to take a course in fashion design. Not long after she finished the course, the company

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began producing women’s clothing as well, and Elif was given extra duties. After several years of working both as both sales manager and designer for this company, misunderstandings with the second-generation owners left her no other option but to search for a new job. She landed a job at another well-known “Islamically appropriate clothing brand” (tesettür markası), but her enthusiasm was short-lived. She ended up quitting this job, profoundly disappointed in the company’s approach. Her design ideas were often disregarded as “too modern.” She was often told that, as a non-covered woman (açık), she could not possibly understand the needs of veiled women (tesettürlü). For a while, Sibel just listens. Then she rediscovers her chatty nature and starts interrupting the designer to voice her own opinions and plans. Elif continues to recount her past trajectory and current plans, rarely giving a verbal response to these interruptions. Sibel confirms that the clothing company Elif left is widely criticized for its disregard for quality and fashion trends. Elif emphasizes that her collaboration with two other established clothing companies has enabled her to accumulate valuable experience and understand the opportunities offered in this sector. She declares that now she feels ready to run her own business. Sibel utters, “God willing” (İnşallah), an expression that transmits the pious speaker’s wish for a future event to happen. She adds that she herself thinks about opening her own advertising business. She has accumulated experience and understands how the market for religious people will continue to develop. However, she lacks the money for a start-up and worries that by the time she has the funds the sector will be overcrowded and, consequently, less profitable. Elif listens to her politely, but does not comment. When Sibel finishes sharing her plans and concerns, Elif responds by continuing her own narrative, explaining that she postponed her own plan to open a fashion boutique for headscarf-wearing women because of the current political instability. She speaks about the corruption scandal19 that had engulfed the governing party, and the subsequent split among observant Muslims into supporters and opponents of the AKP. Consequently, she finds it hard to predict the results of the 2015 general election20 and the direction the country is heading more generally. She further comments that the growth of this sector is linked to the AKP government and the political and economic power that religious people now have, so she wonders how the coming to power of a

19

On December 17, 2013 a corruption scandal involving key members of the ruling AKP rocked Turkey. Then-prime minister Erdoğan claimed that the corruption investigation was a “judicial coup” and vowed revenge on his former ally, the Islamic cleric Fetullah Gülen, whom he considered the mastermind behind the investigation. 20 Two general elections were held in Turkey in 2015. The first was held on June 7. Because no single party gained an absolute majority of seats in the parliament and no coalition was formed, a snap election was held on November 1. The AKP regained its absolute majority in this second election. In this meeting, which took place in June 2014, the two women refer to the forthcoming June 2015 general election.

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different party would affect it. Sibel informs her coolly that other secular Turks have similar doubts over whether to continue working in this sector, and that their final decision depends on whether the current governing party remains in power. She personally has no doubts that the AKP will win the 2015 general election. Again Elif does not reply, but goes on to explain that with this instability in mind she accepted her current company’s offer and signed a one-year contract. Professionally, it has proved to be a good choice. Unlike many of her previous jobs, at this company she occupies a central position in the organizational structure and the company owner appreciates her aesthetic and managerial suggestions. Her goal is to transform this company from “a manufacturer of fulllength garments (uzun kıyafetler) into a producer with a design line of its own.” In the meantime, as the canteen has become overcrowded, the designer invites us to a meeting room. The tension somewhat dissipates as we walk toward this room. Sibel takes the initiative and declares that she is utterly impressed. She did not expect to meet in a small company—especially a company that has only recently entered “the conservative clothing sector” (muhafazakâr giyim sektörü)—someone with enough experience to have witnessed the growth of this sector and collaborated with some of its biggest producers. Soon, the two women are engaged in a thorough analysis of the sector, discussing the merits of various established companies with respect to fabric, design, fit, and garment construction, and sharing information about its overall development. However, it becomes evident that they hold different ideas about one recent development. Elif begins to speak about the appearance of headscarf-wearing fashion designers: “They are so many.” Sibel interrupts her: “Isn’t it wonderful? Our girls are becoming fashion designers.” Elif ignores her burst of enthusiasm and finishes, “but most of them have no design skills.” Sibel’s smile disappears. Elif briefly pauses for thought and then adds, “that over-priced full-length skirt made of tulle layered over simple fabric. You know which skirt I am referring to, don’t you? It sold so well. Incredible!” In a serious tone, Sibel concurs. Elif goes on: “All these girls confidently call themselves fashion designers. It must be their popularity of social media that matters!” Sibel contents herself with dispassionately repeating an idea upon which they have already agreed, namely that there is still work to be done and business opportunities to be taken advantage of in this sector. To enliven the conversation, Elif enquires about the advertising sales representative’s work experience. It is her turn to be surprised. Sibel first did administrative work for a company. After she gave birth to her son, she stayed at home for a while. This was also the time when she decided to take up the veil. As an aside, she pointed out that she was covered (kapalı), not veiled (tesettürlü), for she did not wear the loose overcoats that veiled women donned. Over the past three years, she has worked for the most popular Islamic fashion magazines, right immediately after the first magazine was launched. This

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position has enabled her to meet many of the key participants in this sector and befriend headscarf-wearing designers and stylists. Being the only headscarfwearing advertising sales representative in the sector has never been easy, but she learned to ignore the less professional attitudes and carry out her work in a manner that suits her religious convictions. She hastens to add that many secular and religious people alike share the prejudice that a headscarf-wearing woman’s place is at home. While she recounts her experience, with its good and less good parts, Elif listens sympathetically, nodding her head from time to time. She then relates her own experience. Being the first non-headscarf-wearing woman in “the Islamically appropriate clothing sector” (tesettür sektörü) has not been easy for her either. She grew up in a “conservative family” (muhafazakâr bir aile), but not one in which the women of the family covered their heads or wore heavy garments. Over time, she has also learned to put up with her pious coworkers’ disapproving comments regarding her sartorial choices. The secretary pops in again and reminds the designer that she must phone a fabric manufacturer. Elif leaves the room. A few full-length and long sleeved dresses and many paper patterns hang on the walls of this meeting room. Sibel looks at them, unimpressed. After a while, she notes, “These are crude copies of popular models.” She pauses and then adds, “I am sure this man used to manufacture garments for the Russian market. Now he switched to garments for headscarf-wearing women, for this is a more profitable market. Many do this.” Upon Elif’s return, freshly brewed tea is served to us. The conversation stops for a while. We busy ourselves with our smartphones, empty our glasses of tea, and smile at each other from time to time. Then Elif enquires about the price of a page of advertising in the fashion magazine Sibel works for. Sibel informs her that a page costs 2000 TRY (approx. £540), inclusive of VAT. The designer also wants to know how many copies of the magazine were sold during the last month. The advertising sales representative confesses her ignorance. However, she thinks that the actual readership is always larger than the number of sold copies. At home, fashion magazines are usually kept on the coffee table and, consequently, any guest can leaf through them. In offices, waiting rooms, and beauty salons, they are constantly at customers’ disposal. Elif purses her lips, apparently unimpressed. She further asks which companies are placing advertisements in this fashion magazine. Sibel assures her that “everyone who works for the conservative segment (muhafazakâr kesim) is here.” She points out that, unlike their competitors, they use their advertisers’ products in the fashion pages, and thus promote local producers instead of foreign brands. This being clarified the designer moves quickly to another issue on her agenda and asks for Sibel’s advice on the most appropriate location to establish a fashion boutique for headscarf-wearing women. Her plan is to open a boutique and sell the clothes that she designs. Sibel names her own neighborhood as an appropriate place, for it is quickly turning into an attractive residential area for

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pious people. She also mentions the name of a recently opened boutique and assures her interlocutor that its fame is quickly spreading among headscarfwearing women in her neighborhood. She insists that in spite of the high prices, the boutique is always crammed full with customers. She for one thinks carefully whether a blouse is really worth 700 TRY (approx. £ 190), but many other women just buy it. Elif asks what the average price of a flat is and what the rent might be for a boutique in this neighborhood. Sibel replies dutifully to all these questions. Elif writes down the figures in her notebook while elaborating on her plan. She points out that a fashion boutique for headscarf-wearing women is a profitable business at the moment, provided that its location is appropriate, both in terms of having a small number of competitors and being near a significant number of observant Muslims. She excludes neighborhoods such as Erenköy and Florya, where there are already many fashion boutiques for headscarf-wearing women. Sibel finds her concerns to be legitimate, noting that a few fashion boutiques for headscarf-wearing women had even opened in central areas of Istanbul, such as Nişantaşı and Bağdat Caddesi. However, as far as she understood, these are not profitable businesses. Elif replies that a boutique needs a local clientele. She for one would not count on the recent trend of headscarf-wearing women hanging around in these historically posh-but-secular areas of Istanbul. Sibel looks rather displeased with this last comment, so Elif quickly changes the topic. She remembers that she has been meaning to ask since Sibel arrived where she had bought her beautiful leather shopper bag. She is also curious to know what the Arabic writing on its pocket means. Sibel satisfies her curiosity. She also tells us she recently participated in a charity event that her magazine organized. The wives of many high-ranking politicians from the ruling party had attended this event, dressed up in designer clothes and with branded purses. However, it was her finely crafted bag that had been admired most. To her surprise, Elif reacts negatively to this ostentatious display, emphasizing that it is totally inappropriate for a pious person to show off her wealth. Sibel cannot agree more. She recounts that she has recently read an old piece by an intellectual who is well respected by observant Muslims. She could not help noticing the truth of her remarks. This headscarf-wearing woman invites the Islamic bourgeoisie to an experience of consumerism within the limits of Islamic principles. Elif declares that these are not really Muslims, but süslüman.21 Sibel refrains from commenting. With this, the meeting approaches an end. We thank our host for the treats and the chat. The designer assures Sibel that she would hear from her again. On our way out, I ask Sibel, whom I have never heard using this term, what the designer might have meant by “modern Islamically appropriate clothing” (modern tesettür). She assumes that Elif used the phrase to emphasize the 21

This is a new word, formed from the juxtaposition of süslü, that is, adorned, embellished or dressed up, and müslüman, that is, Muslim. See the second chapter for a more elaborate explanation.

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stylistic difference between these garments and the combination of overcoat and headscarf of the 1980s. A secular person would have considered this form in particular and veiling in general as something non-modern. Sibel also points out that as a secular person the designer is not aware that headscarf-wearing women would rather label these garments “conservative clothing” (muhafazakâr giyim) and not “Islamically appropriate clothing” (tesettür giyim). In the elevator, upon consulting my wristwatch, I am amazed to discover that we have spent almost four hours in this building. Sibel smiles, “It was a good meeting, wasn’t it? I am sure I will hear from her soon.” She did indeed, a few weeks later. The rather unusual professional trajectories of the protagonists aside, this meeting was ordinary in every other aspect, illustrating the sort of encounters that take place in an economic sector whose object is differently conceptualized and in which persons with divergent religious practices and political views activate and, more importantly, illuminating how economic collaboration unfolds in spite of these divergences.

The historical and discursive context To conclude, this chapter has focused on the intertwined debates about Islamic dress and its non-modernity, the “Islamist headscarf” and its disruptive potential, and Islamic fashion and its oxymoronic character. These debates influence the manufacture and mediation of clothes for headscarf-wearing women. The next chapters will demonstrate that actors who engage in these activities promote the aesthetic desirability of commodities, but exercise caution in discussing the religious appropriateness of these clothes and their textual and visual representations and, furthermore, in endorsing the ethical credibility and religious identity of individuals and enterprises. These actors innovate at the aesthetic level, in accordance or not with distinct religious interpretations of veiling. They accept or refuse to be held ethically accountable for controversial dress styles that they and/or their retailers market as religiously appropriate. They reveal or hide their personal concerns that aesthetic preoccupations override religious convictions and ethical considerations. They declare or conceal their personal opposition to the public presence of religious dress. They stress or downplay their personal religious beliefs, ethical perspectives, and ideological considerations. They unequivocally reject or explicitly proclaim the compatibility of fashion and Islam while tacitly practicing Islamic fashion and striving to run a business in this sector. In sum, these interrelated debates—which have become more important than ever with the increased polarization of this society under the ruling of the AKP—form the background against which entrepreneurship in Islamic fashion unfolds and against which the main protagonists of this book, namely headscarfwearing fashion professionals, operate in contemporary Turkey.

3 A SECTOR WITH FLEXIBLE BOUNDARIES For many decades, observant Muslim women sewed their own garments or had them custom-made in specialized workshops. Nowadays they can also purchase ready-made clothes and have their garments custom-made by fashion designers. In addition, they can read Islamic fashion magazines and follow fashion designers, stylists, editors, and bloggers on social media. This chapter focuses on the appearance and growth of an economic sector whose object is clothing for headscarf-wearing women. It discusses the most significant developments, from the aestheticization of garments and their changing conceptualization to the presentation of a particular category of newcomers, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, and of the newest types of businesses in the sector. In addition, it narrates these developments in relation to the social, economic, and political changes that Turkey has undergone since the 1980s and, more importantly, since 2002, when the AKP came to power. It demonstrates that the very existence of this sector is open to negotiation; actors and observers shift or erase its boundaries in accordance with their agendas and worldviews, in relation to the societal debates about Islamic dress, the Islamist headscarf and Islamic fashion, and in response to the current political life that is dominated by an Islam-rooted party.

Beginnings In this society, wherein elites embarked on an ambitious project of “voluntary modernisation” (Göle 2002), large sections of the population continued to live in accordance with Islamic principles and teachings (Mardin 1972; Tapper 1991). Consequently, Islamically appropriate garments remained in demand. However, their manufacture was carried out on a small scale, at home and in specialized workshops. Since the 1980s, with the success of an Islamic revivalist movement among people of different backgrounds (White 2002, 2005), the demand for

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such garments has increased. This chronology reflects this book’s interest in contextualizing the mass production of Islamic dress, and it is not an attempt to present the 1980s as the period when a process of Islamization of Turkey has begun (for this discussion, see Ahmad (1993) and Kandiyoti (2012)). Proponents of the revivalist movement proposed a combination of an oversized headscarf (başörtü) and a tailored overcoat (pardesü) as the “proper” materialization of veiling (tesettür). The headscarf had to be tightly pinned under the chin, had to completely cover the hair, forehead, ears, and neck, and had to extend down the shoulders and cover the bosom. The overcoat had to be loose fitting and full-length, in order to hide the contours of the female body. To a certain extent, this form of veiling was not completely new, both of its main components having been used for many decades. In the 1920s and 1930s, the anti-veiling campaigns targeted face veils (peçe) and all-enveloping cloaks (çars¸ af), but did not attempt to legislate against various forms of headscarves (Adak 2014). In this period, women were also encouraged to restyle their outdoor garments and adopt tailored overcoats from Western fashion (Altınay 2013a; Ünal 2013).1 The length and the cut of the overcoat, the size and fastening style of the headscarf, and the combination of the two items of dress represented the stylistic innovation. In this way, a distinctive form of veiling entered the public sphere and became emblematic of the revivalist movement. In response, clothing companies began to mass-manufacture Islamically appropriate garments. They produced items that were necessary for the assemblage of this form of veiling, such as headscarves, full-length loosefitting overcoats, long-sleeved blouses, full-length skirts, and dresses. Their brand names connoted either religion or fashion, an early manifestation of what some critics would later describe as the oxymoronic nature of Islamic fashion, and others would interpret as its un-Islamic character. Some manufacturers included at least one foreign word—typically English—in their brand names (e.g., the Hilye Collection, High Generation, and The Fashion of Woman to 2000 Years (sic)) (Kılıçbay and Binark 2002). This choice reflected a tendency to consider fashion as a Western practice. In contrast, other clothing companies carried brand names that had religious connotations (e.g., Tekbir (God is great), Tevhid (which refers to unity under one God) or Hak (one of the names of God) (Navaro-Yashin 2002). Statistical data indicate that many companies specializing in these types of products were established from the mid-1980s onward (Gökarıksel and Secor 2009, 2010b). In addition, ethnographic data gathered in the early 1990s demonstrate that many entrepreneurs began to recognize the increasing demand for such clothes and oriented their businesses accordingly (Navaro-Yashin 2002). 1

See Baydar and Çiçekog˘lu (1998) Cumhuriyetin Aile Albümleri (Family Albums of the Republic) for an illustration of the new clothes and head covers that were adopted after the establishment of the Turkish republic.

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Over time, the number of companies mass-manufacturing such garments has significantly increased. This growth has been paralleled by the formulation of new aesthetics and changes in how such garments have been conceptualized. In addition, the perceived profitability of this sector has attracted more entrepreneurs and led to the appearance of new types of businesses, such as designer ateliers, fashion boutiques, and e-commerce companies.

Developments: Clothes and their aestheticization In its early days, egalitarianism and anti-consumerism were key principles of the Islamic revivalist movement. These principles were aptly materialized in the uniform style and plain colors of the garments donned by adherents. However, “in the mid-1990s,” Navaro-Yashin (2002: 83) writes, “the colours in fashion among headscarf-wearing students were light pink, lavender, all shades of purple, pastel blue, green, yellow and gray.” In other words, a process of aestheticization had begun sometime after the adoption of this form of veiling. Various studies link this process of aestheticization either to the appearance of an Islamic bourgeoisie and its quest for distinction and the materialization through clothing of class-based hierarchies among pious women (Göle 1996; White 1999; Navaro-Yashin 2002) or to the predatory nature of the capitalist economy, which co-opts veiling and increases clothing options in its quest for profit (Sandıkçı and Ger 2007; Gökarıksel and Secor 2009, 2010a,b). In contrast, this study puts more emphasis on the interaction between production and consumption. In addition, it complements the discussion of who demanded this aestheticization and why through the presentation of a more generalized “need for aesthetic self-promotion” (Barthes 2013: 107) among headscarf-wearing women of different backgrounds. It also prepares the ground for discussing the appearance of headscarf-wearing fashion professionals in the next chapters of this book through a focus on discontentment with the process of aestheticization. It has been noted in a Veblenian manner2 that well-off headscarf-wearing women demand fashionable garments that indicate their status (Göle 2000; Navaro-Yashin 2002; Saktanber 2002a). For some of the observers, these are rather flamboyant styles. White (1999) has labeled these clothes as “Islamic chic.” The formation of a religiously conservative elite is related to the Turkish economy’s program of liberalization. After the 1980 coup d’état, in a bid to liberalize the economy, the government offered tax incentives to small-scale entrepreneurs 2

Veblen (1994 [1899]) argues that the upper classes invent fashion to distinguish themselves from those below.

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who engaged in export activities (Bug˘ra 1998). Entrepreneurs of religiously conservative backgrounds, especially those who hailed from small Anatolian towns, benefitted from these incentives as well (Yavuz 2003). They strengthened their position in the market, formed new business associations, and began to compete with the established secular elite in almost all economic sectors. At the same time, they emphasized their religiousness through practices such as Islamic banking (Adas¸ 2006). The growing economic power of these entrepreneurs enabled the cultivation of a pious upper class. Eager to demonstrate its status and distinguish itself both from the secular elite and other differently classed observant Muslims, this new elite began to indulge itself in conspicuous consumption. Hotels and summer resorts, fitness and beauty centers, and popular culture and entertainment products appeared in response to its rising demands. More importantly for the current discussion, fashionable clothing played a constitutive role in the materialization of distinction. Producers tried both to satisfy the demands and stimulate the desires of these moneyed customers. However, my ethnography demonstrates that not only the Islamic bourgeoisie but also women of lesser means demand fashionable, stylish, yet religiously appropriate clothes. This demand feeds into the process of aestheticization and results in a range of clothing for customers of different financial means. My headscarf-wearing interlocutors noted their increased participation in social and professional life. They emphasized that the fashionability of their garments was important less as a marker of class distinction and more as a marker of modernity, distinct from secular modernity, and as a marker of integration into a public sphere inhabited by both secular and religious people. Fashion is about “pure contemporaneity.” As such, it renders those who do not wear fashionable clothes “out of date” and “parochial” (Faurschou 1990, quoted in Comaroff 1996). In addition, to be in fashion signals the desire and ability to integrate within a certain milieu. In this case, such integration involves negotiating between an individual sense of style, the claims of the fashion system, and distinct understandings of what counts as Islamically appropriate conduct. Moreover, in this case, fashionable garments reduce the cultural gap that purportedly exists between secular and religious people (e.g., the claim that the veil represents “backwardness,” or the claim that the only thing distinguishing an observant Muslim woman from a secular person in sartorial terms is the headscarf). This ethnography also brings to the foreground discontentment with this process of aestheticization. My interlocutors noted the gap between what producers defined as being in fashion and what consumers considered to be fashionable. Theoretically, such a gap always exists (Woodward 2009). However, in this case, the existence of this gap was explained with reference to the low status of headscarf-wearing women in Turkish society. My young interlocutors pointed out that headscarf-wearing women were not properly addressed as consumers. Producers tended to focus on Islamically

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appropriate outerwear (tesettür dıs¸ giyim), that is, overcoats and headscarves, but manufactured a limited range of blouses, skirts, and dresses of appropriate thickness, length, and cut. Purchasing clothing was a time-consuming activity that often involved undertaking alterations at home or in specialized workshops in order to adjust newly purchased clothes to religiously motivated needs. It also necessitated the layering of garments. Somewhat paradoxically, upperscale clothing manufacturers that catered to a secular clientele also offered garments of appropriate length and cut, but these were out of reach for many headscarf-wearing women. They claimed that headscarf-wearing women were also considered less discerning consumers. They mentioned the low quality of mass-produced garments. For example, these garments tended to be made entirely of synthetics or blends in which man-made fibers predominated. They also tended to have an unpleasant feel, the most mentioned descriptors in these commentaries being “stiff,” “heavy,” “stretchy,” “thin,” and “itchy.” In addition, flaws in construction and stitching were easy to detect. They also pointed out that many conservative clothing companies did not employ fashion designers and this was reflected in the outdated look of their products. The garments that these companies manufactured were less suitable for fashion-conscious young women, who studied or worked and had active social lives. A popular veiled blogger (tesettürlü) recounted how she brought this issue up in meetings with representatives of these companies. The meetings were organized by an online retailer, which specialized in selling garments for headscarf-wearing women. It was common knowledge that young headscarfwearing women avoided the products of these manufacturers. They made their own clothes, shopped from designers’ boutiques and, more commonly, layered and altered the mainstream clothing industry’s products. In an attempt to boost their interest in the products of these conservative clothing companies, this online retailer decided to mediate a dialogue between the two sides and began to organize meetings between manufacturers and popular headscarf-wearing bloggers. On each occasion, this blogger asked why the manufacturers did not employ fashion designers. In her words, “I openly told them that they worked for elderly ladies (teyzeler), who knew little about the latest fashion trends.” This blogger attended all the meetings in the hope that manufacturers would finally understand that they had to, in her words, “modernise” and produce fashionable products at affordable prices. These young women deplored the preference for over-ornamentation as well. In the words of a headscarf-wearing fashion journalist, “Our producers (i.e.,  producers of religiously conservative background and/or producers of covered garments) are fond of crowdedness. They come up with a design, then they suffocate it with frills, oversized roses, chains, belts, ribbons, buckles, zippers, buttons et cetera.” For them, this preference, especially at a time when minimalism seemed to be a key design trend, reflected not only lack of

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professionalism, but also a patriarchal way of imagining the headscarf-wearing woman’s look. A veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü)—the daughter of the founder of a well-known company that manufactured “Islamically appropriate garments” (tesettür giyim)—stated that the most difficult part about her job was the “rigid opinion” about what a headscarf-wearing woman should wear. As a university-educated young woman, she empathized with other young headscarf-wearing women and understood well what they wanted to wear. However, it was her father and the other men on the board who ultimately decided which models the company manufactured. She emphasized that this was not a unique situation, men running most of the established companies that manufactured Islamically appropriate garments. Her father liked frills, ribbons, and flowers, for they materialized the kind of delicate femininity that he had in mind. She elaborated on this idea referencing the Islamic understanding that a woman needed to be protected by and from men (himaye). Her father also firmly believed that women preferred to buy sets of clothes and costumey outfits.3 Consequently, only some of her design ideas were accepted. This was, nevertheless, a success. When she started working for her father’s company, three years prior to our conversation, her designs had been quickly dismissed as “too simple.” These young headscarf-wearing women—and other women whose reflections I read in media and social media—thought that many manufacturers imagined their consumers were housewives (ev kadınlar) and elderly women (teyzeler), that is, women presumed not to be interested in the latest fashion trends. They claimed that the gap between what the producers defined as being in fashion and what the consumers considered to be fashionable should be understood with reference to the low status of headscarf-wearing woman. For secular producers, her veiling could only indicate “backwardness.” For these religious men, her veiling could only indicate modesty and demureness. There was no place for an interest in fashion in either projection. Drawing upon their own experience and the stories of their mothers and female relatives, my interlocutors reported that they felt producers’ general attitude had long been that “anything goes” for headscarf-wearing women. However, they also pointed out that the manufacturers had recently begun to develop more appealing aesthetics.4 The lack of interest in their products had

3

To illustrate what she meant, she likened these costumey clothing sets to the ceremonial outfit worn by a boy for his circumcision, a typically shiny and highly ornate costume featuring sash, cape, plumed cape, and scepter (“Tesettür markaları kızları sünnet çocug˘ u gibi giydirmek istiyor”). 4 My interlocutors very rarely mentioned an earlier episode in the aestheticization of the Islamic dress. I first heard about it while discussing styles of wrapping the headscarf. Someone made reference to an older popular style called “S¸ulebas¸ ” (bas¸ meaning head), after the first name of its innovator, S¸ule

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prompted them to pay more attention to fashion trends. A veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) recounted that a few years ago she found on her Facebook page a follower’s plea: “Please, create long but modern models.” She elaborated on this: “Nowadays, no one posts such things. This means that now they can more easily find the clothes they want on the market.” These women not only related their mothers’ and elderly friends’ frustrations over the different characteristics of the sector, but also expressed their own relief that things have recently been changing for the better, mostly because of young women like themselves (i.e., the headscarf-wearing fashion professionals on whom the rest of this book focuses). In material terms, the aestheticization of the “proper” form of veiling of the Islamic revivalist movement resulted in a wider range of products and a variety of styles. The full-length and loose-fitting overcoat (pardesü) of the 1980s has been supplemented or largely replaced by a variety of outwear types (e.g., more form-fitting and three-quarter length overcoats, loose-fitting and thinner long coats, Ottoman ferace, European-style jackets, duster jackets, trench coats, duffle coats as well as particularly shaped long and loose outerwear). Today only elderly women, women of lesser means, and women from much more religiously conservative backgrounds wear overcoats that resemble the 1980s styles. Many other headscarf-wearing women regard them as outdated and tasteless “grandmother’s overcoats.” Young headscarf-wearing women also wear three-quarter length tunics and long covered dresses (i.e., fulllength, long-sleeved and high-necked dresses) in public spaces, in either loose or more closely fitted forms, without an overcoat or any additional layer over them. The range of colors has been expanded, a vivid palette replacing the mute colors of the 1980s. The range of fabrics has been diversified, from opulent silks to denim, linen, and cotton. The range of products for headscarf-wearing women has grown, including covered swimwear, bridal gowns, sportswear, and maternity clothes. The headscarf has been modified as well, becoming smaller and more colorful or being replaced by a solidcolored rectangular shawl. While fabrics and styles of wrap have been subject to change, the requirement that the headscarf completely cover the hair, forehead, ears, and neck has largely remained consistent.5 Yüksel S¸ enler. She was a prominent Islamist activist who, in the 1960s and 1970s, publicly lectured and wrote on women and Islam. Her political performance was enhanced by her wearing of stylish, yet Islamically appropriate, garments of her own design. Her headscarf and dress patterns were published in Islamist newspapers of that time. As Altınay (2013a) points out, she was the first Islamic style icon. However, this style has almost entirely disappeared from the sartorial repertoire. 5 An older form of veiling is the all-enveloping çars¸ af (similar to the chador that is used in Iran). Today the çars¸ af is worn by a small number of religiously conservative women, many of them belonging to the Ismailag˘a community. The most common type of çars¸ af is the “baggy çars¸af”(torbalı çars¸ af), which consists of two parts: a wide, full-length skirt and a hip-length cloak, which covers the head,

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Developments: Clothes and their conceptualization When the Islamic revival introduced the notion of tesettür and suggested that the “proper” materialization of veiling consisted of a tightly wrapped headscarf (bas¸ örtü) and a full-length and loose-fitted overcoat (pardesü), manufacturers of such clothes began to advertise their products as “tesettür giyim” (Islamically appropriate clothing) (Kılıçbay and Binark 2002; Navaro-Yashin 2002). This characterization was regarded as unproblematic. In other words, the garments corresponded to the understanding of “proper Islamic dress” as the Islamic revivalist movement advocated it. Over time, these garments were integrated in the fashion system, in the sense that they had been produced in accordance with seasonal changes in colors, patterns, and fabrics. Their umbrella conceptualization as tesettür giyim began to transform, with material shifts related to aestheticization occurring in parallel with, and because of, their association with the notion and practice of fashion. In 1992, a clothing company called Tekbir decided to organize a fashion show to introduce its latest products. The company’s brand name, which is written in calligraphy reminiscent of a religious text, is an Islamic mode of expressing “God is great.”6 The company’s motto is the “Trademark of Islam.” It was established in 1982 and first operated out of a workshop in Istanbul’s conservative Fatih district,7 sewing on-demand articles of clothing for the local religious orders. It later opened a shop on the local high street and began selling ready-made garments. These garments were advertised as Islamically appropriate, befitting the owners’ own beliefs, and materializing Islamic modesty (e.g., the garments were loose, hiding the body shape; the fabrics were thick and in mute colors; in the shop window, the mannequins had their backs turned to the street and their heads cast downwards in an attitude of modesty). Similarly, the Islamic fashion show was proclaimed to be religiously permissible. One of the company’s founders argued that the fashion show, with its gender-mixed audience, resembled an event from the “Golden

the lower part of the face and the upper part of the body, with its fullness gathered into a band at the hemline and folded inwards. Some of my headscarf-wearing interlocutors in Istanbul considered çars¸ af to be a non-modern form of veiling. Others thought of it as a more authentic form of veiling, indicating a degree of religiosity higher than that signified by the form of veiling predominant in the 1980s, much less than the contemporary fashionable forms of veiling. (This will be further discussed in the fourth chapter of this book.) During my research, I did not interact with wearers of this form of veiling. Ünal (2013) offers an illuminating analysis of Turkish-Dutch wardrobes, in which this item features prominently and is also subject to stylistic changes through decoration and color variation. 6 This call (tekbir) precedes the call to prayer (ezan) and the performance of the ritual prayer (namaz). The call asks the believers to acknowledge the greatness of God. 7 Fatih is a district in Istanbul where many religiously conservative people live and which occupies a particular place in the city’s symbolic geography as the “most conservative district” of the city.

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Age,” namely a sword-and-shield display that the Prophet Muhammad and his wife had watched together. A few religious leaders were recruited to support this comparison and confirm the religious appropriateness of these clothes and fashion shows (Navaro-Yashin 2002: 105). In addition, the Islamic fashion show was promoted as an effective instrument of Islamicization. In the words of the company’s founder, “There were women who decided to cover after seeing the styles in our shows. . . . What preachers could not accomplish through their sermons, we were able to communicate through our shops and fashion shows” (Karaduman, quoted in Navaro-Yashin 2002: 95). The company’s mission was to make veiling beautiful, challenge the predominant image of Islamically appropriate garments as drab, and, consequently, convince women to veil. A wider range of clothes, including items such as trousers and tunics; a larger repertoire of design details, such as Chinese collars and buttons; and a broader color palette, were consequently offered to observant Muslim women. The company employed one of the most iconic retail instruments of the fashion industry. With these fashion shows, the notion of Islamic fashion entered the public consciousness. (The previous chapter showed that this notion generated a heated debate.) Almost twenty years later, a more decisive step toward the conceptualization of these garments as fashion was taken; and that was, at the same time, an institutionalization of Islamic fashion. In 2011, Âlâ,8 the first Islamic fashion magazine, was launched with the slogan “Veiling is beautiful!” (Örtünmek güzeldir!). The founders of the magazine stated that they came up with the idea after they discovered emel, a British magazine of Muslim lifestyle, and interviewed its editor-in-chief for a Turkish cultural magazine. They claimed that they hired a team of market researchers to ascertain the feasibility of a fashion magazine for headscarf-wearing women in Turkey. Their headscarf-wearing female relatives and acquaintances had already encouraged them to go ahead and publish the magazine, but they wanted more scientific confirmation of this public demand. The researchers got in touch with headscarf-wearing women through online surveys, face-to-face and phone interviews, asked for their opinions about and suggestions regarding the content, and ultimately concluded that there was a strong demand for such a magazine. To make sure their publication was understood as a fashion magazine, the founders secured its distribution through the biggest mainstream bookstore chain in Turkey. In the words of one of the founders of the magazine, When we launched the magazine, young headscarf-wearing women rarely went into D&R [a bookstore chain]. They went to MT Kitap, which is the Islamic version of D&R. But they were not selling Vogue and InStyle at MT

8

This Turkish word translates as “splendid,” “the most beautiful” or “best of the best.”

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Kitap. We certainly did not want to be a local magazine and, even worse, to be considered a religious magazine. We wanted to be wherever the fashion magazines were. We wanted everyone to understand that we published a fashion magazine. However, the founders and staff sought to distance themselves from the controversial topic of Islamic fashion (tesettür modası). They insisted that the publication of a fashion magazine for headscarf-wearing women did not mean that they were promoting Islamic fashion. They argued that there could be no such thing as Islamic fashion, veiling being a religious injunction and, in contrast, fashion being a worldly preoccupation. They claimed that only the aestheticization of Islamic dress was possible and permissible. In the words of one of the founders: “In Turkey for a long time veiled women had been prevented from participating in public life. It is thus understandable that today they have problems in assembling fashionable outfits. Âlâ aims to guide them in this endeavour.” They pointed out that the goal of the magazine was to demonstrate that an observant Muslim woman, who respects the religious injunction of veiling, can also follow fashion and have an active social and professional life. The magazine was conceived as a source of information and inspiration for both producers and consumers. It included information about the latest trends in fashion and advice for headscarf-wearing women on how to dress fashionably. It introduced not just clothing that designated as fashion, but also people and companies that they declared representative of the sector. It purportedly encouraged producers to manufacture more fashionable clothing for headscarfwearing women. In the spring of 2014, when I conducted a formal interview with the founders and then-fashion editor, each stated that the magazine had already fulfilled its mission. The headscarf-wearing fashion editor, who described herself as being veiled (tesettürlü), pointed out that their aesthetic work—because of its intrinsic ethical dimension—had had a positive impact and had played a role in women’s decision to take up the veil. In her words, “I get so many messages via social media, especially from young women. Someone recently wrote to me: ‘You have inspired me. Your work has helped me decide to veil’. I was so moved.” Her words echo those of the owner of the clothing company Tekbir, whose efforts to legitimize Islamic fashion shows as efficient tools for spreading the practice of veiling were presented above. In his turn, the founder claimed that this publication played a crucial role in the making of the headscarf-wearing fashion designers, the improvement of the profile of covered clothing companies and the general building up of the sector.9 In his words, “This magazine did not simply link

9

This commentary echoes Moeran’s (2006: 728) discussion of the function of fashion magazines: “Without the clothes, without the images with which fashion is portrayed, and thus without the magazines themselves, there would be no ‘fashion system’ as such.”

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supply and demand. It created both supply and demand. This magazine taught everyone how to be in fashion.” They might both be exaggerating the impact of the magazine. However, not even their most critical observers denied that by its very presence next to Vogue on the bookshop shelves, Âlâ has had an impact on the way covered garments are embodied, discussed, and represented in contemporary Turkey and on the way the importance of fashion in the lives of headscarf-wearing women is perceived and debated. This magazine has also influenced the development of a fashion media by and for headscarf-wearing women. Since its launch—successful, for some, intriguing and disturbing for others—the Islamic fashion magazine landscape has become more crowded and competitive. Other titles appeared and are still being published at the time of writing: Aysha was launched in December 2012 and Hayyat was launched in December 2013. Some other titles, such a Hesna, Enda, and Îkrâ, have had shorter lifespans or irregular publication schedules. The number of headscarf-wearing fashion bloggers and digital publications and e-forums oriented toward headscarf-wearing women has also grown quickly. The most popular platforms are Yeşil Topuklar (Green Heels) and Tesettür Giyim (Islamically appropriate clothing). (This development will be further discussed in the third and sixth chapters of this book.) Another related development is the ever-growing number of fashion and personal style bloggers. However, their ability to reach a wider audience is still developing and their position as “alternative” fashion mediators and style arbiters of Islamic fashion is still in the making. These are somewhat predictable developments, for “words and images are central to the production, circulation and dissemination of fashion” (Bartlett, Cole, and Rocamora 2013: 1) and because while “designers create the form of fashion items, fashion magazines create their legend” (Hauser 1982, quoted in Moeran 2006: 738). (The fifth chapter of this book will detail the making of Islamic fashion images.) While Tekbir’s fashion shows abounded in Ottoman references (an echo of Orientalism? a sign of neo-Ottomanism?), the fashion pages of Âlâ challenge the assumed secularity of fashion and daringly reference fashion practices and representations (an instrumentalization of Occidentalism?). With Tekbir’s fashion shows, the notion of Islamic fashion entered public consciousness and became a topic of debate. Within Âlâ’s fashion pages, a particular representation of Islamic fashion entered the visual culture repertoire. Moreover, through its popularity among young women, it arrived in the public sphere and became a mundane practice. In this way, the uniform conceptualization of the clothes for headscarfwearing women as tesettür giyim (Islamically appropriate clothing) has become problematic. Aesthetic and ethical nuances have had to be taken into consideration and new categories have had to be created. The ethnographic vignette at the end of the second chapter indicates that in accordance to this changing conceptualization, the clothes are currently being described in

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different ways, depending on the garments themselves, the context, the actor who utters the description, and his or her understanding of what Islamically appropriate clothes should look like. The book itself hints at this diversification through the gradual introduction of different terms to designate garments for headscarf-wearing women, from “Islamically appropriate clothing” to “conservative clothing,” “covered dress” and “modest garments.” (As has been explained in the introduction, these terms are the preferred translations for the Turkish terms muhafazakâr giyim, ölçülü giyim and mütevazi giyim; these terms are often used interchangeably in the ethnographic context and the book follows the common usage.) This has happened due to the influence of significant instruments and institutions of the fashion system, such as fashion shows and fashion magazines. This has equally happened because the notion of Islamic fashion has been elaborated in debates over whether this is possible from the conceptual and ethical perspectives. In addition, the process of aestheticization has played its role in the careful labeling of clothes in accordance with distinct understandings of what veiling should materially consist of.

Developments: Newcomers In the beginning, the seamstresses and tailors who worked for observant Muslim women, and the small-scale clothing producers who began to manufacture Islamically appropriate garments were themselves religious people (NavaroYashin 2002). Nowadays entrepreneurs and fashion professionals of different backgrounds, political affiliations, and religious fervor work in this sector. (The vignette at the end of the previous chapter offers ethnographic evidence of this recent development.) A veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü), who opened her fashion house in 2010, described this change: Things have recently changed, especially after the launch of Âlâ. . . . This change is also related to politics and the fact that the current government is from the conservative segment of the population. It was like an eruption. Everyone became aware of the potential of this sector. Now everyone wants a piece of the pie. Whether they do or don’t know this work, whether they do or don’t care about the details that are important for headscarf-wearing women, now everyone is doing it. . . . Some of these [secular] designers, well-known names in Istanbul, are actually against the headscarf. They want to work for headscarf-wearing women because there is money to be made in this sector. No other reason at all. Money! . . . And people from our community help them. They tell them, “Go on live TV, say a few verses from the Quran, dress

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in conservative clothes, put the headscarf on your head, share a few images of you praying. Then religious conservative people will accept you and you will prosper.” Next to the diversification of actors, another notable development in the sector is the entrance of secular fashion designers, and the appearance of headscarfwearing fashion professionals. Until recently, secular fashion designers avoided working for headscarf-wearing women, either because they doubted the lucrativeness of this sector or because they felt ideologically and culturally worlds apart from religious people. If they did work for them, they preferred not to publicize these contracts. Today secular fashion designers create designs for headscarf-wearing women and collaborate with boutiques that target them. Occasionally, they present their contribution to the development of new aesthetics in this sector in “secularist” terms, emphasizing that only secular women have the cultural and aesthetic competence to understand quality and what it means to be fashionable. (The secular designer in the vignette at the end of the previous chapter exhibits this tendency; to a veiled fashion editor’s annoyance, a veiled designer in the second vignette of the fifth chapter seems to have internalized this claim.) An ever-growing number of headscarf-wearing women have entered this sector, motivated to launch their own design and fashion businesses by their dissatisfaction with the clothing on offer, along with their ability to create fashionable covered garments and assemble fashionable outfits. (The next chapters of this book will provide a detailed account of this development.) To distinguish themselves from their usually better-trained secular competitors, they highlight their virtuous character, emphasize the ethical mandate of their work, and argue for the appropriateness of their products for the modest dresser, if not the pious consumer. In the words of one veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü): I am a veiled woman. If I say that I work for headscarf-wearing women, then I must assume this responsibility and design clothes that respect the requirements of veiling. I do not want to mislead less conscious young women. I do not want to and cannot tempt them with beautiful clothes that do not respect our religion. These women also challenge the religiously conservative men who still dominate this sector as the owners of established conservative clothing companies (as discussed ethnographically earlier in this chapter). Although they rarely do so in public, they criticize these men for trying to impose unfashionable garments upon their consumers. In addition, they contest these men’s self-ascribed authority to decide what religiously appropriate dress is.

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Developments: New types of businesses In recent years, fashion boutiques for headscarf-wearing women have become attractive for prospective entrepreneurs, and these types of shopping venues have become popular among consumers. (The prices can be stiff, but vary according to location and targeted clientele.) In Istanbul, a number of boutiques have mushroomed, every neighborhood with a higher concentration of observant Muslims having its own boutiques. In the words of an interlocutor, “There is a deluge of boutiques” (butik furyası var). In addition, there has also been a lot of hype around fashion boutiques, their opening being considered a topic worthy of coverage in Islamic fashion magazines, Islamic news dailies, and online magazines by and for headscarf-wearing women. Digital entrepreneurship has also emerged as one of the most significant developments in this sector. It has taken different forms, from independent headscarf-wearing fashion designers who operate their start-ups from social media accounts to very successful e-commerce companies that sell the products of such designers and small-scale producers. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals often begin with a blog or an Instagram account, posting photographs of themselves posing in different outfits, modeling clothes of their own design and sharing their sartorial considerations. These digital tools enable both personal expression and creative entrepreneurship (Banet-Weiser and Sturken 2010) and become a platform where “the personal is promotional” (Luvaas 2013: 57). Moreover, they involve the posting of new content in a seemingly “live” manner (Rocamora 2013). Improving one’s visibility in the virtual space is crucial to the financial viability of such small-scale digital entrepreneurs. In contrast, the viability of e-commerce companies depends less on their digital presence and more on their capacity to create an efficient online and offline infrastructure, source fashionable-enough but cheap products, resell them for a profit, and rapidly respond to orders and comments. Most of the headscarfwearing designers whom I encountered in Istanbul sold their creations through such companies as well, sometimes designing special or simpler lines for them. I was informed that getting in touch or receiving an invitation to collaborate with these companies was easy, as they were as eager as the designers to put new products on the market. When listing for me the newest and most profitable businesses in this sector, my interlocutor, an advertising sales representative working for an Islamic fashion magazine, characterized the founders of the e-commerce companies as “visionaries”: they understood very well what, in her words, “the conservative segment of the population” (muhafazakâr kesim) wanted and she admired them for being business savvy. During my fieldwork, popular e-commerce companies that specialized in clothes for headscarfwearing women were Sefamerve, E-tesettür, Modanisa, Tesettür, Tesettürmarka, Suhneva, Giyimkabini, and Tesettür-shop. The most successful of these

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companies is Sefamerve, which was established in 2012 and was included in The Red Herring Top 100 list of successful start-ups in 2013.

A sector? A sector is an area of economic activity with a particular object. This chapter has centered on a sector whose object is clothing for headscarf-wearing women and has analyzed the particularities of its development. This final section focuses on its very malleability. The sector is variously described as a “veiling sector” (tesettür sektörü), “Islamically appropriate clothing sector” (tesettür giyim sektörü) and “conservative clothing sector” (muhafazakâr giyim sektörü). These differences reflect the changing conceptualization of these garments. However, general phrases, such as the “clothing sector” (giyim sektörü), “the fashion sector” (moda sektörü) or, simply, “the sector” (sektör), are employed as well when discussing the production and mediation of garments for headscarfwearing women. More often than not, use of these general expressions reflects an intention not to separate the production of garments for headscarf-wearing women from the manufacture of other types of garments. An ethnographic vignette, which features attempts to describe the garments produced by a particular company, illustrates the flexibility of the boundaries of this sector. The vignette narrates a conversation I had with a headscarf-wearing businesswoman at the headquarters of MÜSIAD (the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association).10 In response to her question about the progress of my research, I related how I had tried in vain to interview representatives of established conservative clothing companies. These companies entered the market in the 1980s and 1990s as producers of garments for headscarf-wearing women (in many cases, these were their main products). My headscarf-wearing interlocutors considered them to be producers of what they called “Islamically appropriate clothing” (tesettür giyim). They also indicated that the owners of these companies were religious people. I reckoned that these were high-profile participants in the sector. I also thought that an exploration of the individual histories and social context within which these companies developed would fit the agenda of a research project on the articulation of veiling and fashion. However, representatives of these companies informed me that they did not produce tesettür giyim and, as a consequence, saw no reasons to take part in my research.

10

The “M” in the acronym stands for müstakil, which means independent in Turkish. A popular alternative explanation proposes that the letter is actually used to suggest the word müslüman, that is, Muslim.

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I recounted these failed attempts at the headquarters of the main association of religiously conservative entrepreneurs, to which the owners of these companies belonged. My interlocutor was surprised, for she would have considered these companies to be producers of Islamically appropriate clothes as well. She reasoned that a proper introduction would be of help and called the owner of one of these companies to explain that she had encountered a foreign researcher studying the articulation of veiling and fashion. He, an old friend and the owner of a wellknown company, was the first person of whom she thought. She enquired when he would have time for an interview about the establishment and development of his company. The man confessed his surprise. His company did not manufacture Islamically appropriate garments. Therefore, he could not understand how he could help the foreign researcher. My acquaintance insisted. Their conversation and our subsequent discussion illustrate the flexibility of the contours of this sector. My acquaintance reminded this owner that headscarf-wearing women valued the company as, in her words, an “Islamically appropriate clothing brand” (tesettür markası). She added that the company’s products fitted very well into this clothing category. The man argued that these products were not designed specifically for headscarf-wearing women. In reply, she pointed out that the company did not manufacture mini-skirts and sleeveless tops. The man further specified that their envisaged customer was, in his words, “the conservative woman” (muhafazakâr kadın), adding that his company was “simply a clothing manufacturing company.” She stressed that in Turkey mainly headscarf-wearing women counted as “conservative women.” Modest dressers, who did not cover their heads but wanted to cover their bodies, were a rarity among those under fifty years old. The man offered more evidence in support of his claim that the company was not a tesettür brand. He pointed out that they had a store even in the poshest neighborhood of Istanbul, Nis¸antas¸ı, and that they were about to open a store on Bag˘dat Caddesi.11 The woman burst into a hearty laugh. She stressed that only headscarf-wearing women (tesettürlü) shopped in their Nis¸antas¸ı, store. Nevertheless, the man found a polite way to bring the conversation to a closure, much to her annoyance. Upon hanging up the phone, my acquaintance gave vent to her frustration: He’s got no reason to put on airs and graces. He wants people to think that his company is a fashion brand. He forgets that his father and uncle started with a fabric shop in Fatih12 and that their customers were headscarf-wearing

11

Nis¸antas¸ı is an upper-class neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul that is locally recognized as the very locus of fashion in the city. Bag˘dat Caddesi is a famous high street on the Asian side of Istanbul. Both are considered secular strongholds. 12 Fatih is a neighborhood of Istanbul where many religious people live and which occupies a particular place in the city’s symbolic geography as the “most religiously conservative neighborhood” of Istanbul.

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women in search of fabrics for their headscarves. I am sure he does not complain when E-tesettür or Sefamerve present them as a tesettür brand on their websites! She admitted that she already had an issue with this company. She often bought its products, but she and her headscarf-wearing friends found its advertisements rather disturbing. In the last few years, these advertisements presented the scarves as, in her words, “fashion accessories”: they were tied around the neck, draped over the shoulders, and loosely wrapped around the head, but rarely, if ever, were they tied as headscarves, completely covering the hair, forehead, ears, and neck. The company produced advertisements similar to those used by foreign manufacturers of scarves whose clientele were predominantly non-Muslim. That was, in their opinion, a first sign that the company wanted to portray itself as a fashion brand. More importantly, this seemed to reveal that the company was not interested in what its actual clientele—that is, the headscarf-wearing women, and by extension, religious people in general—might think of these publicity campaigns. Her conversation with the company’s owner confirmed her suspicions. She concluded that these companies avoided the word tesettür because of its pejorative connotation. In her words: “To call them an Islamically appropriate clothing brand (tesettür markası) is tantamount to considering them backward and provincial (anadolulu).” She remembered that at the last MÜSIAD meeting the owners of such clothing companies boasted about their exports to the Middle East. She accused them of being “two-faced,” and resolved to publicly challenge them during the next meeting to define their products. My own interpretation was that what disturbed her as a headscarf-wearing woman was the internalization of the representation of veiling as “backward” and the secularization of objects that were religious in her opinion. I voiced my observation that many newcomers to the sector, especially the e-commerce companies, seemed to have no problems with the word “tesettür,” some even including it in their brand names. She could not agree more, commenting that these entrepreneurs seemed to prioritize the economic over the political and the ethical. She also pointed out that established clothing companies known to target secular women had recently introduced lines of garments in the fabrics, lengths, and cuts that headscarf-wearing women required. However, they were not publicly describing them as being designed for headscarf-wearing women. She linked this development to the governance of the Islam-rooted AKP and the increasing economic power of pious people. I also shared my own understanding that some clothing companies preferred to label their products “conservative clothing” (muhafazakâr giyim) instead of “Islamically appropriate clothing” (tesettür giyim), for in this way they could both cater to a wider clientele (economic reasoning) and avoid being criticized

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by people who held particular understandings of what Islamically appropriate clothes were (ethical reasoning). My acquaintance only partially agreed. She emphasized that the representatives of these companies might indeed intend to attract a secular clientele, but doubted they were successful. Drawing upon her own experience, she could claim that secular consumers preferred to shop from clothing companies that entered the market with garments appropriate for a secular lifestyle, and not companies that later added such lines. This ethnographic vignette demonstrates how the sector can contract, expand, and even vanish, becoming an indistinguishable component of the clothing manufacturing sector or, depending on perspective, the fashion industry at large. It also shows how its very existence is subject to constant deliberation and remains open to negotiation. To conclude, this chapter has focused on the production of garments for headscarf-wearing women, emphasizing that an ever-growing number of companies engage in mass production and that, more recently, a variety of smallscale entrepreneurs have proposed alternatives to mass-produced garments. It has discussed the aestheticization of covered clothes: first as a response to a widespread preoccupation with stylish yet religiously appropriate garments, against a common tendency to link aestheticization to the appearance of an Islamic bourgeoisie; and secondly as a process generating both satisfaction and dissatisfaction, with headscarf-wearing fashion professionals working to close the gap between what conservative clothing producers define as being fashion and what consumers consider to be fashionable. It has described the changing conceptualization of covered clothing, from the early and unproblematic conceptualization of all covered garments as tesettür giyim (Islamically appropriate clothing) to the recent distinctions between tesettür giyim, muhafazakâr giyim, ölçülü giyim, and mütevazi giyim in accordance with aesthetic and ethical considerations. It has detailed the foundational moments in the popularization of the notion of Islamic fashion, from the first fashion shows of the early 1990s to the appearance of Islamic fashion magazines in the early 2010s. Its concluding section has brought to the foreground one more crucial characteristic, that is, the malleability of this sector. It has shown that the delineation of the sector, and, in a sense, the recognition of its very existence depend on particular individual economic agendas, specific understandings of what religious dress is and what headscarf-wearing women can and should wear, and personal positions with regard to the veiling debates detailed in the previous chapter. In this way, it has put forward the first indicators of what it means to run an Islamic fashion business. The next chapters will focus on a particular category of newcomer to this sector, namely headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, and the challenges they experience.

4 HEADSCARF-WEARING FASHION PROFESSIONALS In the autumn of 2012, I attended what was to become the last edition of the Islamic Fashion Fair (Tesettür Fuarı) in Istanbul. Upon learning about my interest in veiling and fashion, a headscarf-wearing fashion designer remarked, “This is indeed a very new market, three, maybe four years old. We still have a long way to go.” A fashionably and heavily dressed friend intervened, “Until a few years ago, we struggled to find appropriate clothes. We wanted to cover ourselves, but did not want to look alaturka.1 Islamically appropriate clothing companies (tesettür firmaları) kind of ignored us.” Turning to the designer, the woman added, “But now conservative designers (muhafazakâr tasarımcıları) have begun to open fashion houses!” In Turkey, headscarf-wearing women have recently begun to style themselves not only as fashion designers, but also as fashion editors, stylists, fashion magazine owners, boutique owners, and personal style bloggers. They are the most active newcomers to this sector. Their popularity is linked to their ability to act as trendsetters and offer the fashionable garments that headscarf-wearing women demand. Their visibility is related to their digital communication skills and their promotion through Islamic newspapers and headscarf-wearing women-oriented e-magazines. These fashion professionals have taken it upon themselves to bring covered garments with a higher design input within the reach of headscarf-wearing consumers from different walks of life. This chapter illustrates their entrance into the sector and exemplifies the rewards and challenges of being part of this sector through ethnographic portraits of a few popular headscarf-wearing fashion professionals.2 In these biographies, religiosity, class, and fashion-related education intersect in particular ways. Most 1

Alaturka is the belittling term for “Turkish style,” connoting a traditional unchanging style. Its opposite term is alafranga, that is, the belittling term for “French style,” which connotes infatuation with and imitation of European ways (Kandiyoti 1997). 2 The choice of these particular women also reflects the depth of our personal relationship, these being the interlocutors with whom I interacted most during my fieldwork in Istanbul, and with whom I have remained in touch since.

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of these fashion professionals took up the veil when they were teenagers, though one of them only recently began to cover. (Aware as I was that fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women were accused of privileging style over faith, I chose not to directly focus on their motivations to veil in our conversations; in only one case, my interlocutor discussed her reasons for taking up the veil; the others emphasized that they chose to veil, against a common assumption that they had been forced to veil—an assumption that at least some of them imagined I shared.) In addition, many of these women have received short-term fashion-related educations, though a few are university graduates from design departments. The latecomers surprised fewer people than the first comers with their desire to pursue training in programs and institutions deemed “secular,” and where mostly secular people studied and worked. And finally, these women are of lower middle-class background. However, in the sector a few women of upper-class background are also promoted or promote themselves in the media and on social media as designers of garments and owners of boutiques for headscarf-wearing women. Only a small number are socialites who secured their place in the sector through preexisting social and economic capital and make a living out of their taste (Bourdieu 1984). In writing these portraits, I paid attention to the way they choose to introduce themselves and their work and the way they label their products both in our conversations and in the media and on social media. (As has been was explained in the Introduction of this book, this examination of differently occasioned selfdescriptions and product descriptions aims to transcend the possible limiting impact of the anthropologist’s position in the field as a foreign, non-Muslim woman.)

Fashion designers Years before the existence of Islamic fashion magazines and digital self-promotion, headscarf-wearing women created garments for a kin- and neighborhood-based clientele. They themselves had had difficulties in finding fashionable covered dress on the market, and this motivated them to put their dressmaking skills to use by opening ateliers. They later used the newly available means of publicity to promote their businesses outside their immediate social milieux and make a name for themselves in the sector. In contrast, headscarf-wearing women entering this sector more recently have been attracted by its economic potential. Some of these latecomers already have sewing and/or design skills, while others seek to acquire such skills on the job through operating their businesses. They legitimate themselves as fashion designers in different ways. Some cite the experience that they accumulated in their mothers’ dressmaking workshops. They believe this experience entitles them to call themselves fashion designers.

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Others cite formal training. Many attended short courses in fashion design, sewing, pattern making, and styling. Only a few are graduates from departments of fashion design and textiles at technical universities and art schools. Yet others have no previous experience or fashion-related training whatsoever. Nevertheless, they have, in their words, “innate talent,” “a true passion for clothes,” “a terrific sense of colour and proportion,” and “innate fashion sense.” Their designs include both everyday wear and festive garments. They might create different lines of ready-made products, some simpler and cheaper than others, to be distributed through online retailing companies. The scale of their businesses differs. It might be an online business, which requires a social media account, an initial investment in samples and, once orders are received, their execution at home or with the help of freelance professionals. It might be a boutique, with the whole manufacturing process being outsourced to specialized workshops. It might be a boutique and a workshop with a fulltime staff, with some manufacturing work being outsourced if the designerentrepreneur secures large orders. Despite these differences, all are small-scale businesses.3 However, in all these cases, the internet plays a crucial role in the development of these businesses. This is a period when digital technologies enable designers and consumers alike to create and practice fashion in many different ways. This is a time when conventional fashion spaces (shops, designers’ workshops, magazines, shows) coexist and compete with digitally mediated spaces (blogs, online magazines, websites, fashion-oriented activity on social networking sites) (Rocamora 2013; Bartlett, Cole, and Rocamora 2013; Lewis 2013a–c). These headscarf-wearing designers are well attuned to contemporary digital culture and skillfully make use of these technologies to promote themselves and their products. They are among the most active digital entrepreneurs in contemporary Turkey, next to being ‘socially and culturally Islamic, [and] economically neoliberal’ (Özyegin 2015: 19). Their families support them financially and logistically in their entrepreneurial activities. (In this religious conservative milieu, operating a business is rarely seen as a means of achieving financial independence; it is rather considered a means of increasing family prosperity.) The families also make sure, either through support or pressure, that the demands of business life—late-hour meetings, travel in search of materials and manufacturing opportunities, attendance at fashion-related events and meetings with unrelated men—do not excessively 3

I have never directly discussed the profitability of their businesses with my interlocutors. Popularity on social networking sites is by no means an indicator of economic success. I met designers with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram, for example, who struggled to sell their products and cover their expenses, or who learned firsthand that the investment of money, time, and energy in attractive visuals did not bring the expected outcomes, especially because they did not also invest in materials and craftsmanship.

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disrupt a religiously conservative lifestyle. In the prevailing understanding, these women are first mothers, daughters, or sisters, and then entrepreneurs (see also Belwal, Belwal, and Al Saidi 2014). Five fashion designers who entered the sector at different moments and in distinct ways are introduced in the following pages, their real names replaced with pseudonyms. These stories illustrate similarities and differences in biographies, networking strategies, professional experiences, and entrepreneurial initiatives.

Fusun In 2010, Fusun, a woman who was at that time in her late twenties, opened a fashion house in a peripheral neighborhood of Istanbul. She describes herself as being veiled (tesettürlü) and orients her fashion house mainly toward veiled women. She offers a wide range of garments, from clothing that a veiled woman wears in private and women-only spaces (iç giyim) to outerwear (dıs¸ giyim); from ready-made to custom-made clothes; from everyday wear to garments for special occasions; from more revealing gowns for women-only gatherings to covered bridal wear and party gowns for mixed-gender celebrations. She also provides additional services such as makeup, bridal head coverings, and consultancy regarding appropriate accessories and shoes. Fusun had made her own clothes since she was a teenager. Upon finishing high school, she decided that dressmaking was her true passion. She enrolled in a two-year course in fashion and design at an institution of continuing education for women and interned in the workshop of a wellknown secular designer. The workshop also became the place where she first experienced the downside of wearing a headscarf. Fusun was well aware that the “secularists” profoundly disliked her headscarf. Her own sister had not been allowed to attend classes at her university because she was veiled.4 Nevertheless, she had not been personally affected, for she had only inhabited spaces where the tightly pinned headscarf was promoted and protected, from home and neighborhood to her Islamic high school (Imam-Hatip Lisesi) and various religious foundations. In this workshop, on the other hand, she felt vulnerable. She was exposed to people who regarded her headscarf as a sign of backwardness and a political threat, and who would wonder aloud why someone like her would be interested in fashion. This only fed her ambition and she graduated first in her class. Upon graduating, she took a job as an assistant designer in the workshop where she had done her internship. She left a few months later in search of her own path.

4

Instead of unveiling and, thus, disregarding her faith and tainting her honor, her elder sister had shaved her head in protest. See Kejanlıog˘lu and Tas¸ (2009) on the head-shaving “movement” in Turkey.

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In her words: I didn’t know whether one day I could be a fashion designer. It seemed to me that making clothes to measure wasn’t for me. I didn’t think I have enough patience for the intimate negotiation between client and dressmaker that this entailed. Haute couture seemed even more inappropriate. Making clothes was one thing. Making of an entire collection and then the fashion show was a completely different thing. Gratification and enjoyment definitely existed in both, but they seemed to be very different. Involvement in the design and production of ready-made garments seemed a better choice at that time. Over the next years, she worked for several small clothing companies, trying her hand at a wide range of garment types, from festive dresses (abiye) and bridal wear to ready-made clothes, tracksuits, and Islamically appropriate swimwear. She interrupted her formal employment when her mother got ill. However, she remained active in a different way, offering advice and collaborating with a seamstress to create bridal and formal dresses for the many relatives and friends who came to ask for help. Fusun later returned to her last employer and continued to work as a designer in this small company. She also conducted a series of short tutorials for a local TV channel on basic aesthetic principles for wearing headscarves and covered dress. Her father and brother came up with a business plan. They knew that pious people of lesser means like themselves had difficulties finding Islamically appropriate clothes, services, and places for important life events. They decided that Fusun’s skills could be used in a more profitable way as part of a family business that specialized in organizing the celebratory events of religious people of lesser means. As Fusun recounted: For a while we had many weddings in our family. I don’t even remember how many dresses for henna nights, engagements and weddings I sewed during that period. My brother and father found my work very successful. They also asked our relatives and everyone said they were pleased with the clothes I created. So they decided that the time for me to open an atelier had come. They were so insistent that in the end I accepted. At that time, in our community there was no fashion house for veiled women (tesettür moda evi). I thought that if I want to do this work, I have to come up with something practical. I decided that in this fashion house everything from “A” to “Z” would be done, from clothes to makeup and accessories. Preparations for opening the fashion house included an apprenticeship in the workshop of a non-Muslim seamstress famous in Istanbul and a seven-month course in makeup. The latter was another problematic domain for veiled women,

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as many makeup artists did not take into account the way in which the later addition of the headscarf changed the overall appearance of their work. In March 2011, Fusun attended the Islamic Fashion Fair (Tesettür Fuarı). As the only fashion house at this fair among all the established conservative clothing companies, hers attracted a lot of attention. As she emphasized: We had a very sweet and colourful stand. We moved almost the whole fashion house there: the couch, armchairs, the lamp, the mirror, the makeup table, the record player and the antique phone. We brought all the dresses, of course. The colours were bright. Many shades of green, purple, red, pink, yellow. It was a bold step. The press showed great interest in our fashion house. I gave interviews for several different TV channels. At this fair, she also met the founders of what was to become the first Islamic fashion magazine in Turkey. They told her about their plan and invited her to contribute. In the summer of 2011, an engagement outfit that Fusun created for a young woman appeared on the cover of the first issue of this magazine. Many religious people liked both the magazine and this particular outfit. Fusun recalls, The front cover of Âlâ kept circulating on social networking sites for about 15– 20 days. We honestly didn’t expect the reaction to be so positive. They were positive because nobody had previously presented in a fashion magazine Islamically appropriate clothes (tesettür giyim) [i.e., outfits that included the headscarf]. Having our dress on the first cover of this magazine was good publicity for us and brought us many new customers. Over time, she has become a regular collaborator with Islamic fashion magazines and e-platforms oriented toward headscarf-wearing women. Moreover, popular headscarf-wearing fashion professionals and the wives of politicians from the ruling AKP wear her creations, Fusun uses social media to publicize these achievements. Her previous doubts about whether she could make garments according to the specifications of an individual customer have gradually disappeared. Now she enjoys drawing upon Western and Eastern sartorial repertoires and giving material form to her customers’ dreams. She has made a name for herself with heavily embellished and historically referenced covered dresses, on which everyone “can smell the past.” She confesses that sometimes these dresses end up far more embellished than what she has initially proposed, since she must comply with her customers’ demand for showy clothing. She collaborates with boutiques and e-commerce sites to distribute simpler and more affordable

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ready-made garments. This continuously improving position in the sector has also been reflected in the growth of her workshop. By the end of my fieldwork, in the summer of 2014, seven women worked as full-time employees in her fashion house. This fashion designer creates full-length, long-sleeved, and high-necked clothes and strives to create “an elegant and modern” look within what she calls “the lines of veiling” (tesettürün çizgileri). She insists that the customer should decide whether she wears an outer garment over her more form-fitting creations. Fusun mostly dresses in her own creations, combining patterned scarves with elegant garments in dark and earthy colors that cover the flesh, except hands and face, but do not necessarily hide the contours of her body and are not necessarily floor-length.

Sedef Sedef recounted how she became an entrepreneur and launched her own brand. She was then a twenty-year-old student, who blogged about her interests, fashion included. I started in the summer of 2011. I wanted new thin colourful shawls for the summer, but could not find anything appropriate on the market. The shops were full of thick solid-coloured shawls. The thinner shawls would have revealed my hair and inner bonnet. I tried to fold them in two, but then they would become too narrow and I couldn’t properly cover my head and neck. Therefore, I visited some fabric shops, bought thin cotton fabrics full of flowers and bugs and made myself large colourful shawls. The width of the shawls on the market is usually 75 centimetres. The width of my shawls is one metre and the length is two metres. I could thus fold the shawl and not even a single one of my hairs could be seen underneath. This was born out of necessity, but to my surprise everyone admired my shawls. When even people I didn’t know asked where I got my shawls, the idea of setting up a small business began to grow in my head. I started very amateurishly. A friend took some photos of me wearing these shawls and I posted them on my blog. In less than one hour 1,000 people looked at those pictures. They started to share them. Then fashion bloggers shared my photos and the number of visitors to my blog and followers on Facebook started to grow extremely fast. I only had three of each model. I started without capital and didn’t want to suffer financially in case the shawls proved not to be popular products. I actually bought the fabric and paid the seamstress with the money I got from selling a laptop that I won in a contest. Then orders started to pour into my inbox. I was suddenly extremely busy, running between fabric shops, the seamstress’s workshop, and the

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post office. I honestly would have never dreamed that my shawls would be so popular. By mid-summer I registered my brand and began operating a proper e-business. Sedef grew up in a family of small-scale entrepreneurs from Istanbul, her father running a shoe shop and her mother managing a knitwear company. In this family, discussions about business opportunities and constraints were part of everyday life. In 2008, her mother made Sedef her business partner and delegated her minor responsibilities. This position also facilitated her acceptance as an intern in one of the retailing companies with which her mother collaborated. This environment stimulated her entrepreneurial spirit. In Sedef’s words, “Trade does not intimidate me because I have been living in the middle of it since my childhood.” Her entrance into the sector was also noticed outside her milieu and social networking sites (where she is a prolific user as well as a popular figure.5) On her mother’s advice, in 2011 she entered a competition for student entrepreneurs, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, and won first place in the Social Impact category. In 2013 she received another award. AKSON, one of the associations of religiously conservative businesspersons—of which both her parents were members—awarded her the Economy Prize. Newspapers of different sociopolitical orientations reported on her success, including an influential liberal newspaper.6 Sedef embarked on an ambitious project of becoming a fashion designer. She explains, “I’ve been sewing clothes for my dolls and myself since childhood. I really want to do this work.” Equally important for her is to play a role, however small that might be, in motivating women to cover. With this in mind, she often offers gifts and discounts to women who have recently begun to cover themselves. This was another reason to embrace this profession. She stated, It makes me really happy to hear someone telling me, “I will cover myself with your shawls.” If the shawls were not beautiful, if these women could not find the clothes they were looking for, maybe they would have held back from veiling. In the end, we all have desirous selves (nefis). We indeed do not want to attract attention. However, we do want to be beautiful. She uses the notion of nefis to signal the agency of bodily and material desires, which a pious woman learns to dominate as part of her self-cultivation. In

5

At the time of writing, she had 76,409 followers on Facebook and 89,700 on Instagram (accessed December 16, 2015). 6 However, the article follows a well-established trend in secular media, namely to regard this sector as an exotic phenomenon and cover its developments as tabloid news (Kılıçbay and Binark 2002).

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brief, aesthetic concerns and ethical preoccupations both inform her choice of profession. The steps she took in this direction include education—attendance of short courses and workshops on fashion design, pattern making, fabric draping, and fashion management—and self-promotion as a fashion designer in media and social media. In addition, she presented this profession at career-oriented events at the Islamic high school (Imam-Hatip Lisesi) that she graduated from, ran workshops on fashion design at a community arts center, and participated as guest speaker at seminars on entrepreneurship in several universities in Istanbul. At the end of my fieldwork, in the summer of 2014, Sedef was running her business through a website she launched in 2013, and from the showroom she opened in 2014. She was also selling her products through e-commerce sites and several fashion boutiques in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey. Her designs were produced in specialized workshops under her direct guidance. She extended her range of products, selling not only shawls, but also detachable lace collars, floor-length flowing skirts and three-quarter length capes, woolen waistcoats, tunics, and trench coats. Sedef had identified a gap in the market, that is, basic products in cuts and lengths appropriate for headscarf-wearing women, and oriented her business accordingly. In her words: There is indeed a demand for flashy things, but I usually do simple models. . . . I do casual clothes that can be worn on different occasions and can be easily combined with other items in one’s wardrobe. . . . I do floor length widelegged trousers and skirts. I do three-quarter length blouses, vests and coats. I used to search for such things in Zara and Mango, but they weren’t easy to find. On many occasions, I still needed to modify them if I couldn’t afford to buy two identical pieces from which to make one piece that I could wear. There are many other women who need the things I also need. That’s why my products sell well. They are things that young women [i.e., headscarf-wearing women] really need. She uses cotton, rayon, and wool blends. In her opinion, these fabrics have a distinctive warm feel in comparison with the coldness of the shiny and neat silk, and drape well around the body without showing its contours. They also make her products more affordable for the young women who make up her main clientele. She describes her products as being “basic but with a slight touch of fun.” One of her most popular products, a poncho, exemplifies this description, with its two or three stylized seagulls in differently colored fabric sewn on the front. Sedef models most of her products. However, before posting these pictures on social media she ensures that her appearance is appropriate for a veiled woman (tesettürlü) like herself.

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She claimed, I make sure that in these photographs my hair is completely tucked under the bonnet. People have the criteria of veiling in their mind when they look at headscarf-wearing women. They analyse them from this perspective. When you veil yourself, you should do it properly and tie your head, hair and neck tightly. It might look aesthetically unflattering, but it is more pious (daha takvalı). When I share such photographs, I always receive positive comments. Thank God I have never received any negative comments regarding the way I veil myself. Her preference for simplicity and functionality translates in material and visual terms the Islamic notion of modesty she complies with. The layered garments she wears hide the contours of her body and are always of appropriate lengths (e.g., the skirts and trousers are floor-length; the shirts, tunics, cardigans, and coats are three-quarter length; the shawls are wide and long), creating a sporty but subdued look. Her festive outfits heavily cover the body, with only a colorful shawl or a belt adding the touch of style that she finds necessary on such occasions.

Gonca Gonca, a woman in her late twenties, likes to recount that she began her “career” in fashion design when she was four years old and dressed her dolls in colored paper napkins. She is a graduate of a vocational high school, where she studied textiles and fashion design, and of the Department of Textiles at a prestigious local university. In 2010, while working at her father’s children’s textiles company as a fabric designer, she started a personal style blog. She shared her sartorial considerations, posted photographs of herself posing in different outfits and modeled clothes and costume jewelry of her own design. Her parents complained that her blog took too much of her time, but she did not give up on her new passion, sick and tired as she was of designing bed linen for newborn babies. About a year later, when she appreciated that the blog had begun to function as a branding tool, she invested all her savings into an online business. Initially a Facebook page, it was later launched as a website with social media extensions to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A floor-length solid-colored tutu that Gonca created for the graduation party of a headscarf-wearing young woman became an overnight hit and orders kept pouring into her inbox. She designed more covered garments for this new clientele and her business began to grow quickly. To her father’s disappointment, Gonca quit her job at his company in order to dedicate all her time to designing, liaising

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with fabric and accessories suppliers, and collaborating with seamstresses to fulfil these orders. The long hours that his daughter spent outside the home were a cause for deep concern, so the father tried hard to talk her out of getting so engaged in this business. She decided to start covering herself after she began designing covered garments and became popular among young headscarf-wearing women. The women in her family occasionally wore loosely tied cotton scarves, but made no effort to conceal their hair and hide the contours of their bodies. This is a style of covering typical of villages and urban peripheries. In contrast, she completely covered her hair, forehead, ears, and neck. This was the type of veiling that her new clientele donned, and was the only type recognized as veiling. (Gonca learned and agreed with the distinctions her clientele made between their modern and fashionable form of veiling and the older forms; her customers distanced themselves both from the revivalist combination of headscarf and loose overcoat and the all-enveloping çars¸ af; they admitted that these forms might indicate a deeper religiosity, but they pointed out that they were inappropriate for someone who wanted to be pious yet modern.) Her decision prompted both positive and negative comments on social media. Some of her headscarf-wearing followers congratulated her on her veiling and praised her for becoming one of them. Others—both headscarf-wearing and non-headscarf-wearing followers—voiced their suspicion at this abrupt shift, rejecting the possibility of religious motivation and condemning it as marketing strategy. To her dismay, some commenters left hate-filled messages on her social media accounts. On one occasion, she was accused of promoting an Islamically inappropriate style of covering, and thus corrupting her less knowledgeable social media followers. The offending post had been a family picture, in which her mother and aunt wore loosely tied cotton headscarves. The Islamic revival movement labels this the “half veiling” (yarım tesettür) uncritically passed down from generation to generation. However, around that time, some young women had begun wearing their headscarves without the inner bonnet— consequently revealing the hairline—and not completely covering their necks. Gonca’s social media critics interpreted her post as an endorsement of this Islamically inappropriate trend. She found herself in the somewhat paradoxical situation of having to explain that the picture was depicting the traditional style and not the new style. The designer explained her decision to veil not as a marketing strategy but as a moment of religious awakening. In her words: One evening, I was thinking about my life. Everything was going just well. But how long could I go on like this? I thought I had to do something for the afterlife. I used to dress casually and did not wear a headscarf. That evening I took the decision. The next day I went to work wearing a headscarf.

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The decision, and the gradual bodily habituation to these new clothes and the forms of conduct, had an impact on her professional life as well. She became more sensitive to the requirements of veiling and took greater care when choosing fabrics and designing garments for headscarf-wearing women. Gonca recalled, It dawned on me that before I covered myself I had not really understood headscarf-wearing women. I used to say, “Let’s have the neckline a bit open here. Let’s make this sleeve a bit shorter.” I honestly thought headscarfwearing women were just making a fuss about a few centimetres of fabric. You become aware only when you yourself live it. Now I cover myself and know that even a centimetre matters! . . . If I make Islamically appropriate garments (tesettür kıyafetleri) for festive occasions on order, I pay attention to the fabric. If the fabric is sheer, I will need to line the dress, but this makes the dress uncomfortable. So I check the fabric in natural light, put my hand under the fabric and lift it up. Women rightfully do not want to put layer upon layer on them. Her creations and her own sartorial choices reflect her ethical values. In her words: Those who criticise covered women for putting on makeup and dressing in chic clothes always look at the empty side of the glass. I advise them to look at the full side as well. Maybe these women can only discipline their desirous selves (nefis) this much. It’s better than not covering at all. . . . I took this path to convince women to cover and not to dress the ladies who already conform to the requirements of veiling. Similar explanations can be found in the media and on social media. The designer has spoken and written about the impact of her own veiling on her designs. She argues that her aesthetic decisions are informed by ethical considerations. She insists that the clothes she designs should be categorized as “modest clothing” (mütevazı giyim or ölçülü giyim) and not “Islamically appropriate clothes” (tesettür giyim). She characterizes herself as covered (kapalı), and not veiled (tesettürlü). She explains the difference in sartorial terms: the veiled woman wears garments in somber colors, loose fitting overcoat, full-length skirts, never trousers, in public spaces. In contrast, her own outdoor garments are colorful, form fitting, and of various lengths (e.g., she occasionally wears large tunics and sweaters that cover only her tights). However, she did not suggest that she was less religious than a veiled woman. Her argument was that, when it came to the religious duty of veiling, this was all she could do, which was better than not covering at all.

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Soon after they got married, her husband became her partner in this now flourishing business. Her father’s criticism softened over time, and he even congratulated her on her determination to establish and make her own business work. In the beginning, she subcontracted orders to freelance professionals and then personally put the finished products in the post to her customers. At the time of writing, most of the manufacture is outsourced, with the designer and her permanent staff closely supervising the production process and doing all the required handwork for the more expensive custom-made products. Online orders are distributed through a third-party specialist. The designer has made a name for herself with her “sweet” (tatlı, hos¸) and very colorful (rengârenk) garments, on which different shades of pink, red, and yellow, three-dimensional fabric flowers, floral prints, youthful prints (e.g., urban landmarks, cars, shoes, umbrellas), tulle, and embroidery with Ottoman-inspired geometric motifs feature prominently. Today she is a well-known designer in this sector, runs a boutique, and has numerous working partnerships with clothing companies, e-commerce companies, and boutique owners that sell both her original creations and her budget-conscious lines both in Turkey and abroad. Gonca emphasizes that her education and clever use of social media have played a role in the successful expansion of her business. In her words: Education really matters. This difference becomes visible in practice. It’s not that designing and making clothes can’t be learnt. The point is that to know is mandatory. Those who don’t know can’t go further than copying anyway. One who cannot read cannot know. It’s the same thing. I personally didn’t struggle for nothing for six years. Even to understand what best suits the customer’s physique one needs education. There are, of course, good and bad schools, and longer and shorter programmes, but getting an education is essential if you want to enter the fashion sector. She uses social media to gain exposure, demonstrate her design and styling skills, and introduce her creations to a dispersed audience, larger than she could have possibly reached through a shop and her personal social network.7

Duygu Duygu, a woman from a Central Asian republic in her late twenties, met her future husband while they were both doing their graduate studies in business

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At the time of writing, she had 286,613 followers on Facebook and 476,000 followers on Instagram (accessed December 20, 2015).

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administration in the United States. They got married and she came to live with him in Istanbul. She had been raised as a Muslim, but it had not been required of her to wear covered dress and cover her hair completely to express her faith. In contrast, her husband and his family believed that veiling was required of all Muslim women. Gradual familiarization with this different perspective on Islam, her husband’s request, and her own desire to integrate into her new family led her to adopt the form of veiling that was considered “proper Islamic dress” in her new milieu. She now describes herself as being veiled (tesettürlü). Her husband encouraged her to make use of her education and become an entrepreneur. Eager to impress her new family—as well as demonstrate to her family back in her home country that being veiled and living a modern life were not incompatible—Duygu decided that “conservative clothing” (muhafazakâr giyim) was a promising sector in which she could succeed. In her opinion, the sector neglected many potential consumers who were not willing to pay or could not afford the high prices that many designers and companies set for their products. She, who believed that, “everyone has the right to dress chicly and in quality clothes,” would address these neglected consumers. Preparations for the launch of her business included learning as much as possible about the making of clothes, what was on offer in the marketplace and the people working in this sector. Duygu studied fashion design at a vocational school. She also took sewing classes, bought herself a sewing machine, and turned her living room into an atelier. It took a while, but her husband eventually got used to not eating home-cooked food every day and finding needles, paper patterns, and pieces of fabric all over the house. She did not plan to make the clothes herself, but reasoned that dressmaking skills would be essential in dealing with the actual manufacturers of her future clothing lines. As she elaborated in one of our conversations, “I need to know how clothes are made and what quality means and how it is achieved. How can I otherwise demand quality from the manufacturer?” In addition, Duygu visited shops and boutiques that catered to headscarf-wearing women and examined the clothes closely, paying attention to fabrics, accessories, and cuts, concluding that many were poorly executed and made of low-quality fabrics. She explored areas in Istanbul where textiles were manufactured and sold, and searched for potential suppliers. She asked her mother-in-law to teach her the art of bargaining with Turkish manufacturers and sellers. When she felt that her foreign accent or insufficient language skills would be a disadvantage, her mother-in-law was there to help. She discussed models, fabrics, and prices with women in her extended family, drawing on their reactions to better understand what Turkish women needed and wanted. She became an avid follower of headscarfwearing designers and clothing companies on social media, looking for design ideas and developing a good sense not only of what the trends were, but also of who did what and who copied whom.

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Duygu decided that she would produce simple functional garments, but would distinguish herself from her competitors through fabrics and craftsmanship. This decision also reflected her personal style, wherein she contrasted simple clothes in strong colors against distinctive accessories (e.g., oversized costume jewelry, branded watches, and designer purses). In the summer of 2013, Duygu formally registered her company and began creating clothes under her own name label. She first had a few samples manufactured and hired a company to produce a promotional video. She then began touring e-commerce companies and boutiques to find distributors for her products. A developing friendship with the advertising sales representative of an Islamic fashion magazine smoothed her way into this sector. She phoned this magazine to place an ad and left her contact details. At the time she registered her company, the law required that any company engaging in online commerce included the word “electronic” in its official name. Duygu complied and, consequently, the advertising sales representative assumed the contact details belonged to a home appliances company and postponed contacting her. When she finally decided to get in touch with her, she was surprised to discover that it was instead a clothing brand owned by a recently veiled “foreign bride” who lived in her neighborhood. The advertising sales representative met with and convinced her that placing an ad in the magazine at this early stage was a waste of money, and that she needed to follow a different strategy to get a foothold in the sector. As Duygu explained in one of our conversations: I really appreciated her honesty and understood her point. I indeed had only a few samples. At that time, I was looking for someone to help me with the sewing, as I had no time to do everything myself. My previous employee had proven to be a lazy woman and I had to fire her. I knew a very good tailor, but I suspected my husband would not be pleased to know I was in the company of a man all day long. So my friend was right. If someone contacted me upon seeing my ad, I would not have been able to honour a serious order on my own and, consequently, would have given a wrong impression. Soon after this meeting, the two women could be seen together at various sector events, from brand launches, boutique openings, and brunches with other headscarf-wearing designers. These were the sort of events that the advertising sales representative considered to play a significant role in the production, reproduction, and legitimation of the sector and the key positions within it. Duygu was introduced to everyone as a fashion designer who would soon open her showroom. The advertising sales representative always pointed out that they both wore her creations. Her “exoticism” (i.e., a recently veiled foreign bride who spoke “sweetly accented Turkish” and was fluent in a few foreign languages)

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attracted attention. Her visibly improving ability to tie her headscarf and the Islamic appropriateness of her full-length and loose fitted clothes was remarked on as well. Her claim that she designed many garments but produced only those she fell in love with charmed the audience. After attending her first event as a fashion designer in this sector, Duygu beamed with joy for a whole week, looking incessantly at the invitation on which her name appeared. A year later, she could confidently declare that “now everyone knows me in this sector.” In the autumn of 2014, after a few months of preparations, she opened her showroom in the company of many well-known names in the sector, from designers to fashion editors and young bloggers. (The bloggers were invited at the advertising sales representative’s suggestion, for she reasoned they would blog about the event, eager as they were to legitimize themselves as industry insiders.) Her guests dutifully reported this event on media and social media. Duygu, her friends, and family diligently reposted these articles on various social networking sites. In addition, an e-platform that was popular among headscarf-wearing women ran an article about her first collection, emphasizing her preference for bold colors and the functional elegance of her products, and inviting its readers to visit her new showroom or shop online from her website. Duygu was quoted explaining why she called the collection “Venice Streets.” In her words: As you know, a colourful event [takes place] on the streets of Venice every year; besides, women dress very elegantly in this city. I blended these Venetian traits into veiling and created this collection. This is why there is both seriousness and colourfulness in this collection. Well before the opening of her showroom and the launch of her first collection, Duygu was operating her business. She advertised items from her new collection in different Islamic fashion magazines, had a well-known headscarf-wearing fashion editor share on her social media pictures in which she modeled her creations, and began selling a cheaper line of products through e-commerce companies, as well as and a more expensive limited series through boutiques.

Ece In 2011, Ece stated in her first blog post: I have finally found the chance to start the blog that I had long been planning in my mind. My aim is to share my designs and repost my articles about conservative clothing (muhafazakâr giyim). . . . Ten years ago, when I first sat in front of the sewing machine, I understood that making clothes brought me

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great joy and it would always be a part of my life. . . . For a while, I stayed away from my beloved sewing machine. I moved to Istanbul for my undergraduate studies. I chose to read communications, but understood quite quickly that I would not love this profession. But I did not find the courage to leave it either. This is why I began to learn about fashion design on my own, took classes in sewing and continued to sew clothes for myself. At the time, Ece worked as a journalist for an Islamic newspaper and contributed articles on the local and global fashion industry to its weekend supplement. During her last year at university, she had interned at this newspaper. On the application form, she stated that her hobbies included designing and making clothes. During the interview, a headscarf-wearing interviewer said she would love to see her portfolio. Ece informed her that the clothes she was currently wearing were her own creations, prompting the interviewer to insist that she work on fashion-related news during her internship. Later, when the internship was over, the same person offered her a job. The position allowed her to follow developments in the sector, and to analyze what had been done already and what else could yet be done. She kept most of these observations to herself, for she had quickly learned that critical journalism (in the double sense of critical comments about aesthetics and the religious appropriateness of garments) was rarely appreciated. The owners of companies whose products she reviewed called with complaints, or even threats, if the reviews were not positive. She also met the most important actors in the local fashion industry and built a wide network of contacts. She thus unconsciously prepared her own entrance into the sector as fashion designer. In 2014, after the launch of her own eponymous clothing label, she wrote on her blog: I have so far shared my newspaper articles on this blog. . . . Years ago, when I started the blog, my aim was to share my designs as well. From now on, I will introduce garments of my own design. . . . In the past months, I have been repeatedly asked why I, who love to write, chose to become a designer? It’s true. I really love writing. But I have always known that fashion design would be a part of my life and that one day I would turn my sketches into real clothes that other women would wear. I’ve just had to wait for the right time.” While on maternity leave, away from the hustle and bustle of her work place, Ece, now in her late twenties, found the time to think carefully about her career. As she explained: Five years ago, when I started my job I could hardly find designers [i.e., headscarf-wearing designers] to interview. When I went to Istanbul Fashion

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Week, I was the only veiled woman there and people kept staring at me. Then everything changed. Now even in that rarefied environment there are many designers and company owners from the conservative segment of the population (muhafazakâr kesim). . . . So I told myself: my son is four months old; if I don’t start now, I will have to wait until he is four or five years old. However, by that time there will be no niches left in the sector. To be honest, I didn’t want to waste this moment. In five years' time, things will be very different. It will not be as easy as it is today to sell your designs through boutiques and e-companies. She reckoned that this was the best time to start a business in this fastgrowing sector and design fashionable garments for headscarf-wearing women. Not many producers were offering the high-quality, well-crafted, and fashionable clothes in the simple designs and beautiful fabrics that interested her and her friends. She quit her job at the newspaper and, with the help of her husband and family, established her company. It was a tough period for her. Every day she had to leave the baby with her mother-in-law for a few hours so she could run errands outside her house, liaise with manufacturers and suppliers of fabrics and accessories, supervise the production of her designs, and attend fashion-related events. At home, she worked while the baby was sleeping. Before long, her products could be ordered through her website. She also made them available through boutiques and online retailing companies. Her first product was a yellow kap, that is, a form-fitting three-quarter length coat. This sold out very quickly, the demand being so high that the designer could not even keep one for herself. Its story can be read on her blog, the narrator emphasizing how her sensory engagement with the fabric contributed to the creation of this particular piece. In her words: I decided on the model the moment I saw the fabric. Its texture and colour were so beautiful that it could only be worked in the simplest possible design. I also thought that I would need to perk up with small details. A welt pocket on the left side and a cream-coloured ring on each arm between the elbow and wrist seemed enough to me. In a few seconds everything was settled in my mind. When the production process ended, there were dozens of them hanging on the rack. And each had a label that carried my name. There are no words to tell you how happy I felt in that moment. After many years my dream was finally coming true. Ece aims to create “modern garments” that are pepped up with elements of “provincial life” and a touch of “retro styles.” In this category she includes bow

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collars, ribbons, polka dots, wooden buttons, leather belts, and copper-colored accessories. Every new step that she takes on this new career path is announced on social media. Most of the time, there are photos of her new products, described through hashtags in Turkish and English (e.g., #tesetturtunik (Islamically appropriate tunic), #tesetturtasarim (Islamically appropriate design), #tesetturgiyim (Islamically appropriate clothing), #newbrand, #hijabstreet, #hijabinspiration, #hijabfashion, #hijabista, #hijabstyle, #modest, #modesthijab, #chichijab, #hijabhigh, #islamicfashion, #fashion, #style, or #fashionphotography). Some other times, there are posts or reposts about locations from where her products can be purchased. Ece also promotes her new professional identity in interviews on blogs and in e-magazines oriented toward headscarf-wearing women, as well as pays for her products to be advertised in Islamic fashion magazines. She still pens articles about fashion and covered dress for various e-publications and still posts on her own blog. She describes herself as a veiled woman (tesettürlü). She usually wears solidcolored shawls that cover her hair completely and are tightly wrapped around her head—in stark contrast to the current preference for voluminous buns, for whose making a variety of hair accessories are used, from padded bonnets to bun doughnuts. She combines these shawls with patterned full-length garments in warm colors and three-quarters length wraps and coats. She loves “retro” accessories, such as leather belts and purses, and design details, such as dots and ribbons. She designs garments for headscarf-wearing women as well as modest dressers who do not cover their hair, but prefer covered garments. As a result, her products are three-quarter or full length, high-necked and longsleeved. In addition, her summer clothes are made from non-transparent fabrics, which do not cling to the body in a way that reveals the body shape or the underwear. In most visual presentations of her products, the models do not wear a headscarf. She explains that this reflects a commercial agenda, that is, to target as many customers as possible. It also represents an ethical choice: she prefers not to use the headscarf in combination with clothes that some people might not consider Islamically appropriate.

Fashion media professionals The appearance of headscarf-wearing fashion media professionals is inextricably linked to the creation of an Islamic fashion media. More specifically, it is related to the launch of monthly Islamic fashion magazines. These include the popular Âlâ, the first of its kind, which was launched in the summer of 2011, Aysha, which was launched in the winter of 2012, and Hayyat, which was launched in the winter of 2013. Other titles had a shorter lifespan or irregular

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publication schedules, such a Hesna, Enda, and Îkrâ. In addition, it is related to the launch of digitally mediated forums and mechanisms through which Islamic fashion knowledge is generated, circulated, and consumed, such as fashion blogs and social media. Furthermore, it is connected to the presentation of Islamic fashion and headscarf-wearing fashion professionals in Islamic news dailies. It is also linked to the launch of e-platforms and e-magazines by and for headscarf-wearing women since the late 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s, in which special sections are dedicated to sartorial considerations. The most popular platforms are Yes¸ il Topuklar (Green Heels) and Tesettür Giyim (Islamically appropriate clothing). However, these headscarf-wearing fashion media professionals do not simply occupy the available positions within this media sector, but also significantly contribute to the creation of these positions in particular and the creation of Islamic fashion media in general. They have been offered and/or have been able to claim these positions for themselves because they wear a headscarf and have the cultural and religious competencies that such positions require. They have acquired these positions because these fashion media outlets must establish their fashion expertise and experts, and thus legitimize themselves. In this fast-developing sector, the transmission of fashion knowledge is multidirectional, involving a diverse assemblage of participants, necessitating a variety of relationships and taking place through numerous channels. Consequently, entering the sector and working as a fashion media professional implies coordinating one’s presence on and consolidating one’s authority across a variety of printed and digital media. Success depends on the ability to acquire and develop skills that can be easily translated across media, platforms, and projects. It also depends on the capacity to become a brand, with the economic function of their own dressing taken into consideration at all times. A fashion editor and a stylist are introduced in the following pages. They entered the sector at different times. As is the case with the designers, early entrance into the Islamic fashion media has been decisive in achieving central positions. Moreover, they entered this sector in different ways, the fashion editor by chance and the stylist after stages of formal training and thanks to a lucky encounter with this fashion editor. I concentrate on “traditional” positions in the fashion media (Mora and Rocamora 2015), both the fashion editor and the stylist working for the first Islamic fashion magazine in Turkey. I focus on their entrance into the sector and their opinions and concerns. I present these women at work—dressing models, fashioning magazine pages, and trying to meet the readers’ expectations and avoid criticism—in the fifth chapter of this book. I leave aside fashion/personal style bloggers, because their ability to reach a wider audience is still developing and their position as “alternative” fashion mediators and style arbiters in Islamic fashion is still in the making.

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Leyla Leyla was then a 23-year-old woman who had recently lost her job at a bank. One day she heard from a friend that headscarf-wearing non-professional models were needed for a shoot at the newly launched Islamic fashion magazine Âlâ. (Having faced criticism for this strategy, the magazine would later collaborate only with professional (non-Muslim) models.) That day she was in a playful mood. Reasoning that it could be a colorful one-off event, she decided to take part in the shoot for the third issue of this magazine. That decision changed her life. She recounted, I told myself, “This is a new magazine. Who is going to look at it anyway? I’ll buy an issue and hide it. One day I’ll show the photos to my children and they will thus see what a good looking woman I was in my youth.” But it did not happen that way. At the shoot I met the owners of the magazine. They told me that they were planning to open an e-commerce website and were looking for someone for this project. The job would involve liaising with designers and producers and selecting appropriate clothing and accessories for headscarf-wearing women. A few days later, I got the job. I began on the first of November 2011 and worked really hard. The owners appreciated my dress sense and liked what I selected for the website, so they decided that the position of fashion stylist was more appropriate for me. Then in March 2012 they made me the fashion editor of this magazine. This is how her on-the-job training started. She knew that she had an eye for detail and a flair for combining clothes and creating smart covered outfits. She had veiled herself when she was ten years old, and had been perfecting this dress sense ever since. (She describes herself as a veiled (tesettürlü) woman.) Friends and coworkers admired her style and valued her sartorial advice. However, there were many other things that such a job required. She was “full of ideas, but not really knowledgeable.” The founders of this magazine, who had a background in advertising, proved to be good teachers. On their advice, she read books about fashion, browsed numerous fashion magazines, and watched fashion-centered films and television shows. She familiarized herself with the aesthetics of fashion magazines and acquired knowledge of fashion trends and designer labels. She discussed with them her first articles on the latest fashion trends and prepared together her encounters with local and foreign journalists. She also got valuable ideas about what it meant to work in this sector from the fashion designers, retailers, and photographers whom she collaborated with and advised on the appropriate dress codes and photographic approaches for this type of magazine. Moreover, she gained skills in liaising with people in this sector, sourcing fashion items, and planning the photo shoots. She states, “For

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me Âlâ was indeed a very good school. As they say, you fall, then you get back up and so you learn.” In brief, by working as the fashion editor of this magazine, she enriched her knowledge of fashion and acquired new skills. Nevertheless, this was hardly typical on-the-job training. It was definitely not the kind of job that a young, unmarried headscarf-wearing woman would normally have, with its long hours of work, particular sartorial demands, attendance at numerous social events, and liaising with women and men from outside her usual social milieu. Her mother would not change her opinion that a 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. job at a bank was the best option for her. Only her cousins were thrilled, enthusiastically taking advantage of the deluge of clothes that kept piling up at her home. Leyla had to find ways to deal with very specific sectorial challenges as well. Most clothing companies were not really aware or could not imagine that headscarf-wearing women were interested in fashion. The assumption was that, as pious persons, headscarf-wearing women could not and should not be concerned with fashion. Some companies were not willing to be associated with an Islamic fashion magazine and would not lend her products for the shoots. Most conservative clothing companies were manufacturing unstylish clothes and would dismiss the idea that there was a demand for fashionable covered dress if she brought it up. Photographers were not familiar with the requirements of Islamic modesty and working with covered models. Foreign professional models were not familiar with these requirements either. Sources of inspiration were limited, and many a time what seemed to work in a different Muslim-majority society such as Indonesia or Malaysia was less appropriate for Turkey. Lastly, creating trends in Islamic fashion, not simply following trends in fashion, was one of the most challenging—and rewarding—parts of her job. She remained close to this Islamic fashion magazine, working on and off as its fashion editor. In her words: I had something inside. However, it was Âlâ that brought to the surface its true meaning. . . . Âlâ offered me many opportunities. It provided me with a platform and told me I could do whatever I wanted. The most important thing was to use this platform in a productive and responsible way. In one of our conversations, I asked Leyla what she had learned during her first months of work for this Islamic fashion magazine. This was her reply: Fashion has emerged as a new trend among the conservative segment of the society (muhafazakâr kesim). Fashion has always been part of a woman’s life, but in reality it has not flown into her life, but remained tangential. It has always been on the tip of a woman’s tongue. It has always come up in conversations. But for a long time women would quickly add, “Is this thing possible?” They would repent even for uttering this word and ask God for

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forgiveness. Then this perception changed and people began to accept that women want to be chic and modern. She herself began to reflect upon the notion of fashion, and to reconceptualize her own dress practices as fashion. However, not everyone from the religiously conservative community agreed with and appreciated the kind of work she did as Âlâ’s fashion editor. Particularly saddening for her was the fact that Muslim intellectuals, especially women whom she greatly respected, criticized her for turning veiling from a religious duty into a dress style. (See chapter two of this book.) Leyla was of a different opinion. She considered her work and the magazine itself to be “different as well as brave” and “difficult as well as important.” She guided headscarf-wearing women and helped them satisfy their appetite for fashion in a responsible way. She kept reminding her critics, “‘This is what a woman wants. If she does not see this in this magazine, she will see it on the street and will ask the wearer where she bought that item. This is really an inevitable situation.” This criticism eventually stung less, but, as she emphasizes, would never disappear. In her desire to consolidate her professional identity, Leyla acquired knowledge of fashion and improved her professional skills, trying her hand at writing a blog, taking public speaking lessons, and lecturing on personal style and fashion trends at various social and cultural events. She also worked as a stylist for a TV series in which, for the first time in Turkey, the main character wore a headscarf, and was also the fashion stylist of the second Islamic fashion magazine published in Turkey. In 2014, she studied fashion journalism at Istanbul Fashion Academy. In one of our conversations, she noted that this academy was located in Nis¸antas¸ı, a posh secular neighborhood where she would have not ventured in her teens because of her headscarf. Now she enjoyed the freedom to stroll along its streets and shopping venues. She skillfully used social media, especially Instagram, to portray herself as a beautifully dressed, headscarf-wearing woman, and to thus strengthen her status. She worked with professional photographers almost from the time she opened her Instagram account to ensure the quality of the pictures. She did not permit anyone to share her photographs before she evaluated them aesthetically and before she checked if her body was appropriately covered and her headscarf properly tied. To her great dismay, a few times her followers mistook the edge of the black bonnet under her headscarf for her hairline and left comments criticizing her. Since then she has paid increased attention to this detail. Over the years, the number of followers she has on social media had grown  tremendously.8 She continues to offer personalized advice to young headscarf-wearing women. Some ask for advice on how to enter the sector, while others need advice on how to dress for special occasions. Her advice is 8

At the time of writing, she had 412,000 followers on Instagram (accessed April 17, 2016).

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well appreciated, especially because both fashion forwardness and affordability are taken into consideration in their formulation. This reflects on Leyla’s own modest background and religious upbringing—she lost her father when she was very young and the religious community to which her family belonged helped them overcome many challenges in their lives. Her general recommendation is to refrain from wearing short and form-fitting garments, red lipstick, and not wearing a bonnet under the headscarf. She does not miss an occasion to emphasize that adopting such stylistic elements does not transform the wearer into a modern person, but only demonstrates her ignorance and disregard for the requirements of Islamic modesty. However, as her popularity has grown and an ever-increasing number of designers, producers, and boutique owners have begun to employ her to advertise their products and places, there has been a noticeable shift from sharing sartorial ideas to showing garments and from the display of an individual style to the presentation of a particular kind of style. Since 2015, Leyla has been working as a freelance fashion consultant. She has been modeling garments for many newcomers to this sector, both secular and observant designers and entrepreneurs. She has become a regular guest at fashion events. She proudly introduces herself as the first Islamic fashion editor in Turkey.

Melis At the first fashion photo shoot that she attended in her capacity as the new stylist of the Islamic fashion magazine Âlâ, Melis tightly wrapped a model’s head and neck in a piece of green fabric in her own favorite side-pinned style. Everyone present at the photo shoot, from the photographer to the magazine’s founders and the fashion editor, agreed that the cover photo would feature a picture with this side-pinned headscarf. Melis was over the moon. She shared her moment of glory on social media, posting a photo that showed her at work. She used the following Turkish and English hashtags: #fashion, #muslimhijab, #fashionhijab, #scarfstyling, #styling, #stylist, #stylish, #colourful, #backstage, #instaist, #instafashion, #aladergi (Âlâ magazine), and #smiles. She had landed this job by chance. Upon finishing a course in fashion styling at Istanbul Fashion Academy, she contacted fashion magazines, newspapers, online publications, and e-commerce websites, asking if there were any positions available for someone with her education and work experience. That day, after another unsuccessful visit to a newspaper, she stopped by a mall on her way home. There she saw Leyla (the fashion editor introduced in the previous pages) and seized with both hands that unexpected opportunity to introduce herself to the most popular Islamic fashion editor. She gave Leyla her CV and briefed her on her educational trajectory, internship, and work experience. To her great surprise, the fashion editor invited her to a photo shoot for the next issue of the

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magazine. Melis managed to impress the magazine’s founders with her skills in styling fashionable outfits and her great enthusiasm for work. A formal job offer followed soon after. In the summer of 2014 she started working for the magazine as its fashion stylist.9 Her dream was finally coming true. Or, in the words she used to describe her meeting with Leyla, “Someone finally saw me, heard me, understood me, spoke my language.” This happened after many years during which Melis—now in her late twenties—struggled first to get education in fashion design and styling, and then do the things that she always wanted to do. She noticed that in their memoirs and interviews many designers and other fashion professionals would invoke a moment that played a crucial role in their choice of career. She admitted that she thought about this but could not single out a precise moment. In her case, all those fun days she and her best friend had spent trying to make their own clothes constituted formative experiences. In her words: I had a close friend during my high school years. We would say to each other, “Let’s go to the open-air market and buy this for 3 TL [approx. £1] and that for 5 TL. Let’s sew this on that one, cut the sleeve of this one, add this one to that one and wear this with that one. . . . We bought cheap clothes and fabrics and tried to make something for ourselves. Both our mothers were seamstresses, so we did all these design and sewing projects at home. We did not really know how to make the patterns. We cut and cut and cut until we got better at it. We created our graduation party dresses. . . . Our art teacher helped us improve our drawing skills. This was especially my struggle; my friend was far better than me. She started taking drawing lessons at a private school. I had neither the money nor the talent for this. However, her eagerness inspired me, so I became a girl who always had paper and pencil in her hands, carefully scrutinising pictures and magazines. Somewhat unusually for a man of a religiously conservative background, Melis’s father insisted that his three daughters got the kind of practical education that would allow them to earn a living after finishing it. While her friend prepared for the entrance exam to the best department of fine arts in Istanbul, Melis looked for more accessible educational institutions. An institution of continuing education for women seemed the best choice for her. She searched for information on courses in fashion design and prepared for the entrance exam. However, she

9

At the time of writing, Melis no longer works for Âlâ. She is the fashion designer for a small clothing company. In addition, after making a name for herself at this magazine, she easily finds work as a freelance style consultant.

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failed to secure a place for herself at the school of her choice. She decided to sit the exam again in the next academic year and use the gap year to acquire other useful education. In her words: “I immediately lowered my standards and registered at a state-run school of handicrafts.” As at that time there were no places available for the three-month course in dressmaking, she registered for a course in lace making instead. The bobbins she received at the beginning of the course remained untouched, for she spent those three months trying to find out what was taught in the course on dressmaking and asking for teachers’ opinions on her drawings and ideas. The next year she was the first to be admitted to the two-year course on fashion design at an institution of continuing education for women. She reflects on this experience: “This could be called either ambition or stubbornness. I was the one who did the best overlock stitch. I learnt how to use the sewing machine like no other student. I was the best pattern maker. I was the best student at everything they taught us there.” At the end of the first year, she had earned the highest marks in her class. In this two-year course, the second year would be spent in an internship at a clothing company of the student’s choice. Melis was accepted by one of the most prestigious fashion brands in Turkey. As she related: I poked my nose into all the departments, trying to understand not only what they did, but also how they recorded these activities. I was like a sponge, trying to absorb everything. Many times I stayed overnight to work, choosing the fabrics for a new collection, preparing reports on colour differences or deciding what the best material for shoulder padding was. . . . I used their shuttle to travel between my neighbourhood and the company’s premises. I had to walk for a few minutes from the shuttle stop to their building through a parking space. I would hide behind a taller car, uncover my hair and enter the building without my headscarf. I would later put my headscarf back in a similar manner. I did not wear the clothes that this company produced—they were far beyond my budget—but my clothes were normal and unassuming. I dressed nicely in affordable clothes in my own style. I’m sure someone from the company saw me putting on my headscarf and then spread the word. Two or three months before the end of my internship, a friend of mine from the production department announced that she was leaving the company to follow her husband to a different city. Rumour had it that they would hire me for this post. They actually asked me to do most of her duties. While the other interns were leaving, they prolonged my internship to allow me to learn all I needed from her. I was quite hopeful. I kept telling myself: “I will remain here for sure.” Because the environment there is different, those corridors have a different atmosphere. Each corridor is like a labyrinth. Something takes place in this corner. The photo shoot is in that corner. It’s like a dream. It’s so beautiful that you don’t want to go back home. It’s special. It makes you feel

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special. It’s the best place I have ever seen. My internship ended, but I was not offered a job there. I was kicked out because I was veiled (tesettürlü). I did not utter a single word there about my faith or my political views. They simply did not want a veiled employee in those corridors. Upon finishing her two-year program in fashion design, Melis worked for small textile and clothing companies either as a designer or stylist. These were always short-term contracts, either because the company owners only hired designers on this sort of contract or because Melis herself decided to leave places that did not professionally satisfy her or did not pay well. She recounted, Many of these people used to own a stall in an open-air market. Then they established their companies. Nothing else changed. You then come and try to show what fashion is to these people. You speak about trends in fabrics and colours. But all this is in vain. They think that pyjamas can only be blue, pink and beige. After she got married, her husband helped her transform a room in their flat into a workshop. Melis spread her fashion magazines all over the house. She showed him social media posts and they discussed garments and businesses. (She was an avid follower of the headscarf-wearing designers and fashion editors on social media.) Relatives and friends sometimes asked her to make garments for them or modify ready-made garments to suit their tastes and/ or religious interpretations of covered dress. When she could not secure any kind of job, she would work as a domestic home cleaner. She could thus contribute at least from time to time to the family budget. Her father kept nagging her to give up looking for a decent job in this sector. Fashion design was simply not an option for a headscarf-wearing woman of her background. He kept reminding her that even her better-off and uncovered high school friend struggled, despite having a degree in interior design from a prestigious university of fine arts. While Melis studied styling at Istanbul Fashion Academy, his criticism peaked. She likened these years to a long nightmare. The job at Âlâ came at the right moment, just as she was contemplating giving up her dream for the first time. This position allowed her to prove herself and make her name known in this sector.

The democratization of fashion In this sector, collaboration between different actors is crucial. Designers lend clothes to fashion magazines, their openness or fussiness depending on the popularity of these magazines. Or, conversely, they try to convince magazines

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to use their clothes in fashion spreads, their requests being met with openness or fussiness depending on their status. Fashion editors pen collection reviews and share social media posts that have an impact on the popularity and salability of these garments. They can be rewarded with gifts, samples, and revenue in return for their help. Relationships take the form of economically rewarding collaborations. Competition structures the relationship between different actors in this sector as well. A struggle for legitimation takes place especially between established actors and newcomers. The uneven distribution of distinct forms of capital— economic, social, and cultural capital—translates into an internal hierarchical differentiation, some actors occupying dominant positions while others inhabit the margins. However, these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are not only preoccupied with defining and occupying particular positions in the sector with the help of their collaborators, and at the expense of their competitors. They are also interested in strengthening their relationships with other headscarf-wearing fashion professionals. In this competitive and crowded sector, these headscarfwearing fashion professionals collectively position themselves as economic actors who possess a peculiar “ethico-aesthetic sensibility” (George 2009) and the appropriate religious capital and, equally important, belong to the same community as their clientele. They are also interested in forging a sense of community. On numerous occasions during my fieldwork, I heard headscarf-wearing fashion professionals talking about “our community” (bizim camia). They would specify that such-andsuch headscarf-wearing designer, editor, stylist, journalist, magazine owner, or blogger, whom they met, helped, or befriended, was from “our community.” They also supported each other.10 Among the Islamic fashion professionals introduced in this chapter, designer Sedef, for example, has organized a series of events called “meetings with Sedef” at which she and her guests, well-known headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, shared their sartorial considerations with young headscarf-wearing women. She has also shared on social media pictures of herself wearing other designers’ clothes. Designer Ece has penned flattering articles about other headscarf-wearing designers and chronicled the opening of fashion boutiques for headscarf-wearing women. A fashion media professional helped designer Duygu to enter this sector. Designer Fusun has periodically invited all the popular headscarf-wearing fashion professionals to brunches at her atelier. She has also attended Gonca’s events, for she thought 10

Between 2012 and 2014, when I did my fieldwork, the core group was relatively small, somewhere between fifteen and twenty headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, most of them living in Istanbul. My estimation is based on popularity on social media and regular presence at events organized by Islamic fashion magazines, major retailers, established clothing companies and the fast-growing e-commerce companies that specialized in fashionable Islamic dress.

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that this younger designer had been unfairly criticized for her decision to take up the veil. As these examples demonstrate, these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals have modeled each other’s creations and promoted the creations of friends and colleagues through various media channels. They have attended each other’s professional and personal events, announcing this participation on social media. The hashtag “#herkesgeldi (everyone came) is a common way of publicizing this reciprocal support. They have also named fellow fashion professionals in media materials focused primarily on them. This is welcomed as mutually beneficial cross-posting, as well as community reinforcement. Online connectivity is also used as a means of extending this social capital, with or without the expectation that offline meetings or online collaborations will follow. Some of the more established designers have sought to institutionalize this support as well. In October 2013, the Association of Conservative Designers (MUTAD) was founded. In July 2015, the Foundation of Designers and Textile Entrepreneurs (TATEG) was formed. Their missions are similar, that is, to help headscarf-wearing entrepreneurs develop their businesses in the growing local and international market for pious Muslim consumers.11 They have also encouraged other headscarf-wearing women to launch their businesses, offering practical advice, organizing workshops, and presenting their businesses at career-oriented events. All these fashion professionals share a common goal, that is, to democratize fashion. In the Turkish context, the democratization of fashion means something more specific than its availability to all echelons of society. In conceptual terms, it refers to the arguments that headscarf-wearing women can be interested in fashion and that headscarf-wearing women can become fashion professionals. In material and visual terms, it involves the creation of garments with a high design input for headscarf-wearing women from different walks of life, the dissemination of sartorial advices for headscarf-wearing women and the cultivation of their abilities to create individual styles within the requirements of veiling. In their words, this goal is to help headscarf-wearing women learn how to forge “a style of their own” (stil sahibi olmak), to look “pleasant, chic and elegant” (hos¸ , s¸ ık ve zarif), and to become “confident modern women who follow fashion trends” (modern, trendleri takip eden ve kendine güvenen kadınlar). To paraphrase Jones (2010a:  99), in so describing these women, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals call them into being.

11

To my knowledge, some members in the board of these associations are also members of MÜSIAD (the Association of Independent Industrialists and Businessmen), which reunites religiously conservative businesspersons. In these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals’ emphasis on community (bizim camia) there might be influences from MÜSIAD’s definition of its members as service-producing and solidaristic participants in an economic organization, and not competing self-interested economic actors.

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They are also aware that this common project also depends on their mutual support and reciprocal construction as fashion professionals. Without designers, clothes do not become fashion. Without fashion media professionals, the designers cannot reach a wide audience and their clothes are not recognized as fashionable. Moreover, they know that this mutual help prepares them to face the challenges of a competitive sector, in which other actors possess betterdeveloped design skills, manufacturing capacities, marketing budgets, and distribution networks. Furthermore, they recognize that their mutual support better allows them to challenge the established conservative clothing companies, run mostly by men, who hold aesthetically unappealing understandings of what covered garments should look like yet claim to know what Islamically appropriate garments must look like. And finally, they understand that together they can better deal with criticisms from both within the religious conservative community and secular observers. This community has been forged in response to the network of power relationships that its members enter as women, headscarfwearing women, and headscarf-wearing fashion professionals.

5 FASHIONABLE GARMENTS Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are the most active contributors to the current formulation of new aesthetics in this sector. This chapter explores their contribution to the making of fashionable garments for observant Muslim women. There is, however, an inherent limitation in this ethnographic strategy: it is a collection of “fixed” fashion moments (Woodward and Fisher 2014). These moments were “extracted” from very dynamic processes of experimentation and innovation. The selection is related not only to their popularity between 2012 and 2014, when I carried out my research, but also to the frequency with which they appeared in my conversations. By the time the reader discovers them in the pages of this book, some might already be outdated. The chapter also offers glimpses at a process of qualification. These headscarf-wearing fashion professionals describe certain garments and combinations of garments as “beautiful,” “stylish,” “fashionable,” and “modern.” They not only refer to their material properties, but also express a positive response to them, communicate their aesthetic ideas, and suggest that other headscarf-wearing women, if not all observers, respond in the same way to them. Their claims are simultaneously descriptive, expressive, and normative (Goldman 1990). These fashion professionals facilitate and, more importantly, demonstrate on their bodies the transformation of fashion from an aesthetic discourse into everyday dress (Entwistle 2000). These garments are designed and evaluated with reference to religious requirements and ethical considerations, and not only aesthetic criteria. This chapter fleshes out the criticisms of Islamic fashion with presentations of particular material and stylistic characteristics that provoke and sustain it. In addition, it presents the opinions of these fashion professionals about the notion, products, and practices of Islamic fashion. And finally, it explores the particular relationship between aesthetics and ethics that they put forward in response to this criticism.

Aesthetics: Experimentation Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals experiment with various aesthetic elements and invite their customers, social media followers, and media readers to consider, if not adopt, their ideas.

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“Multi-coloured” During my fieldwork, fuchsia pink, cobalt blue, “pomegranate flower,” powder pink, emerald green, and mustard yellow were very popular colors among headscarf-wearing women. While previously headscarves were patterned and colorful, and overcoats were in muted colors, nowadays the reverse trend is popular, with colorful and patterned outerwear being combined with solidcolored shawls. In one of our conversations, a headscarf-wearing designer declared, “Praise be to God, we are now free to use any colour we want.” In a social media post, another headscarf-wearing designer claimed that “for a long time, designers from our community (i.e., headscarf-wearing fashion designers) were afraid to use vivid colours” and thanked everyone for responding positively to her preference for contrasting bright colors. Many of my interlocutors used the word “multi-coloured” (rengârenk) to describe the clothing collections for and the personal wardrobes of headscarf-wearing women. This infusion of color is one of the most notable recent changes in the sector.

Styling the headscarf The requirement that the headscarf completely covers the hair, forehead, neck, and ears is one of the core elements of the Islamic revival movement’s interpretation of veiling. Over the years, this requirement has largely remained consistent. In practice, this requirement is achieved through a series of acts. The hair, if it is long, is gathered into a bun at the back of the head. Depending on the desired shape and volume, tasseled hair doughnuts and flower-clips can be put around the bun and, moreover, bands, pads, and other paraphernalia can be added to create a particular silhouette under the headscarf. Then the head is covered with a bonnet that fits tightly around the contours of the head. The bonnet is fastened at the nape of the neck and the hair at the front is carefully tucked under it. Then the headscarf is put over the bonnet and is tightly tied around the head and neck. And finally, depending on the fabric and desired style, pins might be used to secure the headscarf to the bonnet and under the chin. Women experiment with sizes, volumes, shapes, and styles. When I conducted this research, young women usually wore rectangular headscarves (şal), the two most popular ways of tying them being called by a headscarf-wearing fashion editor “the classic style” [see Figure 1] and, respectively, the “Arab style” [see Figure 2]. In the first case, the wrapping of the shawl requires the following acts: first the shawl is placed over the inner bonnet. The part that surrounds the face is folded a few centimeters inward. The cloth is centered length-wise at the top of the forehead. The sides of the shawl are draped over the shoulders and then crossed over the neck, putting the left side

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to the right and the right side to the left, and tying them together at the nape of the neck. If the nape of the neck is not completely covered, the two floating sides can be twisted over the neck once more and then tucked inside the fold at the back of the head. In the second case, the rectangular piece of cloth is placed over the top of the forehead, with one side hanging down twice as low as the other. The long end of the shawl is wrapped round the chin and over the head, and then draped over the shoulder. The short end is pinned onto the bonnet and wrapped round the front of the neck or placed over the chest. The cloth can be arranged around the head in different ways, the property of fabric—thick, stiff, thin, flowing, or slippery—playing an important role in these compositions. Older women preferred the square-shaped headscarf (eşarp). This is folded in half into a triangle, with the widest part of the triangle being laid at the top of the forehead. The two corners are draped over the shoulders and wrapped around the neck. Women are very creative when it comes to tying the corners of the headscarf around the neck. They also use decorative pins and brooches to fasten the headscarves. In the recent period, some young women have begun to disregard the requirement to completely cover the hair, forehead, neck, and ears. They do not wear a bonnet under their headscarf, thus exposing the hairline. They do not tightly wrap and pin the headscarf around the face and the neck, baring thus a part of their neck and/or the earlobes. As will be discussed later in this chapter, these stylistic changes are strongly criticized.

Figure 1 The “classic” wrapping style. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ.

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Fabrics and their styling potential The use of a wide range of fabrics in the manufacture of headscarves has resulted in an increased preoccupation with their stylistic potential. Discussing, posting, and asking for advice on fabrics and styles have become an integral part of the Islamic fashion media. One blogger shared with her followers the results of her experiments. In one post, she discusses crêpe satin. She points out that the soft and slippery crêpe satin required many pins and dexterity to fasten, but its shininess increased the brightness of colors. She recommended it for festive occasions, in combination with clothes made out of differently colored satin fabrics for a maximum effect. In another post, she remarked that twill felt uneven and rough to the hand but it was precisely this stiffness that enabled it to be draped in wide folds and relatively fixed forms. She advised her readers to use this fabric if they wanted to create the popular elongated voluminous forms. In addition, twill was particularly suitable for creating a modern, sporty, and youthful look, in combination with three-quarter-length cardigans, loose trousers, and Converse shoes. In yet another post, she focused on silk and cotton blends, which were thin and delicate fabrics that she found especially suitable for the hot summer months. She personally liked to wear them together with loose, flowing cotton and linen pieces and flat shoes. The result was a graceful romantic appearance. A fashion designer, to give another example, informed her social media followers that she had decided to wear chiffon silk shawls that summer.

Figure 2 The “Arab” wrapping style. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ.

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Figure 3 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: S¸ eyma ALAN CIVAN.

This was a personal twist on the trend that had turned silk into the fabric that most headscarf-wearing women coveted. In addition, the designer offered advice on how one could make her own chiffon silk shawl. The first piece of advice was to choose a patterned fabric. A non-patterned model was less appropriate for a headscarf-wearing woman, because chiffon was a see-through fabric that could reveal the cloth bonnet underneath and, even worse, the neck and hair. The pattern would make the fabric less transparent. The second piece of advice was regarding the appropriate size. She suggested 180 centimeters in length and 80 centimeters in width, so that the wearer could be sure that her head and neck were properly covered and that there was enough fabric left to wind it around the head in various forms. Finally, as chiffon unraveled easily, she recommended an overlocked hem. Islamic fashion media, from fashion magazines to style blogs, abounds in such considerations and advice.

Styling the overcoat The diversification of outerwear is another notable change in the sector [see Figure 3]. In shops and on shopping websites, an ever-growing number of items are included in this category: pardesü (an ankle- or floor-length loose overcoat, which comes in thicker and thinner fabrics suitable for all seasons); kap (a category that can

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include long items such as wraps, duster coats, cardigans, and draped coats and more form-fitting types of pardesü); kaban (a more form-fitting and shorter type of pardesü); mont (sportswear shorter coats, such as parkas and duffel coats); panço (capes and ponchos); trençkot (trench coats); ceket (jackets and blazers); yelek (sleeveless cardigans, dusters, and jackets); kaftan (a category that can include long caftan dresses, kimono-inspired pieces, and short loose pieces with wide sleeves); and ferace (a long loose dress). These different types of outerwear—and their less or more voluminous shapes, asymmetrical or symmetrical cuts, flowing or stiff fabrics, folds, pleats, yokes, frills, or ribbons—introduce new silhouettes into the public sphere, eliminating the stylistic monotony of the combination of oversized headscarf and loose full-length overcoat.

Ferace Ferace is the name of a long loose dress that is buttoned at the front from neck to hemline. This was a common item of outerwear in the Ottoman Empire. In the late nineteenth century, observant Muslim women replaced it with the allenveloping çarşaf, at that time considered a modern form of outdoor garment (Toprak 1998). In its turn, the çarşaf became not only outdated, but also ideologically undesirable in the newly established republic and was replaced by tailored overcoats (pardesü) (Altınay 2013a; Adak 2014). In the recent period, the ferace has been resurrected in the wardrobes of observant Muslim women. This item of dress has been promoted in the Islamic fashion media. An issue of the Islamic fashion magazine Âlâ included a fashion spread entitled “Ferace: The symbol of nobility.” The text explained that ferace was a word of Arabic origin, formed through the combination of two verbs, that is, “to open” and, respectively, “to bring comfort.” For centuries this garment had been the outerwear of elite men and women in the Ottoman Empire. However, the word has disappeared from the modern Turkish vocabulary, and this garment has been rarely, if ever, seen in the public sphere in the republican era. In an Islamic newspaper, a veiled journalist noted the increasing popularity of this type of head-to-toe outerwear, especially among women who lived in the conservative neighborhoods of Istanbul. She reckoned that these women learned from the Arab tourists, who were more likely to use this type of outerwear, that ferace was not only practical, but also stylish. She pointed out that many companies were catching onto this trend and offering the ferace in a variety of colors and fabrics. She interpreted this stylistic diversity as an attempt to avoid association with the black abaya, another garment associated with the Arabs and that many religious people link with fundamentalism. This publicity has not necessarily resulted in commercial success. A few months after she launched her business, I met a veiled designer (tesettürlü) who entered

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the sector with a large collection of ferace, from simple models in breathable and easy-to-maintain fabrics for everyday use to exquisite hand-embroidered pieces for special occasions. She initially thought that she had found a lucrative niche. She assumed that this type of outdoor garment would become a trusty staple in the wardrobe of fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women. To her mind, the ferace stylistically resembled the widespread overcoat (pardesü), but did not carry its current derogatory connotation as a garment for older and poor women. In addition, in her opinion, the ferace conceptually represented fashion. In the West, it has long been categorized as, in her words, “Islamic chic” and occasionally presented on the catwalks. However, at the time of our meeting, she had already begun to expand her range of products: the ferace had not been as popular as she expected. On numerous occasions, I heard my headscarf-wearing interlocutors trying to ascertain the popularity of this item of dress. A long-term user of the ferace, one headscarf-wearing fashion designer reported that in Istanbul she had often been taken for a visiting Arab woman. This may be because, although most of these women had at least one ferace in their wardrobes, they mainly used them as outdoor garments when they performed the Umrah1 and on festive occasions (e.g., it could be easily put over revealing dresses at all-female henna parties). This limited usage was related to its problematic Arab appearance. They claimed that in most everyday occasions they preferred to don the more Europeanlooking tunics, jackets, flowing wraps, and trench coats.

Peplums and padded shoulders The peplum, a trendy design detail in the mainstream fashion, was incorporated in clothes for headscarf-wearing women as well. Gathered strips of fabric were added at the waist of blouses, jackets, skirts, and dresses. In a conversation about that year’s trends, my interlocutor, a headscarf-wearing woman who worked for an Islamic fashion magazine, pointed out that “many of our designers [i.e., headscarf-wearing fashion designers] love peplums.” When asked to explain this stylistic preference, this fashion professional stated that headscarfwearing women’s garments were supposed to hide the body shape. Peplums contributed to the achievement of this desired overall effect. She also declared herself to be particularly pleased with peplums, pointing out that through them the frills and the thrills of fashion entered headscarf-wearing women’s wardrobes. In contrast to such enthusiastic usage of this trendy design detail, other designers selected details that helped them construct a signature style. One

1

The Umrah is a pilgrimage to Mecca that can be performed by Muslims at any time of the year, in contrast to the Hajj, which can only be undertaken on the twelfth month of the Islamic lunar calendar.

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headscarf-wearing fashion designer turned a combination of slim waistlines and exaggerated shoulders into her signature style. She designed blouses with long sleeves and dresses with a jewel neckline, fitted-in sleeves, a slim waistline, and a flared skirt. In both cases, she used pleated and padded shoulders. When asked to explain this stylistic preference, the designer claimed that these exaggerated shoulders created a dignified, upright feminine appearance. This best suited headscarf-wearing women, for once they had been insulted, humiliated, beaten, and stopped at the gates of their schools and universities, and only recently had regained their rightful place in society.2 These two examples illustrate a common practice in the design of garments for headscarf-wearing women: past and present trends from the mainstream (secular) fashion are scrutinized and transferable design details are incorporated. Islamic fashion is constructed in relation with mainstream (secular) fashion. Nevertheless, as these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals find inspiration in past and present Western and Eastern sartorial repertoires, Islamic fashion does not rely on imitation of mainstream fashion to be considered modern.

“Retro tesettür” A few headscarf-wearing fashion designers are known for their use of “retro” details in their creations—a usage that is both proclaimed and recognized. One veiled designer (tesettürlü), for example, titled her first collection “Return to Self” and explained on her blog that this collection materialized her enchantment with the more “authentic life” of the Turkish province. To get inspiration for this collection, she studied family photo albums from her ancestral home town—a small industrial town on the Black Sea coast—and watched period films, especially those that portrayed life in the provincial Turkey of the 1940s and 1950s. (Women veiled in accordance with the revivalist interpretation of veiling do not appear in such films.) She selected particular stylistic details, gave them a modern twist, and integrated them into her creations. She expressed her hope that her collection would attract the attention of those interested in “timeless designs.” Another covered designer (kapalı) wrote a piece about the meaning of “retro” for an Islamic fashion magazine. The designer explained that “retro” meant born-again fashion and referred to contemporary fashion styles that were adapted from the popular fashions of past periods. She suggested Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, and Dita Von Teese as “iconic figures” for this style. This designer’s latest collection was reviewed in an Islamic newspaper

2

Although the designer did not use this historical reference, it is worth mentioning that in the early republican period, the upright silhouette, which the corset enabled, was highly appreciated. It manifested in aesthetic terms a woman’s modernity (Şeni 1995).

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in an article entitled “She can’t give up retro.” The designer was quoted as saying, “I believe that timeless pieces, which carry the traces of the past, are more valuable than items that excessively follow the latest trends in fashion.” The journalist identified the fashion trends of the 1970s as her main source of inspiration. In both cases, the exemplification of “retro style” included elements such as earthy tones, soft fabrics, leather belts, copper-colored accessories, wooden buttons, polka-dot prints, frilly dresses, voluminous tunics, bias-cut skirts, round collars, bow collars, ribbons, thick round eyeglass frames, Oxford shoes, and floral prints. In an article for an Islamic newspaper on the latest developments in the sector, a veiled journalist (tesettürlü) mentioned these two designers. On the list of key words for this article, the journalist included the English terms “hijab style” and “hijab wear,” and the Turkish term “retro tesettür” (retro veiling). In one of our conversations, she explained that she had coined this last term “retro tesettür” to attract attention to the adaptation of inspirations from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s in the design of garments for headscarf-wearing women. A few newcomers to this sector have employed similar aesthetics, creating garments and visuals that betray a nostalgia for the fashion trends of the recent past. However, the term “retro tesettür” has not become a popular label for these material and visual forms.

The minimalist look In media and on social media, a few headscarf-wearing fashion professionals argue that a modern appearance can only be minimalist. They discuss what they take to be the core principle of minimalism: “Less is more.” They praise the simplicity of forms, the valorization of fabrics, the sleekness of silhouettes, and timelessly classic yet consciously contemporary pieces. Their self-proclaimed mission is to familiarize observant Muslim women with these simple design lines and, eventually, convince them to adopt them. In the words of one designer, “They have yet to learn that design does not necessarily mean something showy.” Or, in the words of another designer, “Pious people do not have this culture of the ‘little black dress,’ that is, a simple piece that they can wear on a multitude of occasions. This is what I do for them: I teach them the beauty of simple design.” They predict that one day all women will love simple clothing in modern lines that do not date or look tired. Many other headscarf-wearing fashion professionals share this dislike for highly embellished and heavily accessorized headscarves and garments. However, they do not like the kind of simple clothes that the designers in love with minimalism promote. They are confident that the majority of their customers would not like these simple garments as well.

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Aesthetics: Innovation In recent years, new types of garments have been featured in Islamic fashion media and have entered the wardrobes of fashionably dressed headscarfwearing women.

Solid-colored shawls The solid-colored shawl has become young women’s favorite type of headscarf, its popularity confirmed by the observable high number of wearers and the discussions on social media. One headscarf-wearing fashion designer, for example, informs her followers that this is the most comfortable headscarf, one that it takes her a few minutes to put on and on which she can rely all day and in different social circumstances. Other young headscarf-wearing fashion professionals point out that the somewhat stiffer silk fabric of these shawls enables the creation of aesthetically pleasing folds and shapes. In the words of a covered fashion designer (kapalı), “I simply love the rectangular-shaped scarf. It can be modeled into a very aesthetic simple shape.” They also assert that it can be combined with patterned garments, as a reversal of the previous combination of patterned squared headscarves and monochrome overcoats. A headscarfwearing style blogger claims that this is the crucial component of a “modern wardrobe” because it can be combined with the “colourful, vivacious garments” in “modern designs” that nowadays headscarf-wearing women prefer. The solidcolored shawl, through its practicality, simplicity, and versatility, responds to the demands of a modern lifestyle.

Tunics Another staple in the wardrobe of headscarf-wearing women is the tunic [see Figure 4]. A headscarf-wearing contributor to an Islamic fashion magazine states that the long and loose tunic is a “real wardrobe saviour” for “conservative woman” (muhafazakâr hanım) because it suits all sizes and all body types. In addition, the more religiously conservative woman, who had previously shied away from trousers, can now wear them in combination with a long tunic. The tunic covers precisely that part of the body shape highlighted by trousers. One headscarf-wearing woman claims that this item became popular with the launch of the Islamic fashion magazine Âlâ. In her words, “Âlâ taught us how to expand our wardrobes and dress elegantly. Before Âlâ appeared, we all looked the same on the street, in our overcoats and headscarves.” In recent years, a wide range of long tunics, boyfriend shirts, and other oversized shirts have become

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available. Typically, all the weight of fashion is concentrated in a new cut, pattern, color, and design detail.

Fashionable skirts and trousers In an interview for an Islamic newspaper, one veiled designer (tesettürlü) was asked about the wardrobe essentials in Islamically appropriate clothing (tesettür giyim). The designer replied, “For veiled ladies (tesettürlü hanımlar), irrespective of season and trend, long skirts, long dresses, tunics, overcoats, silk blouses and silk scarves represent wardrobe essentials. This season the must-have items are high-waisted skirts, wide-leg trousers, bright solid-coloured silk shawls and small purses.” Long skirts and trousers are staples in a headscarfwearing woman’s wardrobe. However, in the last years, new types of skirts have become popular, as designers have reworked models from mainstream fashion, modifying and adapting their shapes and lengths to suit headscarf-wearing women’s religiously motivated needs. The most popular models are ankle-

Figure 4 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Gul Begin Aida MUSTAFA.

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length straight and pencil skirts, and, for more formal occasions, floor-length tutus and fishtail skirts. Trousers too have recently become a common item of dress in headscarf-wearing women’s wardrobes, from wide-leg trousers that are worn in combination with shorter blouses or jackets to slim-fit trousers worn in combination with long tunics or cardigans.

Festive aesthetics The cover of the first issue of Âlâ featured a model wearing an outfit in powderpink shantung and black lace. The dress had a high jewel neckline, mutton sleeves, a fitted bodice, and a floor-length flared skirt. The bodice was covered in black lace, while a wide sash made of the same powder-pink fabric was tied around the waist and a lace peplum extended to the hip line. The model carried a dolly bag and wore black lace gloves. Her head was covered with a shawl made from the same powder-pink fabric. A flat black lace floral brooch was attached to her headscarf, covering almost completely the left side of her head. The veiled designer (tesettürlü) of this outfit recounted that she had created it for a young woman’s engagement party. She emphasized that she had never designed such “an innocent dress” before. She had been struck by the young woman’s ingenuous character and sought to transmit something of this innocence through the outfit. She also pointed out that the resulting outfit perfectly suited an observant Muslim woman [see Figure 5]. She borrowed the dress and the accessories from this woman for the fashion photo shoot. To her great pleasure, the editorial team selected this outfit for the cover of their first issue. The designer claimed that the dress became a hit, being endlessly reproduced by seamstresses and aspiring headscarf-wearing fashion designers. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals like this designer have contributed to the formulation of festive aesthetics for headscarf-wearing women. For a long time, headscarf-wearing women, especially those on a relatively limited budget who searched for ready-made dresses, had had limited options. More often than not, they had to layer garments, the most common combinations being stretchy turtleneck underneath a long sleeveless and a bolero jacket over a long sleeveless dress. This type of layering was aesthetically not very pleasing. In addition, it was not comfortable, as women constantly worried whether their bodies were properly covered. In recent years, the offerings have been diversified, these women being offered covered dresses (abiye) and wedding dresses (tesettür or kapalı gelinlik) in showy models, shiny fabrics, and glittering accessories. In addition, a multitude of models of festive head coverings are now available, especially the bride’s head (gelin başı), which is made of large shiny scarves, shaped by stitches and pins, and embellished with crowns, birdcage veils, flowers, ribbons, lace, tulle, or beads.

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Aesthetics: Ideals Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals aim to help their customers, social media followers, and media readers to recognize what is “in fashion,” and to learn how fashionability can be achieved through selecting the right clothing and wearing it competently. Toward this aim, they formulate particular aesthetic ideals and present them in the Islamic fashion media.

“The right headscarf” Headscarves come in a huge variety of colors and patterns. Though florals predominate, there are also, to name just a few, abstract geometrics, paisleys, brocade details, leopard prints, scenic paintings, and distorted and oversized patterns. My own experience of feeling aesthetically overwhelmed in a scarf shop prompted me to ask my interlocutors how they chose their headscarves. They explained that ideally complexion, color of the eyes, and shape of the face, as well as the colors, patterns, and fabrics of the garments were taken into consideration. In addition, the shopper also took into consideration her social life and its requirements and circumstances. Advice could be easily obtained before the actual shopping from fashion bloggers and e-magazines oriented at headscarf-wearing women, as well as on the spot from friends, fellow shoppers, and shop assistants. A veiled designer (tesettürlü) recommended that I watch a series of short video tutorials that she had prepared for a local TV channel. In each of these tutorials, the designer addressed one or more of the following questions: “How should we coordinate the colour, pattern and fabric of the scarf with the colour, pattern and fabric of the clothes?” “How should we coordinate the colours of the headscarf with the colour of the inner cloth bonnet?” “What should be worn with clothes made from silk?” “How could we better make use of the contrast effect?” “What kind of scarf should we use with light-coloured garments?” “What kind of scarf should we use with dark coloured garments?” “What should we pay attention to when using scarves in large prints?” “How about scarves in shiny fabrics?” “Should we also take into account the pattern of the scarf when tying it?” “What should women who wear glasses take into account when choosing their scarf?” “How can we match the glasses with the scarf?” “Should the frame of the glasses necessarily match the colour of the scarf?” “What should we pay attention to when using sunglasses?” “How should we decide what scarf to use for special occasions?” In each tutorial, she offered a few examples of well-balanced outfits. She explained to me that symmetry and harmony were the aesthetic values that guided the selection of, in her words, “the right headscarf.”

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Figure 5 Engagement outfit. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ.

“Düzgün” Whenever I met this veiled designer (tesettürlü) in a public place, I could not help but compliment her on her beautifully arranged headscarf. On only one occasion, I also wondered aloud how her sunglasses could stay in place on her head all day long. This was a very popular practice, contributing, I was told, to the overall modern appearance. The bigger the sunglasses, the trendier the wearer seemed to be. I assumed that the designer’s long hair was gathered into a coil at the back of the head, that a bun doughnut was used to add volume, and that everything was fastened together under the bonnet. I could understand that a piece of cloth had been placed above the forehead to create a rounded shape. Sometimes this scarf band or the margin of the bonnet was visible under the headscarf. I presumed that the intention was to create a complementary or contrasting effect

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between their colors and the colors of the headscarf. I could guess when a padded bonnet was used or other layers were put underneath the cloth bonnet so that the bun stayed raised and everything formed a nicely shaped bulge at the back of the head. The designer explained to me that this was meant to enhance the overall aesthetic effect: when wearing square-shaped patterned scarves, the pattern would be thus more visible; when wearing rectangular-shaped scarves, the fabric could be better folded around the head and neck. The bonnet was the base on which the scarf was secured with pins. The fabric was carefully wrapped around the head, neck, and face so that not a single hair and none of the neck was visible. I admired the harmonious coordination of colors, patterns, and fabrics. In the designer’s words, her headscarf was düzgün. This word can be translated as well arranged, well proportioned, and neat. Many of my interlocutors pointed out that they wanted their headscarves to be düzgün.

Harmony Fashion professionals emphasize that the basic rule a headscarf-wearing woman should respect is careful coordination of colors and patterns. The simplest way is to combine either solid-colored headscarves with colorful and patterned garments or colorful and patterned headscarves with solid-colored garments. They invite their readers and social media followers to submit photographs of outfits, and discuss their strong and weak points. (These are usually disembodied outfits, that is, the clothes and accessories are spread on a flat surface and photographed.) They regularly publish advice and visuals on how to assemble stylish outfits and harmonize different colors and patterns. Headscarf-wearing fashion bloggers have turned the “outfit posts” into a routine as well. These are blog posts in which they discuss their outfits and present pictures of themselves wearing them (often imitating fashion-models’ poses).

“A modern look” “A modern look” is one of the key aesthetic ideals that headscarf-wearing fashion professionals advocate. This “modern look” was defined through what not to do—which was usually to follow older forms of veiling. For example, in an interview for an online magazine, one veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) emphasized that “veiled women do not have to dress like their grandmothers,” and specified that she was referring to the combination of full-length overcoat and oversized headscarf. In an interview for a liberal newspaper, one headscarfwearing fashion designer commented: “The First Lady is criticised because her veiling is too modern. But if you are the First Lady, you cannot put on a çarşaf and walk around dressed like that. Especially when you go abroad and represent

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the country.” Çarşaf is an older form of veiling, an all-enveloping black cloak similar to the Iranian chador. In addition, the opposite of this “modern look” can be described as garments that use traditional dress as a source of inspiration. In reply to a non-covered TV presenter who asked if she got her inspiration from Anatolian dress and Ottoman costumes, one headscarf-wearing fashion designer explained that “headscarf-wearing women have gotten terribly bored with such garments. They’re in search of a bit more modern lines.” The TV presenter had exhibited a common tendency to associate veiling with the past. There are also other ways to define what “a modern look” represents. One modality is to claim that this is undoubtedly a European look. As one headscarf-wearing fashion blogger emphasized, “Nowadays, young [headscarf-wearing] women look more European. It is only their headscarf that distinguishes them from their peers.” Another modality is to state that this “modern look” is necessarily the work of a fashion designer. As one headscarfwearing fashion blogger remarked, “For a long time, design in clothing for the religiously conservative societal segment [muhafazakâr kesim] had been synonymous with tunics and elastic-waist skirts. The young designers [i.e., headscarf-wearing fashion designers] finally create for us clothes in modern lines.” Although there is no single definition of what this look is—the previous paragraphs have also demonstrated that there is not and cannot be a unified aesthetics in clothing for headscarf-wearing women—the “modern look” is one of the main ideals that guides the current aestheticization of covered garments.

Ethics The wearers and observers of these garments respond not only to their material properties and forms, and to the aesthetic considerations put forward by their creators and mediators, but also to their correspondence with the prevailing interpretations of veiling and the ethical implications of their making and marketing. A headscarf-wearing designer posted on her Facebook account this message: “Veiling is more beautiful when it is aesthetic.” A headscarf-wearing follower replied swiftly, “What makes veiling more beautiful is not aesthetics. It is conformity with [Quranic] verses.” As this example demonstrates, some of the responses are critical. “Insiders”—headscarf-wearing fashion professionals and ordinary practitioners who follow developments in Islamic fashion on social media—also utter some of these critical responses. They discuss the Islamic inappropriateness of dress and dress practices. They debate the ethical irresponsibility, theological ignorance, and diluted religiosity of the headscarf-wearing fashion professionals.

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They communicate these critical responses through social media, using to their advantage the anonymity of social media, and the possibility of separating discourse from practice. They highlight particular details that “outsiders” (i.e., less religious observers and, on the contrary, very religious commentators) gloss over in their straightforward condemnation or derision of Islamic fashion. The “internal” criticism is exemplified here through debates about general developments represented by the aestheticization of covered dress and, in the next section, about a peculiar development, namely the removal of the bonnet, which keeps the hair tucked under the headscarf. This material was collected through online ethnography. I have also added fragments from my own conversations with headscarf-wearing fashion professionals.

Festive aesthetics The first example of “internal” criticism contains comments that were occasioned by a Facebook post. A headscarf-wearing fashion designer, who ran a fashion house which specialized in colorful and heavily embellished bridal wear and other covered gowns for special occasion, posted on her Facebook wall the following message: If we too want to ask a question, is this the place to do it? This is a question for the tasteless people, the pinkos and the people who leave insulting comments on our pages. These people were conditioned not to use their brains. They rally under the slogan “What is Islamically appropriate about these?” (Bunların neresi tesettür?) They show no respect for our work and for the tens of thousands of people who like our dresses. This is our question for them: When you attend events such as special days, family engagements and so on, do you dress in black pyjamas? In reply to this strongly worded message, followers posted both supportive and critical messages. The following quotes contain the recurrent ideas in this comment stream. (The comments quoted are from social media users whose online profiles indicate that they are headscarf-wearing women.) One follower assured the designer of her support: “These types of comments don’t undermine you. On the contrary, they elevate you. Let them wear pyjamas. You are good enough for us.” Another follower criticized her for this tirade: I think it is possible to grow up if you do not object to criticism. We need to respect everyone’s sensitivities. Attention must be paid to the manner in

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which one critiques the critic and responds to the commentator. Tesettür is not just sartorial. As for ten thousand of people, it can be fifty thousands if the designs themselves are appropriate, not grist to the critics’ mill. One commentator reacted even more harshly to this strident message: “We all agree that our Lord said that the garments that are appropriate to our faith are not form fitting, so don’t compare people’s garments (the proper outerwear) to black pyjamas.” Another person defended the designer: Each of us should first look at herself. Are the critics’ clothes really loose and dull things that don’t attract attention? If it’s about colours, then shall

Figure 6 Festive aesthetics. Copyright: Kübra BIRIKTIR.

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we say that yellow attracts less attention than blue and red? We say that this matches this one and that one the other one . . . . For God’s sake, stop doing this. May God recognise your prayer and intention. This should be enough for you. There is no need to come here and play the lion. The message does not suggest there is such a similarity. It was meant to say this: Some people are critical of garments that are colourful and showy. They say that they attract attention and so on. The designer then asks them: If our garments are like this, do you go to your engagement parties wearing black pyjamas? Don’t you dress in showy garments yourself for these special occasions? Black here means both non-colourful and not attracting attention. If they criticise, then their dresses must necessarily be black, modest, plain and loose.

Figure 7 Festive aesthetics. Copyright: Filiz YETIM KÜÇÜKGENÇAY.

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Figure 8 Festive aesthetics. Copyright: Filiz YETIM KÜÇÜKGENÇAY.

The same critical commentator replied to this defender: “No one should liken our çarşaf to black pyjamas! I think you understood very well what I said, but preferred to ignore it, as it did not suit your argument!” The person who defended the designer replied ironically to this follower’s comment: “I accept you as one of those people who live unobjectionable lives (dört dörtlük yaşayan insanlar). You are right in your critique. You stay right. That is enough for us. Respectfully yours.” Another follower comforted the designer: “Don’t worry. On their special occasions, these people take off their headscarves. We saw this type so much. Don’t be sad. The garments you design are wonderful.” One commentator added, “Those who do not veil are the most vocal critics of veiling. Very interesting! If you can’t do it, at least keep your mouth shut. These people are at least covering themselves. Are you trying? Are you striving? Not at all. This is what I have to say to these critics.” Someone tried to put an end to the debate with the following words, “Everyone’s understanding of veiling is different. No one has the right to criticise someone else’s veiling in a rude way.” The designer did not intervene in this heated exchange. However, not long after these messages were posted, the whole comment stream was deleted.

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Everyday or festive aesthetics? The second example presents the comments that a photo elicited. One e-commerce company, which specializes in garments for headscarf-wearing women and promotes itself as “the most trustworthy online address for Islamically appropriate garments,” shared a group photo on social media. It was taken at a brunch that one of the founders of this company, a headscarf-wearing woman herself, organized for popular fashion professionals from this sector. A few headscarf-wearing women left comments on this picture. Someone wrote, “What kind of veiling is this???” Another stated, “I’m sure they wear a lot of makeup too!” Another follower commented, “Non-headscarf-wearing women attract less attention than you. You are so colourful! Maşallah!” (The expression “maşallah” can be used to show joy upon hearing good news, and to express admiration for achievements. In this context, it is used sarcastically to “congratulate” these women on the ostentatiousness of their garments.) One commentator disagreed with such critical comments: “These are fashion designers! What sort of dress styles do you expect from them? I am not saying this to defend this group. I only think that your comments are misplaced!” Another commentator also found such accusatory comments inappropriate: You wonder why the garments of these veiled women are so extravagant and colourful. I for one wouldn’t call them veiled women. The women in this picture wear fashionable form-fitting clothes, their shawls are open and they don’t wear a bonnet. Please let’s not discredit ourselves. Let’s behave ourselves. One follower showed her support: “You are all very beautiful and stylish. Let them say whatever they want.” Yet another follower enthused, “We want to be chic and modern like you as well.” Someone concluded: You know what the strangest thing is? Those who post these rude comments about colours and attractiveness are themselves wearers of such colourful garments. And they wear them everyday, not only for business meetings. This can be easily discerned from their profiles! This makes me laugh so much! Sister, you who criticise, at least create a profile that does not contradict what you say! I asked some of the fashion professionals pictured in the photograph what they made of these critical comments. One veiled fashion professional (tesettürlü) claimed that she had told her Twitter followers that she did not think she should be associated

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with those designers who, in their quest for publicity, disregarded the requirements of modest dress. She provided no particular names but was sure her followers could identify them. The tweet had been a response to the Islamically inappropriate outfits that a few of the fashion professionals who attended that brunch had donned. They just confirmed the worrying conclusion of many religiously conservative people, namely that veiling was being increasingly sacrificed to fashion with each passing day. She admitted that she herself designed colorful and form-fitting clothes like those pictured in the group photograph, but insisted that she advised her customers to wear them under loose outerwear on mixed-gender occasions and in public spaces. She too wore colorful garments, but outside domestic and gender-specific spaces she wore loose outfits or put on an outer garment. She added that she wore high-heeled shoes and a little makeup only when she attended important social and professional events. One covered fashion media professional (kapalı) agreed with the critical comments: the critics rightly pointed out that these colorful clothes attracted attention to their wearers, while the purpose of veiling was precisely the opposite. However, she suggested a different way of approaching the attractiveness of clothes. She argued that this might be interpreted as a response to the injunction that, in her words, “Muslims should cause hopeful feelings and should be clean, well groomed and stylish.” A veiled fashion designer approached the same issue from a somewhat similar angle. She claimed that if a headscarf-wearing woman entered a room and observers exclaimed, “What a chic and pleasant lady!,” then her appearance was religiously permissible. A smart look could be considered an act that pleased God. However, if a headscarf-wearing woman entered a room and observers exclaimed, “Wow!,” then this was evidence that she had crossed the line and the attractiveness of the outfit was condemnable. Another veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) opined that sensationalism was at the core of social media. Many users had expressed their moral outrage at the conspicuous styles in which some headscarf-wearing women were dressed. However, they never specified that the pictures they circulated, or on which they left comments, had been taken on special occasions, hence this was festive aesthetics. Their mission was to turn festive aesthetics into everyday aesthetics and, on these grounds, criticize Muslims for not being as pious as they claimed to be, or for distancing themselves from the core principles of their faith. Social media users also pointed out that these garments were expensive. However, they failed to note that the lengths of these garments might mean higher prices for their producers. They also ignored the fact that many designers and small companies produced small quantities of each style, and this inevitably meant that costs were high. These snippets of conversation among headscarf-wearing women about everyday and festive aesthetics bring to the foreground nuances that are lost in the outright condemnation of Islamic fashion as un-Islamic, and of its practitioners as less—if at all—pious. As stated in the introduction, in this book

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Figure 9 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ.

ethics refers to the reflexive process through which one makes oneself and others into ethical subjects, and not to a system of abstract rules, norms, and codes. Moreover, ethics is to be located in the everyday speech and action, and ethical considerations can be also elaborated in encounters with material and visual forms. These snippets show that headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are largely recognized to manoeuver between the professional requirement to innovate and the religious requirement to veil while trying to remain profitable and competitive in a capitalist economy. Nevertheless, such awareness does not preclude condemnation of the very attempt to bring faith and fashion together and practice Islamic fashion. They also demonstrate that efforts are made to familiarize the observers not only with the fact that there might be different understandings of what veiling materially consists of, but also that they should accept them as forms of veiling. These efforts were particularly directed at, in the words of my interlocutors, “the very religious segment” (çok dindar kesim) or “very conservative” people

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Figure 10 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Gul Begin Aida MUSTAFA.

(aşırı muhafazakâr), who strongly condemned their garments and practices. Nonetheless, these are not efforts to promote new religious interpretations of veiling. They are rather endeavors on the part of the practitioners of Islamic fashion to have their piety recognized and their form of veiling acknowledged, if not accepted, as veiling. They are rather “negotiations of [the] revivalist forms” that aim to open “some space for ambivalence within adherence to those forms” (Deeb 2015: 94, emphasis in the original).3 Furthermore, these snippets of conversation illustrate the religious grounds on which these recent developments are criticized. These garments cover the flesh almost entirely [see Figures 5 to 10]. Nevertheless, they are form-fitting garments and, more importantly, their colors and fabrics, together with the elaborate makeup and accessories that these women wear, result in highly conspicuous outfits. For some observant Muslims, this entirely defeats the purpose of veiling. In contrast, the next development is criticized on both religious and political grounds. 3

Herrera (2000) notes the adoption of less concealing and conservative forms of Islamic dress in Egypt in the late 1990s, a phenomenon she calls “downveiling.” Her interlocutors emphasize that this sartorial change has little to do with religious reasons, but more with practical or even aesthetic matters.

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Without a bonnet The third example also focuses on the comments that a photo elicited. One veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) posted on Instagram a picture in which she was wearing her shawl without an inner bonnet. The post received a few hundred “likes,” an indicator that some of her followers either did not find this style unacceptable, or rallied behind her. (Whether these followers themselves did not use a bonnet or were uncovered cannot be inferred from their “likes.”) The comments were both critical and supportive. The following quotes contain the recurrent ideas in the comment stream. (Again, the comments quoted are from social media users whose online profiles indicate that they are headscarf-wearing women.) One person wrote: The hair can be clearly seen! What’s the point of veiling then? I don’t get the logic behind this picture. This was an old picture, so my first thought was that it was taken soon after she covered herself, when she presumably didn’t know what the proper veiling entailed. But even if this was the case, it’s wrong to post this picture now. Young and less knowledgeable women might think it’s acceptable to cover themselves like this. Another person said, “We are now fooling around with the headscarf.” One follower complained: Nowadays girls wander around wearing no bonnets under their headscarves. This saddens me so much. Why did we fight for so many years? Why did we struggle to enter classrooms without renouncing our faith? It hurts me to see this. We have become so assimilated. Yet another follower protested: Are you covering yourself up for the sake of fashion? I don’t get it. Nowadays no one says that one should cover her head in such a way that the shoulders are covered as well. Nowadays no one says that one should wear a shapeless overcoat. At least have the decency to cover your hairline. Someone commented: Of course everyone can veil how she wants. But I think that this is a political strategy to moderate veiling. I know this from close friends of mine who want to cover themselves. When presented in this style, as a fashion, tesettür seems congenial to people who are not religious. Unfortunately, there is nothing underneath.

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A follower reacted to this criticism: “For years religious people suffered because of Kemalism. They were victims. Nowadays these people engage in ‘Islamic Kemalism.’ What a painful contradiction!” In this comment, the follower points toward the resemblance between the top-down social engineering of Kemalism (the state ideology promoted by the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal) with this attempt to impose the revivalist understanding of veiling on society. Another follower showed her support: I normally don’t bother intervening when I see these types of comments, but this time I couldn’t help myself. To which interpretation of Islam are you subscribing? What is Islamic in the way you denounce something as incorrect and condemn someone? Only God knows if you are right or who is more right than whom. This approach demonstrates that your sole concern is to slander. But you don’t spoil a reputation with these comments of yours. You are actually dirtying yourselves. Someone else protested this criticism: “I for one do not understand this. How come you have the right to judge someone’s else veiling?” Yet another person wrote: Let she who wants to cover cover. Let her cover the way she wants. You are coming closer to those who ban and repel veiling with this kind of comment. The most important thing is to get people to like and accept veiling. You are going nowhere and won’t achieve anything if you criticise and denigrate in this way. You have a desirous self as well. Do not condemn others for having it. The designer intervened only once in this debate, wishing that God protected everyone from those who could judge others with so much confidence. In the recent period, some women have given up wearing the inner bonnet that enables the complete covering of the hair, have begun to tie their headscarves less tightly around their neck, or have adopted turban-style head coverings that are tied behind the neck. As this vignette demonstrates, these changes have been strongly criticized on religious and political grounds. They undermine one of the core elements of veiling, that is, the complete covering of the hair, forehead, neck, and ears. Moreover, they diminish the importance of an important political victory of religious people, namely that of being able to study and work in public office and simultaneously live in accordance with Islam (i.e., an interpretation of Islam in which veiling is seen as a major religious duty, and which promotes a certain form of veiling, in particular, the tightly tied headscarf). My conversations with headscarf-wearing fashion professionals about these new stylistic choices contained references to what they considered legitimate critics. The first category included those women who had suffered due to the headscarf

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bans at universities and in public office. The second category consisted of Islamist intellectuals who demonstrated their commitment and inspired others to consciously commit themselves to veiling. Only these women had the moral right to criticize young headscarf-wearing women—some headscarf-wearing fashion professionals included—for not adopting the prescribed form of veiling. They argued that they also attached importance to and were conscious of the importance of veiling. They claimed that for them veiling was a duty (farz), in response to accusations that they were turning it into a style (tarz). However, they were not—and could not be—fully committed to performing this religious duty in the expected way. They referred to the degree and type of covering they used and invoked their youth and desirous selves (nefis) to explain this limitation in their conduct. In addition, they acknowledged that they would pay a price for this limitation in the afterlife. To conclude, the existence of such an “internal” criticism demonstrates that a line can always be drawn between what is religiously permissible and what is not in a context in which individuals hold different interpretations of Islamically appropriate dress. (I refer here to differences regarding the degrees of covering and the styles of covered dress.) Even wearers of fashionable Islamic dress seem to be able to draw a line beyond which certain sartorial choices are more about fashion than modesty. Sometimes, this line is “thicker,” the ethical and religious reflections focusing on the difference between the full-length loose overcoat and the three quarter-length form-fitting trench coat. At some other times, the line is “thinner,” being materialized in the difference between sleeves that expose the wrist and those that do not expose it, or between rose or red lipstick. The headscarf-wearing fashion professionals themselves utter somewhat different opinions and dress in slightly different ways depending on the milieux and circumstances. The community they seek to form through participation in a common aesthetic project has thus a flexible configuration, subcommunities also being reconfigured in relation to claimed and perceived degrees of religiosity. The existence of this “internal” criticism exposes even more clearly the ambiguous position that these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals inhabit, in-between the seculars and the religious conservatives, and in-between people who hold distinct interpretations of veiling.

Aesthetics is ethics To counterbalance this criticism, legitimize their work and justify their own engagement in the sector, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals elaborate and broadcast their own definitions of Islamic fashion and its products and practices. They deny the conceptual possibility of Islamic fashion. They even refrain from using in the same phrase the words “veiling” (tesettür) and “fashion” (they usually use the term “conservative fashion” (muhafazakâr modası)), precisely because

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the adjective “conservative” does not connote religion. Some of the most vocal opponents of this notion use in their own social media posts hashtags such as #hijabfashion, #modestfashion, #hijabstyle, and #chichijab. One reason for their doing so is that these foreign words do not carry the same heavy religious and ethical connotations as the Turkish notion of tesettür. (Somewhat paradoxically, the term “hijab” is taken from the international Islamic fashion scene and connotes fashion rather than religion in this usage.) There is also a commercial logic behind this choice: these hashtags being used to increase their visibility outside Turkey. However, they argue for the practical possibility of designing garments and creating fashionable outfits within the material confines of veiling. The following examples are illustrative of this discursive strategy, each explaining from a slightly different angle the articulation of fashion and faith. One veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) pointed out that “there is fashion in the Islamically appropriate clothing, but there is no such thing as veiling fashion” (Tesettür giyimde moda var, ama tesettür modası diye bir şey yok). To elaborate on this brief formulation, the words of other fashion professionals are useful. A covered fashion editor (kapalı) specified, We have never used—and do not intend to use—the concept of veiling fashion (tesettür modası) in our magazine. Fashion is about change. In fashion, one year the arms might be uncovered and next year the skirts might be short. In this sense, to talk about veiling fashion is wrong. This would be tantamount to suggesting that veiling changes with each season! . . . In brief, there cannot be such thing as veiling fashion. There can only be niceties (tesettürün modası olmaz, incelikleri olur). A veiled stylist (tesettürlü) explained: When our mothers were young, there was no such thing as “this came out, let’s wear it.” The younger generations follow fashion. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they disregard the requirements of veiling. The world constantly changes and fashion symbolises renewal. Veiled girls too keep pace with this renewal. Some approach fashion in a wrong way, others do it in the right way. The most important thing is to adapt fashion to veiling (moda tesettüre uymak). For example, now tights are in fashion, but a veiled girl should not follow this fashion. A veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) put a similar emphasis on the adaptation of fashion trends to the requirements of veiling, but from a designer’s perspective: Veiling is a religious duty required of Muslims. Fashion is a human-made phenomenon. Veiling requires covering the whole body. Attention must be

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paid to certain issues, such as appropriate fabrics, definitely not see-through fabrics; lengths, down to the wrists and the ankles; clothes that do not reveal the shape of the body. In addition, the head must be covered in such a way that the hair and neck are wrapped as well. Fashion is something that is renewed and updated from season to season. In other words, the boundaries of veiling are clear and fixed. In contrast, fashion is changeable. Fashion is about changing styles that rapidly replace each other. As such, veiling fashion is formed by imposing the unchanging requirements of veiling onto these changing trends. In this way, fashion conforms to veiling, not veiling to fashion (tesettür modaya değil, moda tesettüre uyuyor). This last explanation demonstrates the move from concept to practice in this legitimizing discourse: while conceptually there cannot be such a thing as Islamic fashion, the practical adaptation of fashion trends to the material specifications of veiling is possible and desirable. This involves taking these material specifications into consideration while designing garments and assembling outfits. A veiled designer (tesettürlü) conveyed this idea by pointing out that she designed with “God’s line” (Allah’ın çizgisi) in mind. To clarify what she meant, she drew a line with her forefinger along her wrist and then a line around her neck. She also pointed at her ankle and added that this was the third line she took into consideration. She made sure that the neckline of these garments was high, the sleeves were completely covering the arms, the skirt was long, ankle-length, if not floor-length, and the trousers were wide-leg. Moreover, she only worked with fabrics that were thick enough so that neither undergarments nor skin could be seen through them. For her, these were immutable rules and God-given prescriptions. These fashion professionals—some of whom have been wearing a headscarf since their teens—emphasize that a headscarf-wearing designer or stylist is better placed to create clothes or assemble outfits for other headscarf-wearing women. As one veiled designer (tesettürlü) put it: I have often noticed that even very talented and experienced fashion designers have difficulties in making clothes for a veiled woman. This is related to an inherent disposition, no matter what people say. In our group of friends, we are always deliberating on this. I will repeat something that I recently told someone. I have been veiled for fifteen years. Long before I began to design clothes for veiled women, I showed the same care to my own clothes. As a veiled woman, I have continuously developed for myself different tricks to be stylish and elegant. I can do the same for other veiled women precisely because I have these many years of experience. For this reason, it is easier for me to work for veiled women than for a designer who has not been previously part of this job and lifestyle.

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Other fashion professionals expressed this idea in a different way: they referred to designing or assembling outfits in accordance with “the line of veiling” (tesettürün çizgisi) and within “the limits of veiling” (tesettürün sınırları). Moreover, this also involves criticizing publicly and privately those headscarfwearing fashion professionals who disregard these requirements. A veiled designer (tesettürlü), in a discussion with her former teachers from her Islamic high-school, claimed that she behaved responsibly, unlike others in the sector, who tried to attract attention to themselves and their products through stylistic innovation, even though these were Islamically inappropriate. She recounted to them: The designer: There is this new fashion. I got so angry. I got so upset. I recently saw this woman at a brunch that Âlâ [the Islamic fashion magazine] organised. Her earrings were so big. Her ears were uncovered. Teacher 1 (woman): Did she really uncover her ears? The designer: Her earlobes were uncovered. The earrings were so big, dangling from her ears. I asked her “What is this?” She said it’s a new style (tarz). Style! Teacher 2 (woman): This proves that she does not know what veiling is. Teacher 3 (man): In fact, this game is no different than the fashion designers’ game. They necessarily create something new. They stimulate this culture of spending. Fashion designers are always playing this game with people. But we say that this game should not exist here. Why? In this case, there’s something behind it, a notion, a faith. This should not exist here. There is a background behind veiling (tesettür) and covering (örtünme). The designer: This is why I fight. This is why I criticise them. This is why I’m careful when I design clothes. This is why I pay attention to my own clothes. However, designs and outfits planned in accordance with the “line of veiling” might appear Islamically inappropriate to those who hold different understandings of veiling and, more importantly, think that some forms of veiling reflect a deeper religiosity than others. Therefore, another legitimizing strategy is to not categorize garments and outfits as Islamically appropriate clothing (tesettür). As explained in the introduction, the Islamic notion of tesettür was introduced by the revivalist movement and carries a deep religious connotation, which explains the near sacralization of the material form of veiling it proposed. The common pre-revivalist and post-revivalist way of referring to covering in everyday life is örtünme. Even fashion designers who confidently declare themselves to be pious women employed this strategy, reasoning that, in the words of a veiled fashion designer, “there might be a better way for everything” (her şeyin dahası var). This strategy is also considered an appropriate act of modesty for a pious person.

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As one covered fashion designer (kapalı) emphasized: The clothes I design can be labelled as modest clothing (mütevazi giyim) or conservative clothing (muhafazakâr giyim). They certainly cannot be considered illustrative of veiling fashion (tesettür modası). There is no such thing as veiling fashion anyway. This is so because fashion knows no boundaries. Fashion is about continuous change. The dimensions of veiling are fixed. Veiling is the opposite of fashion. Veiling and fashion should not even be used in the same sentence. Veiling is clearly defined: it consists of a headscarf, which is worn over a bonnet, and which covers the shoulders, and a long simple overcoat. I do not create veiling garments (tesettür giyim). But veiled ladies can dress in my products and put on an overcoat when they leave their homes. A different but less used term is “covered dress” (ölçülü giyim). In an article she wrote for an online magazine for headscarf-wearing women, a veiled woman employed this term to refer to garments and outfits that covered the body but were not Islamically appropriate (i.e., no headscarf was added to this outfit; they were form-fitting clothes). The writer also pointed out that this was a more appropriate way to classify certain garments and, consequently, to behave responsibly and avoid misleading less knowledgeable consumers. In this way, a strategy for fending off possible criticism for the disregard of veiling requirements also becomes a way to illustrate ethical responsibility. As one veiled designer (tesettürlü) put it, “If I say I work for headscarf-wearing women, then I must assume this responsibility.” These fashion professionals emphasize that they are doing the right thing, as right as can be when the aim is to fully participate in modern life as headscarf-wearing women. In these explanations, the focus is on the “line of veiling,” and on how they are respected through long, covered, and/or loose garments. However, another important element in the criticism of these fashionably covered garments, namely the overall glamorous effect of the combination of bright colors, sumptuous fabrics, makeup, and accessories is never mentioned in these discussions about ethics. Glamorousness is qualified aesthetically as enabling a “modern” and “elegant” appearance. Keane’s (2006) notion of “bundling” illuminates this choice. He argues that objects combine an indefinite number of properties and qualities, and in certain circumstances only some of them become salient, valuable, useful, and relevant, while others are pushed to the background. Conversely, this notion also explains the concerns that this over-emphasis on “the lines of veiling” hides away. This characteristic of objects means that the “bundled” properties and quality might at any time introduce contingencies and thus might subvert the proclaimed purpose or intended use of particular objects.

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Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals employ other discursive strategies as well. They argue that their work cannot be considered as an attempt to modernize veiling. In this context, to modernize means to radically change the form of veiling that the revivalist movement proclaimed as the “proper form.” This form has acquired an almost sacred character, many observant Muslims feeling a custodial ethics toward it. Consequently, these fashion professionals exercise care in talking about modernization in their discourses and relating their aesthetic innovations to the prescribed form. They do however consider and present changes (e.g., different colors, new shapes) as acceptable. They do not use the expression “modern veiling” (modern tesettür) either. They claim that they design and style fashionable covered dress that headscarf-wearing women might also wear, in combination with other items of dress that conform to their understanding of veiling. They state—fully cognizant as they are of the requirements of veiling—that they control their creative impulses and design and assemble within the limits of acceptability. These limits are materialized in garments of appropriate lengths and fabrics of appropriate thickness. Some headscarf-wearing fashion designers also insist that they should not be considered designers of Islamically appropriate garments (tesettür tasarımcısı). As a covered fashion designer (kapalı) explained: I did not enter this sector saying that I was a designer of Islamically appropriate garments (tesettür tasarımcısı). Veiled ladies began to dress in the clothes I designed. I made long skirts. They bought them and spread the word, and so my popularity grew. And I still don’t say that I’m this type of designer. But if you Google tesettür tasarımcısı my name will pop up first. I’m not responsible for this. Another complementary strategy is a self-definition as covered (kapalı), and not veiled (tesettürlü)—throughout the book this difference is marked, if my interlocutors used one or the other term to describe themselves. The former is used to suggest that a woman does not fully comply with the requirements of veiling as formulated in the Islamic revivalist movement (e.g., she might not tie her headscarf tightly enough to completely cover her neck, she might wear makeup, and she might prefer fashionable covered dress). The latter is used to imply that a woman lives in accordance with the Islamic principle of modesty. All headscarfwearing women commonly label themselves as being covered (kapalı). However, in certain contexts—for example, meetings with local journalists writing about them and their businesses, and with a foreign researcher interested in veiling (tesettür) and fashion—some women introduce themselves as being covered (kapalı). They do so in order to articulate a limitation in their conduct. In the words of a covered fashion designer, “I do not call myself veiled. My head and body are indeed completely covered, but as is the case with everything, there could be more (her şeyin dahası var).” They argue that this imperfect personal

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achievement does not diminish the importance they attach to veiling and does not make them less religious. This resonates with Fadil and Fernando’s point (2015: 70) that “the fact that a commitment to a particular norm is often imperfectly achieved does not refute the importance attached to that norm.” These headscarf-wearing fashion professionals point out that the admission of this limitation is an act of ethical responsibility. (Conversely, it is a strategy to avoid criticism from people who hold differing interpretations of veiling.) Selfidentifying themselves as veiled women might mislead consumers who are less knowledgeable about the requirements of Islamic modesty. These consumers might think that the garments and practices of these fashion professionals are Islamically appropriate. A particular relationship between aesthetics and ethics can be discerned in all these explanations about who they are, what they do, and how their products should be understood. This relationship can be summarized as follows: the aesthetic is also the ethical. This relationship is an appreciative premise of this fashionable form of veiling. These headscarf-wearing fashion professionals promote this premise and thus legitimize the presence of products, practices, and practitioners of Islamic fashion. They argue that their aesthetic decisions are formulated in relation to ethical considerations and religious prescriptions. They claim that the words they choose to describe these garments and the categories they select to order them demonstrate the ways in which they link aesthetics and ethics. This constitutes an attempt to overcome the contradictions at the heart of Islamic fashion.

Conclusion This chapter has exemplified the aesthetic work of headscarf-wearing fashion professionals. It has demonstrated that they employ a variety of sources of inspiration, scouring Eastern and Western, past and present fashions, mixing and matching design elements in their effort to innovate within the material confines of veiling. It has illustrated their considerations of material properties and of their capacity to enable and disable particular forms. It has exemplified the attention being accorded to the combination of aesthetic elements such as color, line, texture, shape, and volume. It has emphasized the importance they attribute to the sensual encounter with fabrics and forms. It has hinted at a debate about matters of taste (Stokes 2015), for engagement with the aesthetic results in agreements as well as disagreements over what is “beautiful,” “stylish,” “chic,” “fashionable,” and “modern” and, in this case, materializes in different forms, details, and looks. In Islamic fashion, more than in any fashion, dress is conceived as a “second form” (Eicher and Evenson 2015).

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Headscarf-wearing fashion designers operate under the “tyranny of the new” (Wilson 2003), hence their experimentation with materials and forms, and introduction of innovative clothes. They do not simply offer new garments, but also ideals as to the look of garments (Entwistle 2009), hence the formulation of particular aesthetic ideals. However, in this case pertinent are the following questions: What makes a fashionable outfit Islamically appropriate? What makes an Islamically appropriate outfit fashionable? These headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are aware that their work is approached not only in aesthetic terms, but also with reference to religious understandings and ethical concerns. Moreover, as they demonstrate on their bodies the transformation of fashion from discourse to clothing, they know that they are more exposed to the criticism that Islamic fashion engenders than the other actors in this sector. This chapter has shown that, to counterbalance this criticism, they publicly promote a particular relationship between the aesthetic and the ethical. This relationship can be summarized as “aesthetics is ethics.” This relationship can be traced in the ways in which headscarf-wearing fashion professionals approach the issue of Islamic fashion. They deny the conceptual possibility of veiling fashion (tesettür modası), but argue for the practical possibility of designing garments and creating fashionable outfits within the material confines of veiling. They describe their work as imposing the unchanging requirements of veiling on the changing fashion trends. Moreover, this can be discerned in the words they use to label the garments that they design and mediate. They call them modest clothing (mütevazi giyim), conservative clothing (muhafazakâr giyim), and covered dress (ölçülü giyim), and rarely and circumstantially label these garments Islamically appropriate clothing (tesettür giyim). Furthermore, it can be found in some of these fashion professionals’ insistence that they are regarded as being covered (kapalı), and not veiled (tesettürlü) women. They explain that they attach importance to and are conscious of the importance of veiling. They know what the religious requirements of modesty are and control their creative impulses in their work in order not to disrespect these requirements. However, they are not fully committed to performing this religious duty in the expected way. They point out that they will have to pay a price for this limitation in the afterlife. Consequently, they cannot call themselves veiled women. This is an act of ethical responsibility, for calling themselves “veiled women” and labeling their products “Islamically appropriate clothing” might mislead women who are less knowledgeable about the Islamic principle of modesty. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals employ this relationship between aesthetics and ethics to position themselves as ethical subjects in relation both to other actors in the sector and to the religious conservative community. They depict the ethical mandate of their work and argue about the appropriateness of their products for the modest dresser, if not the pious consumer. They point out that they take into account religious requirements and consider

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the consequences of their actions. Their work involves ethical gestures of self-censorship and self-control. They argue that they are ethical subjects who possess an ethico-aesthetic sensibility and the appropriate religious capital. Conversely, they also argue that aesthetics itself demonstrates the ethical legitimacy of Islamic fashion. Setting a good example through the making, mediating, and wearing of aesthetically pleasing and recognizably Islamic dress is an ethical act (dini temsil etmek). (See also Moll 2010.) Nevertheless, their work and its outcomes remain open to contestation. This chapter has exemplified the criticism that circulates within the religiously conservative community. It has presented snippets of conversations in which these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals face and respond to accusations of impiety and irresponsibility that other headscarf-wearing women raise against them. It has brought to the foreground current debates about different forms of veiling, the evaluation of their Islamic appropriateness and the call for a pluralistic attitude of respect for them. It has demonstrated that social media allows the expression of critical perspectives on the practitioners, products, and practices of Islamic fashion even by those who themselves practice Islamic fashion. And finally, it has hinted that headscarf-wearing women might change their opinions and practices to suit the milieux and the circumstances. This chapter has thus complemented the presentation of general criticism leveled at them. It has therefore shown that their arguments are not simply interventions in a larger discursive context, but they are responses partly fashioned by this context. It has hence offered more ethnographic evidence of what it means to engage in the making and mediation of Islamic fashion, especially as a headscarf-wearing fashion professional.

6 FASHION IMAGES Fashion images that feature headscarf-wearing women have become a fixture in the media and on social media. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals have played a significant role in making and circulating such images—at times being themselves the models, especially on their own social media accounts, at other times curating the looks of professional models. This chapter analyzes their contribution from a particular vantage point: it focuses on the work they put into the making of fashion images for an Islamic fashion magazine. A fashion magazine is, in Barthes’s words (1990: 51), “a machine that makes Fashion.” The fashion spreads included in such a magazine are crucial for the production and dissemination of fashion. Âlâ, the first fashion magazine for headscarf-wearing women in Turkey, which has contributed most to the development of Islamic fashion imagery in this country, is an almost ideal location for the analysis of this contribution. In this case, it is not only about the production and dissemination of particular trends. It is also about the familiarization of a particular category of readers, namely headscarf-wearing women, with the notion of fashion and with the idea that they can and should be fashionably dressed, although completely covered. Moreover, in this case, it is not only about the dissemination of fashion trends, but also about the learning of the “language of fashion” (Barthes 2003). New as they are to these professions, working for such a magazine is also an occasion for these headscarf-wearing women to refine their tastes and enlarge their knowledge of fashion. Furthermore, in this case, it is not only about finding appropriate ways to simultaneously portray fashionability and modesty, but also about teaching normally uncovered professional models how to perform modest demeanors. And finally, in this case, the work these headscarf-wearing women put into the making of these fashion images remains open to criticism. As noted, they forge a particular relationship between aesthetics and ethics in order to refute criticism. This is further facilitated by the current editorial policy, which no longer alternates between fashion spreads and articles with religious content, avoiding thus the blatant contradiction between words and images. However, the work that goes into the translation of this discourse into practice is not only difficult to publicize, but also difficult to coordinate. Collaboration with actors versed in the “language of fashion,” but less, if at all, familiar with the requirements of veiling, generates the conditions for criticism. Moreover, the

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Figure 11 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸KOÇ.

offering for aesthetic contemplation of images of fashionably dressed headscarfwearing women creates conditions for criticism. The previous chapter brought to the foreground the vulnerability to criticism of fashionable covered dress. In contrast, this chapter presents the vulnerability to criticism inherent in the acts of fashioning bodies, veiling secular bodies, and exposing veiled bodies to the public gaze through fashion images. The ethnographic core of this chapter is the description of a fashion shoot that took place in the spring of 2014, which I attended as a guest-cumassistant. The vignette offers thus glimpses at what it is going on “behind the scenes” at a fashion magazine. The fashion shoot brought together some of the fashion professionals introduced in the previous chapters. They are shown at work, supervising the presentation of their creations, styling outfits,

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Figure 12 Everyday aesthetics. Copyright: Ahu BAS¸ KOÇ.

curating looks, and directing the making of fashion images for the magazine. The focus is on what goes on during the actual photo shoot, particularly during the tense moments that color this rapidly unfolding event, and not on the preparatory work that went into inviting collaborators and securing locations and products. The vignette fleshes out with thick ethnographic description the common observation that “for Muslim lifestyle magazines, fashion and the representation of the female body raise the greatest controversies among readers or commentators, with preferred modes of femininity nuanced by concerns about modesty, types of covering, and the spiritual dilemmas of picturing the human body” (Lewis 2015: 113; see also Jones 2007, 2010a; Lewis 2010, 2013b,c, 2015; Moors 2013).

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The fashion photo shoot The first to arrive at this hotel on the outskirts of Istanbul are the assistant and the makeup artists. The latter take advantage of this downtime to enquire about the magazine and the fashion editor. The assistant, Melis, shows them Leyla’s, the fashion editor, picture in the magazine. The woman exclaims, “Ah, she is veiled!” She recounts their experience at a fashion shoot for a manufacturer of, in her words, “long Ottoman dresses.” To their great surprise, not a single headscarfwearing woman was present at this fashion shoot. They would have liked to talk about makeup for veiled women with a veiled woman. Nevertheless, they experimented quite a lot during the fashion shoot. They felt confident enough to take on another similar project, hence their acceptance of this one-off job. Melis assumes that they were concerned with the appropriateness of makeup for veiled women. The woman emphasizes that it is not up to them to judge, in her words, the turban-wearing (türbanlı) women. The assistant corrects her, explaining that türban is a term with political connotations, which others have tried to impose on headscarf-wearing women. They use the term bas¸ örtü to refer to their headscarf. She for one describes herself as being covered (kapalı), and not veiled (tesettürlü). She wears covered clothes and a headscarf, but does not really live up to the ideal of veiling (tesettür). The man looks at Melis, confused, and asks, “My mother wears an overcoat and a headscarf when she goes outside. What is she then?” The assistant tells him that his mother is probably veiled (tesettürlü). She further informs them that today there are different styles of tying the headscarf. Some young women— wrongly in her opinion—do not wear a bonnet under their headscarves, and as a result their hairlines are visible. They too must know that unrelated men should see not a single hair of an unrelated Muslim woman’s head. The woman sighs. Melis goes on: other young women—also wrongly in her opinion—do not tie their shawls tightly under their chins and, consequently, their necks are visible. They too must be familiar with the requirement that the neck be entirely covered. The two makeup artists utter not a word. She continues: still other women— once more, wrongly in her opinion—choose to wear the all-enveloping çars¸ af (she calls them both çars¸ aflı (literally, wearers of çars¸ af) and extremely covered (as¸ ırı kapalı)). They impose on others the boundaries that come with this type of veiling, such as not looking others in the eye, not talking to, and not shaking hands with unrelated men. She believes these practices are hard to sustain in a modern society, putting unnecessary pressure on practitioners and other people alike. Melis adds that today there are so many wonderful types of covered clothes that a woman can wear. She advised them to search terms such as “hijab fashion,” “hijabista,” and “Islamic fashion” online and see for themselves how diverse and beautiful the dress styles are in countries like Turkey, Indonesia, or Malaysia.

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The more details she offers, the wider their eyes become. At one point the man confesses his ignorance: “I know nothing about these things. As you can see, my wife does not wear a headscarf and my mother dresses as elderly ladies do.” Melis invites them to surf the internet together on her smart phone and check out these styles. The man reacts “I’ve had enough of this.” He softens his voice a second later: “I think we’ll have a chance to learn more about Islamic fashion (tesettür modası) at this photo shoot.” Melis corrects him again, “There is no such thing as Islamic fashion (tesettür modası)! We do not present Islamic fashion in this magazine! We only advise covered ladies (kapalı kadınlar) on how to be elegant.” The man rolls his eyes in exasperation. The fashion editor’s phone call, announcing the imminent arrival of the models, comes at the opportune moment. The assistant welcomes the models in the lobby and invites them to follow her to the rooms that have booked in the hotel for this occasion. The makeup artists take the initiative, deciding that one room will be used for the makeup and the other room for dressing the models. One model remains at the makeup table, while the rest go to the other room. Two hotel employees deliver parcels with shoes, bags, and clothes. We arrange the deliveries, using any available space. The models make themselves comfortable near the window and on the balcony, chatting and busying themselves with their smartphones. A model, who is participating in her first Islamic fashion photo shoot, wants to know why Muslim women must cover their heads. Her question remains unanswered—unheard, not understood, or simply ignored. Over the next quarter hour, more people enter the room. The fashion editor comes with her guests—two designers and one of the designer’s assistant. More gowns are hung in the already full wardrobe. The uncovered editor-inchief arrives as well. The fashion editor does the introductions. A designer wears a peculiar form of headscarf, that is, a small square scarf tied at the back, which does not cover her neck and reveals her hairline. Knowing from previous encounters that many headscarf-wearing women do not recognize this as veiling, the fashion editor informs the others that this designer belongs to their community (bizim camia). This designer will later recount that she had adopted this type of headscarf while reading fashion design at the most prestigious art school in Istanbul. At that time, students who wore the tightly pinned headscarf were not allowed to enter the classroom. The turban, the form that the Higher Education Council (YÖK) had “recommended,” was for her the compromise. She continued to cover in this style after she graduated. The magazine owner briefly shows up, thanking everyone for responding so enthusiastically to the call to contribute to this special issue on the graduation ball. The fashion editor informs everyone of her plan: she needs to start with a few shoots that are not for this special issue and for which she uses garments that she has borrowed from local clothing brands. She assures her guests that everything will be finished in no time. She asks those models whose makeup is

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now ready to dress. For one she selects a palazzo jumpsuit, a long-sleeved top, and a leather biker jacket, and wraps around her head a shawl in what she calls the “Arab style.” She dresses another model in a pair of check-patterned wideleg trousers with a polka-dot patterned oversized jumper. To add a touch of color to this black and white outfit, she uses a pair of colorful sneakers and a red shawl. A third model is asked to put on a pleated skirt, but it looks like a calf-length skirt on her. Leyla stops, not knowing what to do next. The editor-in-chief notices her moment of indecision and asks her if she would wear a skirt of that length. After a moment of reflection, Leyla replies, “Yes, I think I can wear this skirt. I’ve never worn something like this, but I’ve seen many girls [i.e., headscarf-wearing women] wearing calf-length skirts.” The editor-in-chief advises her to go ahead with the outfit, “If you can wear this skirt, then there is no problem for us and we won’t object to its presentation in the magazine.” The fashion editor opens the back zip and pulls the skirt down a bit so that it looks longer. Everything is now ready, so she rushes with the models in the hotel’s basement, where the fashion shoot will take place and where the magazine owner and the photographer are already waiting for her arrival. In a corner of the basement, the fashion editor had a set of suitcases piled up. She explains her ideas: the “chic French girl” never travels light but she radiates an air of elegance even when she is in distress, stuck alone in some provincial train station. By making the model wear a shawl tied in the “Arab style,” she turns this chic French woman into the “chic Arab girl.” Leyla shows the model how to sit: legs crossed, an elbow on the knee, the hand supporting the head, and the head slightly inclined to the left. The model manages the desired pensive look, but raises an index finger during the shoot. The fashion editor finds this gesture frivolous and tells the photographer to redo the shot. The second “story” that Leyla has in mind focuses on the “cool urban girl,” with the coolness suggested through the combination of the check-patterned and polka-dot patterned fabrics. The photographer decides that the best way to emphasize this youthful spirit is to have the model do something different. He asks her to climb a ladder, and to raise her arms and one leg as if she is about to jump. The third “story” centers on the “cool office woman,” with coolness suggested through the trendy pleated skirt, red-framed eyeglasses, and tablet. The fashion editor asks the model to sit on a stool and pretend to read something on her tablet. When this first session finishes, the fashion editor asks for the magazine owner’s approval to do “a more creative cover.” She takes from her bag an emerald-green turban with a large six-petal flower loop embellishment and tells them, her voice taking on an excited bounce, that she wants to put this on top of a fuchsia shawl. She argues, “Not everything we depict has to be wearable! And not everything we show has to be serious!” Her idea is immediately rejected. The man almost rebukes her for this burst of creativity: “Have you thought for just one second of the outrage your cover will provoke? Sometimes you take yourself too

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seriously. Yes, you are the fashion editor, but you also wear a headscarf.” Leyla protests: “I do nothing but match colours!” The man replies, in a softer tone of voice, “You select wonderful garments and assemble outfits that are appropriate for headscarf-wearing women. That’s how you innovate! Nobody has done this before you.” In the end, the fashion editor admits that she got carried away. She invites the models to follow her back to the room. Toward the end of the photo shoot, I learn that Leyla is disappointed with this reaction. She understands the magazine owner’s concern, but he has too quickly dismissed hers. She worries that her work is becoming repetitive, depending more on the fashion designers’ ability to create new forms within the constraints of veiling than on her ability to assemble original outfits. The fashion editor now focuses entirely on the special issue on the graduation ball. She starts with the dark colored gowns and invites the guests to help with dressing the models. The preparations start at a fast pace. Melis irons clothes and headscarves. Leyla orders shawls and accessories on the bed. While combing a model’s hair and arranging it in a bun, she congratulates herself for bringing so many bun doughnuts with her. She calls them “the headscarf-wearing girl’s saviours.” The designer’s assistant points out that they are even more useful when one has to work with the kind of thin hair that these Eastern European models have. She helps with arranging the hair while the fashion editor selects dresses for the first part of the fashion shoot and ties the shawls. Melis chooses matching purses and shoes. The editor-in-chief chats with one of the guests, who had brought only colored gowns and has to wait until the first part of the fashion shoot is over. The editorin-chief enquires laughingly to the designer whether her husband had told her when the AKP would lift the current Twitter ban. The designer, whose husband is a businessman well connected with the leaders of the ruling party, rolls her eyes. She points out that the ban hurts her business too, but she respects it. One designer dresses a model in one of her black gowns and starts wrapping strips of fuchsia-colored satin around her head. The other designer’s assistant voices her unsolicited opinion: “The fuchsia and the blue of the girl’s eyes go very well together, but her face is too small. A headscarf will simply not suit this face, no matter how you tie it.” The designer ignores her remark and continues to add strips of cloth. The result is a turban. Displeased, Leyla tries to cover the neck, lifting the dress collar and fixing it with a pin under the model’s chin. However, most of the neck is still visible. The editor-in-chief intervenes, “This doesn’t work for us. You either leave the head uncovered or cover it properly [i.e., cover the hair, forehead, neck, and ears].” More strips are wrapped around the model’s head until the desired form emerges. The neck is now entirely covered. The other designer comments on the outcome, “You have over-decorated it. It looks like bridal head-covering. This is not appropriate for a graduation ball.” The designer purses her lips but seems not to be in the mood to argue with her.

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Melis agrees with the critic, whispering to the editor-in-chief, “She is right. People are so tired of this look. Young women like me certainly don’t want this.” The woman whispers back, “You might be right, but as far as I know, her business is thriving. This means that there is still interest in this look.” In a louder voice, she assures the designer that the head covering looks very nice. The designer takes a step back and gazes proudly at the model. The fashion editor addresses the designer who criticized this head covering: “You came to some of our first fashion photo shoots as well. We had so much fun. We learnt together. We learnt from each other. But we also argued a lot.” The designer nods her head in agreement. The fashion editor goes on: “Do you still remember those arguments? I insisted that young women wore solidcoloured shawls and wanted to look modern. Other designers—we won’t say their names!—kept repeating that their clothes could only be matched to patterned square scarfs.” The woman replies laughingly, “Oh, yes, sure, I do remember. Look, you convinced me! Now I rarely wear square scarves.” They all laugh. The designer continues, “I also recall that heated argument I had over the exact number of pins we needed for a headscarf. My God, what an argument!” The designer decides that this is a good time to ask the fashion editor to help her find an assistant for her boutique. She is looking for someone who is good at interacting with people and knows about luxury. She would prefer a nonheadscarf-wearing (açık) young woman. All the employees at her boutique wear headscarves and this alienates certain customers. She also thinks that uncovered women have a better flair for clothes than headscarf-wearing women. Leyla reacts, “You all have a fixation with non-headscarf-wearing women! If the owners of Âlâ did not trust me three years ago, I would not be here today!” She turns her back to the designer and focuses entirely on completing the preparations. She needs a black shawl. When Melis informs her that they have already used all the black shawls, she takes the shawl off her own head and wraps it around a model’s head. She needs a black bonnet. When her assistant shakes her head, she takes her own bonnet off and ties it around a model’s head. She rummages through the clothes and accessories piled up on the bed and puts on a bonnet and shawl that match her clothes. Around 6:30 p.m., the models are ready. Six of them are wearing headscarves, while the seventh model’s hair is arranged in a ballerina bun. Leyla says, “In the name of God” (Bismillah), a prayerful phrase uttered at the beginning of an activity, and invites everyone to follow her downstairs to the hotel’s ballroom. Here the photographer invites the models to take a seat at or stand next to a round table and pretend they are attending a party. In her turn, the fashion editor instructs them to refrain from laughing with their mouths wide open, throwing their hands up in the air and mimicking energetic dance movements. The models try their best, chatting, eating fruit, clapping their hands, and swinging to the rhythm of some imaginary slow music. The photographer is getting more

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and more energetic, shooting one outfit after the other as quickly as possible. He uses the same words—“Be cool” and “You are cool”—to help the models with their poses. To everyone’s amusement, sometimes the photographer, who lacks adequate language skills, demonstrates himself the poses that he would like the models to adopt. The models have their own well-rehearsed repertoire of poses and sexually charged gestures, so the final result is somewhere in between what the photographer wants, what the models are inclined to do, and what the fashion editor finds to be an acceptable posture for a headscarf-wearing woman. The magazine owner and the fashion editor expect that the photographer shows them on the camera the photos he takes. The first decisions about how the clothes—and, more importantly, the bodies they clothe—should be seen on the page are taken on the spot. Leyla occasionally asks the photographer to repeat a shot. If she says, “Too sexy,” the photographer knows that he needs to change his approach. The fashion editor watches the models attentively, intervening any time the carefully composed headscarves slip. At one point, upon observing that the model’s neck is completely uncovered, Leyla asks a model, who is now even taller on her high-heeled shoes, to bend over so that she can rearrange the headscarf. Everyone bursts into laughter. Leyla protests half-jokingly, half-seriously, “Fine, you all keep laughing. But if the neck is not properly covered, what will you say? She did it. It’s not our fault.” The makeup artists are there as well, ready to do any necessary or required touch-ups in between takes. The woman, who has the signature of the secular republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, tattooed on her wrist, has a question for the fashion editor. She says she had noticed the price of a branded scarf that the fashion editor used in an outfit, and that it cost more than 1000TL (approx. £295). She asks Leyla if there are women who pay so much money for a scarf. The fashion editor confirms. The makeup artist comments that from what she knows waste is forbidden in Islam. Lowering her head, the fashion editor nods in agreement. The magazine owner insists that one page of the fashion spread should picture the only uncovered model arm-in-arm with a covered model. He elaborates on his idea: “It’s going to be a wonderful picture. The photo will show two close friends, one wearing a headscarf, the other not.” The photographer takes the suggested shot. Suddenly, Leyla asks the photographer to stop. It has just occurred to her that the combination of sour cherry juice and wine glasses creates an undesired effect. She decides not to risk having their critics lash out at them for encouraging young headscarf-wearing women to drink alcohol, so she removes them. The photographer shoots photo after photo. Every now and then a model is asked to walk away from the table and come to the foreground. The fashion editor and the magazine owner are pleased with the results. The photographer can take a break while the models change their dresses. Leyla leads everyone back to the room.

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Upon seeing her enter the room, one of the designers springs from the armchair: “It’s our turn, isn’t it?” The fashion editor confirms. The designer goes on: “You told us to bring the most covered ball gowns we have and so we did. But how will the readers know that we also make fabulous dresses for uncovered ladies?” The fashion editor shrugs her shoulders and reminds the designer that this is a magazine for headscarf-wearing women. The designer insists, “Why do we not mix covered (kapalı abiye) and uncovered dresses (açık abiye)? You will have a wider readership this way.” The editor-in-chief shakes her head and explains that the magazines that used this strategy to target a wider audience are either no longer on the market or do not sell very well. The designer suggests a possible solution: “You inform your readers that veiled designers have designed these uncovered dresses!” The editor-in-chief repeats that they include only covered dresses in their magazine. Leyla invites the designer to choose three models and help her assistant with dressing them in her creations. The designer selects a model. The other designer laughs, “Well done! You selected the sexiest model. A covered dress and a headscarf will not diminish her sex appeal. Tell the photographer to make sure her face is completely turned away in the pictures.” An awkward silence falls on the room. The fashion editor moves quickly and skillfully from one model to the other, adjusting the dresses to their slim bodies and arranging their headscarves. Soon the models are ready for the second part of the photo shoot. Leyla leads the procession to the basement of the hotel. The curving stairs that connect the basement and the ground level make a good location for group photos. The fashion editor arranges the models along the stairs so that all the gowns can be easily discerned even in a group photo. At the last moment, the fashion editor decides to remove the exterior lace bonnet embellished with three-dimensional fabric flowers that a model wears over her solid-colored shawl. The designer who arranged this head covering says nothing. The fashion editor expresses her doubts that the readers of this magazine would consider such an exterior lacy bonnet fashionable. The photographer shoots the group photos. He also asks each model to come down to the foot of the stairs for a portrait. While he takes these portraits, one of the magazine owners notices that a model’s nails are painted crimson. She rushes to the photographer and tells him that her hands cannot possibly appear in the final photos. The photographer is a little disconcerted by this directive: “So you say that the models shouldn’t have painted nails. But Leyla wears nail polish!” The woman replies, a bit taken aback, “Of course, you have an eye for detail, but hers is clear nail polish!” He seems to understand the difference and notes this request on his memo book. Leyla asks the photographer to stop every time she thinks the outfits need touch-ups. One particular outfit poses problems. She vents her frustration: “He [a designer] sends me a cropped top and a fishtail skirt. Imagine that he expects me to use them in this magazine!

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I pulled the top down, lifted the skirt up. It just does not work! When the girl moves, I can see her belly.” The photographer comforts her: “Don’t worry. We have Photoshop.” He jots this down too in his memo book. The headscarves must be rearranged constantly. The photographer protests only once: “Leyla, get out of the frame at once. My assistant can’t hold that umbrella forever!” She replies laughingly, “Eh, what could possibly happen if I appear in the photo as well?” Then she pirouettes, jumps, and lands at the foot of the stairs. Everyone laughs, except the designer’s assistant, who comments in low voice, “A young unmarried woman cannot behave like this!” No one in her vicinity reacts to this comment. They are busy taking photos of the fashion shoot as it happens and posting them on social media. Leyla voices this shared excitement, saying to no one in particular that “it’s a fantastic feeling to stand at the very centre of fashion and create new styles.” An hour later, the photographer decides that he has enough good material and announces that this part of the photo shoot is over. Leyla leads the group back to the room and begins preparations for the last part of the shoot. She rummages through clothes and complains that she has got a pile of unusable garments. Some designers completely ignored her specifications and sent her garments in inappropriate cuts and fabrics. All the designers sent her clothes that suit relatively more petite, curvy Turkish women, but not the tall, slim, and leggy Eastern European models. In the end, she manages to put together only three outfits. One of these is problematic, for the trousers are too tight and the white top is shorter than what she needs. However, she thinks that the model can pose in such a way that the body shape is less visible. Melis nods now and again in agreement. The headscarves are rearranged and the models are again instructed not to move their heads too much. Leyla accompanies the models to the last location of this fashion shoot, namely the small pool of this hotel. Her assistant remains in the room and repacks clothes, shoes, and accessories. The photographer wants the models to stand around a tall bar table, chat, and drink juice from champagne flutes. The photographer is again in the “production line” mood, shooting incessantly. He asks one model to cross her arms behind her head and look straight at the camera. As he keeps telling her to “look cool,” the model arches her back, the jacket opening more at the front, the headscarf slipping down the neck and her face going slowly into well-rehearsed rapture. The photographer shows the photos to an already frowning fashion editor. Upon seeing them, Leyla shouts, “What is this? I can see her bra through the shirt! Look at her mouth! For God’s sake! Redo this at once!” The photographer protests, “You are really exaggerating! The girl is fully covered! So what if her mouth is slightly open? They all do this.” He emphasizes that her insistence that the models move as little as possible during the shoot is confusing both to him and the models, who are used to more energetic shoots. Leyla changes her tone, “You are doing this on purpose! This is not a magazine like the others you have worked for!” At this point, the magazine owner intervenes. In a harsh voice,

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he tells the fashion editor that her comments are unfair. Then, in a softened voice, he explains to the photographer that they are all tired and apologizes for Leyla’s comments. The photographer takes a short break and then does the reshoot. He asks the model to lean against a wall, look aside, and dip a shoulder. The hour is late. The room is very warm. The models are tired. The fashion editor stands next to the photographer, ready to rearrange the clothes and headscarves if need be. This part of the photo shoot lasts about twenty minutes. While the magazine owner, the editor-in-chief, and the photographer remain in the foyer for a coffee, the fashion editor returns to the room with the models. Melis has already packed everything up and tidied the room. While the models put on their clothes, Leyla arranges for their agency’s driver to pick them up from the hotel. Everyone leaves the room around midnight. A carpet full of pins is left behind.

Fashion images with and for headscarf-wearing women This ethnographic vignette has exemplified the aesthetic criteria, ethical concerns, and religious sensibilities that guide the making of fashion images at an Islamic fashion magazine. As is the case in the making of garments, in the making of these fashion images the focus is on respecting “the lines of veiling” (i.e., covering the flesh except faces and hands; wrapping scarves in such a way that they cover the hairline, ears, and neck). The vignette has presented the dissection of mainstream (secular) fashion trends, the careful selection of garments, the distinctive focus on color, pattern, and form, and the assemblage of appropriate outfits from more or less appropriate garments. Even at the stage of assemblage of outfits, key participants in the fashion shoot, that is, the magazine’s owners, the veiled fashion editor, and the headscarf-wearing collaborators, discuss among themselves what the appropriateness of the outfits consists of. Despite the considerations, negotiations, and improvisations, the result is a unified aesthetic, recognizable as the signature style of this magazine (e.g., the fashion spreads predominantly feature models with their heads covered in solid-colored shawls wrapped in what has become known as “the classical style” (see also the fifth chapter)). The vignette has also pointed to the practical difficulties and the undesired outcomes in this project of composing visual representations with and for headscarf-wearing women with the help of normally uncovered professional models, and through collaboration between people with different tastes, experiences, agendas, and worldviews. The photographer is familiar with the visual vocabulary of mainstream fashion. He tries to adapt his techniques to meet the particular requirements about skin exposure and choice of poses, interested

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as he is in long-term collaboration with this magazine and good references among this growing sector. The makeup artists find ways to deal aesthetically with the presence of the headscarf. The contribution of the occasional participants in the fashion shoot, such as the employees who arrange the tables in the ballroom where the fashion photo shoot takes place, and who pour sour cherry juice in wine glasses, requires constant attention in order to correct or eliminate the inappropriate choices. The professional models are foreign and non-Muslim, who came to Turkey to make money rather than to launch and/or consolidate international careers. They embody the prevalent white-and-thin-and-tall version of femininity. They are versed in the performance of sensuality rather than Islamic modesty. They have their own repertoire of bodily movements and are slow to change this embodied aesthetic labor and adapt to the particular requirements of a photo shoot for an Islamic fashion magazine (e.g., limited movement, reserved attitude). This reluctance is illustrative of Maynard’s (1999) general point that models are, to some extent, co-creators of the fashion image, and not the passive followers of the photographer’s instructions and, in this case, the headscarf-wearing fashion editor’s requirements and occasional outbursts. The headscarf-wearing women who attend this fashion shoot are aware that clothing the models’ bodies almost entirely and asking them to literally model modest femininity not only contradict their professional skills and deny the role the body plays in the creation of the fashion image, but also challenge deeply ingrained secular bodily ideals and practices. They may not accept these ideals and may condemn these practices, but they know that revealing certain body parts (e.g., the hair, figure, and face) is seen as essential for the representation of “womanhood,” especially in the realm of fashion (see also Fadil 2011). These fashion professionals have their own professional and economic agendas as well, and are thus willing to accept what from their point of view is a limitation in conduct as long as the “lines of veiling” are at least respected in the resulting photographs. However, they tend to refrain from marking the garments as pious and claiming that these fashion images portray piety. They are instead inclined to emphasize the fashionability of objects and the modernity of outfits. Equally important, they are thrilled with the very possibility of being at the center of the fashion realm. The veiled fashion editor (tesettürlü) in particular has her own professional agenda. She strives to guide and control these distinct experiences and expectations, well aware as she is that her work is approached not only in aesthetic terms, but also with reference to religious understandings and ethical concerns, and that in the end she alone is held responsible for the outcomes. Simultaneously, she refines her own dress practices and improves her ability to “speak” the “language of fashion.” She has mixed feelings about the unified aesthetics that this magazine presents. She is proud to have contributed to and promoted this particular articulation of fashionability and modesty. However, she

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is also concerned about its long-term impact on her professional identity, the unified aesthetic becoming repetitive and restrictive. The magazine owners are largely concerned with the economic viability of their enterprise, which means that they try to avoid provoking an even stronger criticism than that which accompanied its initial publication. They supervise the process of producing fashion images from start to finish. Sometimes they categorically stick to their editorial policy (i.e., only covered outfits can be presented in the magazine, only headscarf-wrapping styles that cover the hairline, neck, and ears can be featured on the cover). At other times they try to find a balance between the contributors’ creative impulses—especially those of the fashion editor and the photographer—and their own concerns about potential critical responses to the outcomes of these impulses. At yet other times they rely on their headscarf-wearing fashion editor’s aesthetic judgment and religious knowledge, relieved not to have to take responsibility of editorial decisions. This vignette also conveys elements of improvisation, adaptation, and randomness in the unfolding of the fashion photo shoot. This presentation, for example, resembles Jones’ (2010a) discussion of the making of Islamic fashion images. She emphasizes that the solutions that the editors of an Indonesian Islamic fashion magazine found to their ethical dilemmas (e.g., not using professional models; and using only female stylists, makeup artists, and photographers “with pious sensibilities”) were hard to sustain in practice. At the same time, this presentation contrasts Lewis’ (2010, 2015) discussion about the strict editorial policy the magazines she analyzes have and manage to put in practice. These Islamic fashion images are thus multiauthored creations.1 They are the results of the accord and, for that matter, discord between different agentic capacities and their willingness and possibility to give form to particular visions of fashionable Islamic dress and the appropriate embodiment of modesty. However, even for some of their headscarf-wearing authors, these images rarely represent the most acceptable and most desired translations of the relationship between aesthetics and ethics that headscarf-wearing fashion professionals advocate. They might have aimed to simultaneously convey fashionability and modesty, but the resulting fashion pictorials elicit other interpretations as well, and contradict the prevailing understanding of modesty. For their diverse critical observers, these fashion images are “non-pious,” picturing fully covered yet nonetheless desirable women. In these critiques, the issue of multiple authors and the often-conflicting experiences, sensibilities, and expectations they bring to the making of these fashion images is less, if ever,

1

In this case too, multi-authorship might mean “networks of people” who cooperate and make, for example, the styles of a season (Entwistle 2009) or the very fashion world (Moeran 2006). In Moeran’s words (2006: 737), this is “a long series of intermediaries—designers, fashion editors, stylists, photographers, models, makeup artists, celebrities, connoisseurs, critics and others—who together develop some sort of taste standards and criteria of aesthetic value.”

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acknowledged. In addition, in the very identification of the magazine, emphasis is put on the fact that the target readers are headscarf-wearing women, and not on the fact that this is a fashion magazine. The core characteristic of a fashion magazine—namely the selling of imagery, from fashion spreads to image-based advertising pages, to aspirational readers—is mostly condemned as inappropriate, for it features and targets headscarf-wearing women and turns them into objects and subjects of consumption, diverting them from the pursuit of piety. The recent editorial policy—a reaction to the criticism the editors have faced—of considerably reducing the space for articles with spiritual content or on religious issues has gone largely unnoticed. Commentators, religious people in particular, focus on religiosity rather than fashionability and find messages of piety in what are rather messages about consumption. They argue that these fashionable garments, modeling practices, and fashion images are inappropriate for observant Muslim women. They claim that a magazine such as Âlâ exerts a nefarious influence on the younger generations, deterring them from the pursuit of piety.2 Secular and religious observers alike discuss especially the impropriety of the headscarved cover girls that Âlâ and other Islamic fashion magazines launched later promote. In Istanbul, people of different religious views have become accustomed to seeing models advertising headscarves on large billboards. However, they are still intrigued by the presence of headscarved cover girls in newsagents next to mainstream fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle, and Cosmopolitan. In the words of one of my interlocutors, a secular man, “The covered women (kapalı) on the billboards look above or nowhere. In contrast, the Âlâ women look straight into your eyes or their lips are slightly parted. Where is the modesty (alçakgönüllülük) of the veiled woman?” (See also Sehlikoglu 2015.)3 These critics point out that the headscarved cover girls not only attract attention, but they also stare back at their observers in ways that are unusual in a Muslim context. This reciprocal visibility is unnerving. It unsettles not only secular habits of not seeing the headscarf-wearing women, but also religious expectations regarding the muted nature of public piety. More generally, these fashion images are interpreted as a sign of the excesses of capitalism, inciting their viewers to a type of consumption that is inappropriate for religious persons and in the case of religiously mandated garments. This criticism rests on the assumption that “once a thing or an idea is transformed into exchange value in the cultural marketplace, it can no longer also be virtuous.

2

See for example the August 2013 issue of Vuslat, a religiously conservative magazine. http://www. vuslatdergisi.com/sayiYaziList.php?sID=146&year=2013&month=10 (accessed June 7, 2016). 3 Sehlikoglu (2015) writes that her interlocutors in Istanbul reported feelings of discomfort at seeing these covers. See her analysis of the dynamics of covering the body and, simultaneously, exposing it to the public gaze in a Muslim culture.

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Value and virtue cannot, or ideally should not, coexist in the same form. When they do, they invite scandal” (Jones 2010: 94). The criticism is part of a larger condemnatory discourse of Islamic fashion as the unethical commodification of religious dress and pious femininity.4 The responses to this criticism vary from one headscarf-wearing fashion professional to the next depending on their particular role in the making and dissemination of such fashion images. One fashion editor, for example, defended herself by framing her work within the particular relationship between aesthetics and ethics summarized in the previous chapter, that is, aesthetics is ethics. She also occasionally emphasized the physical particularities and bodily agency of the professional models (e.g., “it is not my fault that that woman [the cover model] is so sexy”). Other fashion professionals were less vocal when it came to positioning themselves in relation to the fashion spreads. They emphasized the potential of these fashion images to effect a positive impact. However, they refrained from qualifying it as an ethical impact. They preferred to reiterate their commitment to aesthetic guidance. As for the founders of the magazine, they state that they were publishing the fashion magazine that headscarf-wearing women have long been waiting for, therefore placing all responsibility on the shoulders of the practitioners of Islamic fashion. However, the attraction that fashion modeling wields is a topic of concern among headscarf-wearing fashion professionals as well. Many of my interlocutors reported that, to their great dismay, young headscarf-wearing women often approach them and express their desire to model their creations and work as models for their fashion houses. They directly or indirectly blamed this magazine in particular for encouraging this immodest behavior (a criticism which did not preclude them from seeking collaboration with the magazine and praising the work of its fashion editor). Their outrage reflects the perceived incompatibility between modeling and their understanding of modesty. Conversely, some of these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals spoke about their personal uneasiness with constant exposure to the public (masculine) eye through social media. They claimed that this was an undesired consequence of being digital entrepreneurs, writing personal style blogs, and promoting their products and services through social media. Entwistle (2009) notes that economic actors in fashion must embody—or have professional models embody—the aesthetic they seek to commodify. The above-quoted remarks demonstrate the difficulty of sustaining this practice in Islamic fashion. When the actors themselves embody this aesthetic, they not only make themselves vulnerable to criticism, but also

4

This criticism resonates with a common attitude to condemn fashion as a means through which capitalism thrives. As Wilson (2003: 49) notes, “At its crudest, this kind of explanation assumes that changes in fashion are foisted upon us, especially on women, in a conspiracy to persuade us to consume far more than we ‘need’ to. Without this disease of ‘consumerism’ capitalism would collapse.”

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may feel uncomfortable because of this exposure. When the models embody this aesthetic for them, the outcomes are not necessarily the desired ones, because they lack an embodied knowledge of Islamic modesty, and because the fashion image contradicts the principles of Islamic modesty and the muted nature of public piety. These are some of the particularities of and this is the critical context (external criticism and internal scrutiny) in which the making of Islamic fashion images takes place. In this way, this chapter has added more ethnographic evidence on what it means to do business in Islamic fashion. The next chapter will demonstrate that these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are not only interested in running a business in this sector, but also in positioning themselves within the fashion world, a move that they see—and present—as empowering. Moreover, it will show that their engagement with fashion is not only carefully legitimized (a defensive attitude), but also proudly emphasized (an assertive attitude) as appropriate for modern yet pious women.

7 BECOMING FASHION PROFESSIONALS Headscarf-wearing women have recently entered the sector as designers, editors, stylists, journalists, and bloggers. Their professionalization has been detailed in the previous chapters, including reasons and strategies for entering the sector, characteristics of their projects and businesses, contribution to the development of a new aesthetics, and positioning as economic actors who possess an ethico-aesthetic sensibility. In contrast, this chapter focuses on a peculiar side of this process of professionalization. These women not only make fashion, but also style themselves into fashion professionals. As discussed in the second chapter of this book, a widespread assumption— shared both by their religiously conservative and secular critics—is that, as pious persons, they could not and should not be interested in fashion. Another common presumption—circulated since the early republican years—is that, as headscarfwearing women, they lack refined tastes and high cultural standards. The typical attitude—shaped through the association between modernity, secularity, and fashion—is to exclude women who dress in Islamically appropriate garments from the realm of fashion, because these clothes are non-modern—and for some they are even anti-modern. The contestation and repudiation of these assumptions and attitudes is an integral part of this process of becoming a fashion professional. These headscarf-wearing fashion professionals claim publicly that fashion is part of any woman’s life, headscarf-wearing women included. They provide visual material in support of this claim, especially using social media to document their sartorial preferences and embodied fashionability. They publicly introduce themselves as fashion designers, stylists, writers, journalists, and bloggers. They argue that these are desirable and respectable professions for headscarf-wearing women. Furthermore, they literally position themselves within the realm of fashion. They both frequent and open fashion houses and boutiques, and try to secure a place in the locally recognized loci of fashion, from the prestigious mainstream fashion events to the places where globally renowned fashion houses and established (secular) designers congregate. These arguments and strategies are grounded in

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a logic of ordinariness: fashion is a mundane practice in the life of contemporary women, their lives included (here ordinariness translates as mundanity); an interest in fashion is a manifestation of nefis (the desirous self) and a sign of the inherently weak human nature (here ordinariness translates as humanity); fashion-related professions are desirable and respectable, and therefore normal for headscarf-wearing women (here ordinariness translates as normality); their presence in the loci of fashion is regular (here ordinariness translates as regularity). By this argumentation, ordinariness confers legitimacy. In this way, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals demonstrate that they are legitimate participants in the realm of fashion.

An ordinary practice Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals argue that fashion is an ordinary practice in any woman’s life, a headscarf-wearing woman included. They ground this argument in an understanding of fashion as a practice that enables an individual’s participation in the contemporary world (Faurschou 1990, quoted in Comaroff 1996: 21). Moreover, they base this argument on an Islamic understanding of human nature, a woman’s interest in fashion being a manifestation of nefis, the lower self, and signifying the inherently weak nature of any human being (Renard 2009). In the first line of argumentation, the ordinariness of the practice of fashion is explained through its definition as a “need.” The following quotations are illustrative of this line of reasoning. One veiled fashion editor (tesettürlü) argued that fashion was “not a want, but a need” in a woman’s life. In her words: Fashion is a woman’s need. A veiled woman (tesettürlü kadın) can adapt colours and other fashionable trends to her own dress style. Her everyday needs and life events are similar to those of any other woman. What does she do to fulfil these rituals? She dresses too. She socialises too. She makes friends too. These things necessarily require fashion. In this case, “need” refers to something that headscarf-wearing women must have in order to live a fulfilling social life. A headscarf-wearing fashion journalist claimed that everyone accepted—and even the most critical person would in the end admit—that fashion was a “need.” In her words: Fashion was born out of necessity. This is an undeniable truth. . . . Garments for headscarf-wearing women (muhafazakâr kadınlar) have become simpler, more chic, more elegant and more functional. The most important reason

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behind this demand for minimalism and elegance is the growing number of headscarf-wearing working women. These designs respond to working women’s needs. There is no place for ostentatiousness and showiness in a professional life! Fashion is a necessity. In this case, “need” means something that is indispensable for the life of a working woman. The first quotation is taken from an interview I conducted, while the second is from an article from an e-magazine oriented toward headscarf-wearing women. Many other headscarf-wearing fashion professionals with whom I talked during my fieldwork and whose interviews in the media and comments on social media I read, held similar opinions about the place of fashion in a woman’s life, a headscarf-wearing woman included. They used the word “need” (ihtiyaç), related terms such as “necessity” (gerek) and “requirement” (gereklilik), and opposite terms such as “comfort” (rahatlık) and “satisfaction” (menuniyet) in their discussions about fashion. This line of reasoning can be summarized as follows: in contemporary society, fashion (i.e., fashionable dress) is essential for the construction of a woman’s public self-presentation; the embodied practice of fashion (i.e., wearing fashionable dress) becomes thus a basic component of mundane life, something necessary for maintaining a satisfactory condition of existence.1 In Turkey, in the recent years, an ever-increasing number of headscarf-wearing women have been integrating into different social and professional milieux, and have been actively participating in public life. The practice of fashion (i.e., reading fashion magazines and fashion-related social media content, discussing fashion trends, and wearing fashionable dress) and the habits inherent to the public space (i.e., personal display and reciprocal examination) have become an integral part of their everyday lives. This practice enables them to feel—and, equally important, demonstrate to their disbelieving and disapproving observers—that they belong in these newly accessed milieux. These fashion professionals emphasize the ordinariness of fashion: this is a common practice in a woman’s life and has necessarily become an ordinary practice in a headscarf-wearing woman’s life as well. To covet the newness of fashion is naturalized as to be of one’s time. These fashion professionals further qualify this claim, adding that the outcome of this ordinary practice of fashion is a style of one’s own (stil sahibi olmak). During my fieldwork I heard my interlocutors saying that headscarf-wearing women must strive to achieve individual styles and composed self-presentations, and not to simply follow the fashion trends. Their discussions abounded in slogans such as

1

This line of reasoning echoes the theoretical argument that fashion becomes important in situations of potential social mobility and offers the individual a technique of dressing with which “to self-consciously construct an identity suitable for the modern stage” (Entwistle 2000: 75).

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“Be as you wish!,” “Be original,” “Trust yourself,” “Be natural,” “Feel comfortable in your clothes,” “Know yourself and dress accordingly,” “Be different,” and “Be yourself.” They shared among themselves their impressions that young women wanted to dress in their own style and discussed the implications of this search for a unique style upon their businesses (e.g., the need for stylistic innovation, small production series, and knowledge of trends). One veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) claimed, “Today young women are more daring in their dressing styles. Everyone wants to dress in accordance with her personality. Until today everything seemed limited to us, but now there is a sort of self-confidence among the youngsters that pleases me.” One covered fashion designer (kapalı) maintained, “Everyone wants to dress differently. I work for this type of customer. I create new things and produce small series.” I also read about their ideas on the creation of an individual style in the Islamic fashion media, e-platforms oriented at headscarfwearing women and social media postings. One headscarf-wearing fashion designer wrote, “Style is your accurate reflection. It is a non-verbal vocabulary for your self-expression. It confers you uniqueness. It brings you and the garments you wear into perfect harmony.” Another headscarf-wearing fashion designer claimed, “You have a style of your own if you are capable of selecting the things that truly represent you from what is fashionable in a given moment.” Yet another headscarf-wearing fashion designer stated in an interview for a newspaper, “To have a style of your own means to wear garments that express your personality, not to wear whatever happens to be in fashion that year.” A veiled fashion stylist (tesettürlü) insisted, “Believe me that it’s not important if the garments you buy are expensive, cheap, or from the last season. If you know yourself and select what best represents you, these are insignificant details.” And a covered fashion blogger (kapalı) warned, “Fashion is always changing. The most important thing is to discover the type of clothes that suit your taste and create your own style.” These reflections on “a style of one’s own” resemble a Simmelian2 discussion about the core characteristic of fashion, that is, its capacity to enable the individual to mundanely overcome the tension between the social principles of individuality and conformity. In this case, the idealization of individuality remains nevertheless within the register of ordinariness, for individuality is portrayed as the expected outcome of the proper practicing of fashion. In addition, these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals specify that having “a style of one’s own” does not mean spending considerable amounts of money on clothes and dressing extravagantly. In a piece she wrote for an e-platform oriented at headscarf-wearing women, one covered fashion designer (kapalı) warns her readers, “Neither is the street a catwalk, nor are you a model.” She also advised them not to “be a festival” themselves when

2

Simmel [1957 (1904): 541–58].

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attending “a shopping festival.” She specifically condemned those headscarfwearing visitors whom she saw wobbling on high-heeled shoes, wearing heavy make-up and faux leather tights, and tying their headscarves in such a way that their big earrings were visible. In one of her posts, a covered fashion blogger (kapalı) informed her readers, “The most important thing is to be able to buy pieces that can easily be combined with other pieces in your wardrobe.” One veiled fashion editor (tesettürlü) told her readers, “Having a style of your own does not mean buying loads of clothes. A woman with a style of her own knows what to wear and how to behave in distinct locations and on different occasions.” Another nuance is thus added to this proclaimed ordinariness of the practice of fashion. The Islamic notion of modesty is incorporated in such moralizing commentaries. Together, these commentaries constitute a plea for moderation in fashion consumption. In this usage, ordinariness connotes modesty in dress and conduct. To support their claim about the ordinariness of fashion in a woman’s life, these fashion professionals also draw upon an Islamic understanding of human nature. In this understanding, the agentive components of the self are the soul (nefis), the heart (kalp) and the spirit (ruh).3 Nefis represents the lower self. It is a desirous self, which is constantly prone to carnal pleasures, material desires, and power-seeking inclinations. This lower self is ever-susceptible to the temptations of evil. Nefis diverts the human being—if not properly disciplined by the heart and spirit—from the path of God. Consequently, the struggle to control this desirous self and the broad effort of self-cultivation are crucial components of the project of becoming a devout Muslim (Renard 2009). However, as Jouili (2015: 92) writes, “It would be serious vainglory to assume that a state could be achieved in which vigilance and self-discipline become irrelevant and the inner desires were completely conformed to one’s ethos.” This struggle with the desirous self is an intrinsic part of life. While reflecting on their interest in fashion in general and their preference for certain designs and outfits in particular, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals often reminded themselves and their interlocutors that they, like every human being, have a desirous self. Their interest in fashion was described as a manifestation of their nefis and a sign of their inherently weak human nature. One veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü), to give an example, elaborated on this idea while replying to a congratulatory message. She showed me this message and explained that she wrote back because she felt she did not really deserve such praise.

3

This is a Sufi conceptualization of human nature. I am not saying that my interlocutors were members of a Sufi order or that they directly referenced Sufism in our conversations or in their public discourses. However, ideas of the self as developed in Sufism and the key Sufi notion of nefis are integral parts of lived Islam in Turkey.

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This follower left the following congratulatory message on her Instagram feed: Your endeavour to respect tesettür in your designs distinguishes you from other fashion designers. We have never seen you designing or wearing a short jacket and trousers. Your garments are long. You strive to hide the contours of the body. This demonstrates that you are not at all willing to compromise. I wish you continued success. The designer replied: We thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. We inevitably taint tesettür through the works we do. Sometimes we fall prey to our nefis. We try our best to respect the rules of tesettür. Obviously this is not the proper degree of tesettür, these clothes are not fully Islamically appropriate, but as I said we try to comply with the requirements of tesettür. Praise God our Lord who preordained us tesettür. In this example the designer feels that she is not as virtuous as this follower credits her for being and points out her limits. In the next example, the owner of a fashion boutique complains that she is expected to be virtuous. In one of our conversations, this covered woman (kapalı) pointed out that people who criticized headscarf-wearing women for the pleasure they took in dressing well tended to forget an essential aspect: they ignored their human limitations. They posted harsh messages on their social media accounts, forgetting that these women were human beings as well. As she explained: They expect us to be angels. Their logic goes like this: as a veiled woman, you have completely killed your nefis. This is why you should not adorn yourself (süslü olmamalısın), you should not wear makeup, you should not go to cafes, you should not stroll about the city, you should not do I don’t know what. Alright. You are a human being. I am a human being as well. God gave you nefis. God gave me nefis as well. I cover myself. Maybe by veiling I killed the nefis inside me a little, but I didn’t die. I didn’t become a holy person. Only the Prophet has no sins. I sin. I have nefis. I’ll pay for this in the afterlife. But you, a human being just like me, cannot criticize me, cannot call me to account for my choices and deeds. She thus pointed out that headscarf-wearing women were as imperfect as any human being. They covered themselves, veiling being a technique employed in the governance of nefis. They longed for a self that achieved complete control

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over its desirous component and for a pious way of life in accordance with Islamic precepts. However, they did not entirely control—as no human being could entirely control—their nefis. In this line of argumentation, ordinary gains a different nuance. Ordinary means natural. This peculiar deployment of the Islamic notion of nefis has rarely, if ever, been brought to the foreground in scholarly analyses of Islamic fashion. More common is a discussion of the fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing woman’s struggle to discipline her nefis and find a way to articulate the apparently conflicting desires to be fashionable and pious as part of an Islamic project of constructing an ethical self (Gökarıksel and Secor 2012). This approach corresponds to a direction of study in the anthropology of Islam that focuses on piety and tends to privilege the struggle for ethical perfection (Schielke 2009). This book contributes to the discussion as well, in particular through its exploration of the particular relationship between aesthetics and ethics that these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals advocate. The ethical twist in this argument is the framing of the ordinariness of fashion within the religiously defined ordinariness of veiling. These headscarf-wearing women promote themselves as the only fashion professionals who can guarantee that the ordinary practice of fashion remains within the limits imposed by the requirements of veiling on forms and behaviors. They claim they know better than their competitors in this sector the religious requirements of veiling. They state that they are more sensitive than their competitors to the needs and desires of headscarf-wearing women. Their aesthetic decisions are simultaneously ethical practices. They control their creative impulses in order not to disrespect these requirements. They design and mediate appropriate garments. They advise their customers on how to select garments and assemble outfits that conform to these requirements. They are thus ideally placed to keep the practice of fashion within the realm of this religiously defined ordinariness. This is another facet of the peculiar relationship between aesthetics and ethics that these headscarfwearing fashion professionals advocate, as discussed in the previous chapters of this book. In addition to the public promotion of these arguments, these fashion professionals continuously demonstrate through corporeal performances in public places and visual presentations on social media that fashion is part of their own lives. They skillfully make use of the potential of social media to gain exposure and present their opinions and images to a dispersed audience. Their thousands of followers receive pictures of their latest creations and of their outfits on a daily basis. Their followers are also regularly informed about their participation in different fashion-related and entrepreneurship-focused events. This visual record further supports their argument that fashion is an ordinary practice in a headscarfwearing woman’s life.

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Ordinary professions Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals promote their profession among religious people. They describe moments and stages in their professionalization in the media and on social media. They offer advice on how to start a career in fashion. (As has been previously discussed, they do not include fashion modeling among the fashion-related careers they advise headscarf-wearing women to pursue.) They take part in career days at their former Islamic high schools (ImamHatip Lisesi) and at newly established universities, speaking about their personal dedication to fashion, detailing the rewarding and challenging aspects of these professions and informing students about the opportunities in this sector. They organize workshops and share their experience on engaging in and running fashion-related businesses with other young women. In addition, they lecture on the role of fashion in any woman’s life in various community cultural centers around the city and offer personalized advice to attendees on how to dress. They thus argue that these are desirable and respectable professions for young headscarf-wearing women. These headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are trying to normalize their professions at a time when fashion is becoming a popular topic of study in Turkey. In 2014, one covered boutique owner (kapalı) made note of this growing popularity. In her words: I finished my undergraduate studies five years ago. Let’s go four more years back to the moment when I was preparing for my university entrance exams. Nine years ago [2005] I couldn’t tell my mother that I wanted to study fashion. Truth be told, I didn’t know what it meant and what I could do with these studies. There was no one to tell you, actually. I couldn’t see the horizon. If I had said this, everyone would have surely told me to stop talking nonsense. However, in the last few years, many universities have opened departments of fashion design. Then there are all these schools—I’m not talking about Istanbul Fashion Academy, which is the most prestigious—where one can study everything related to fashion. Before this, there were only the vocational high schools and the graduates were considered tailors and seamstresses. That perception is slowly changing. Nowadays a young woman who studies fashion design can proudly step into the world and say, “I am a designer.” I for one did not have such an opportunity. Different educational institutions, from vocational schools and community centers to private schools and universities, have begun to offer courses and programs in various fashion-related topics. Young headscarf-wearing women have become a familiar presence in these courses and programs.

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However, the popularity of one particular profession—that is, fashion designing—has also engendered mixed feelings. This was the main topic of conversation at one meeting between headscarf-wearing fashion professionals. A veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) launched the topic, recounting a recent half-amusing half-annoying episode: “I met a young woman yesterday who introduced herself as a fashion designer. It turned out that she had enrolled in a two-month course in fashion design at a vocational institution the day before!” Her story elicited smiles and laughs. The designer further commented, “I said nothing. I didn’t laugh either. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. What would you have done?” Her interlocutors admitted that they had mixed feelings as well. A veiled fashion journalist (tesettürlü) voiced her own surprise: “Nowadays, so many girls introduce themselves as fashion designers. When I enquire where I can see their creations, I get vague replies. Does someone really believe she becomes a designer just by saying over and over that she is a designer?” A  covered fashion designer (kapalı) replied laughingly, “Apparently, some do believe this!” A headscarf-wearing blogger added her opinion: “I know this type very well. She sews two skirts, then three friends like these skirts on social media. This gives her the courage—maybe insolence is a better word?—to call herself a fashion designer.” A covered fashion designer (kapalı) complained, “We laugh, and we have good reason to laugh. But on social media we’re all in the same boat.” Another veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) asked in surprise, “What do you mean? We have so many followers on social media. How could someone think I and some girls who just started are at the same level?” The complaining designer explained that she was referring to people who just browsed pictures recreationally to see what they liked without critical thought to the act of creation, or to drawing a distinction between design professionals and those who copy. The other designer exclaimed, “But we can’t do much about this!” The complaining designer further commented, “I know. That’s what worries me.” A headscarf-wearing blogger expressed her frustration at seeing “these girls” flooding the internet with snapshots of themselves in copied garments. A university trained covered fashion designer (kapalı), one of the few headscarf-wearing fashion designers who had graduated from a prestigious art school, contributed to this conversation: “Some people seem to think that they are entitled to call themselves fashion designers because their mothers were seamstresses and they grew up playing under the sewing machine.” Eyebrows raised around her, as this was her usual way of distinguishing herself from her less formally trained peers (and more or less intentionally offending those around her who happened to be seamstresses’ daughters). Another veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü) quickly shifted the conversation toward a topic that concerned them all, that is, the reproduction of their creations. She emphasized that “so many young women just reproduce our designs. They change the fabrics, and the most creative among them add a pocket there, a wider sleeve there and a

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different collar there. Then they brag about ‘their designs.’” A headscarf-wearing blogger pointed out that not only “these girls” copied their designs, but also many established clothing companies did the same. She had heard that even the CEOs of these companies follow them on social media. On the bright side, the established fashion professionals were widely recognized as trendsetters. These established headscarf-wearing fashion professionals scoff at, in the words of a fashion editor, the “eagerness” and “boldness” of the newcomers: neither their lack of training nor the ordinariness of their so-called “creations” prevents them from promoting themselves as fashion designers. Nevertheless, they also worry that the lack of professionalism of these wannabe designers will jeopardize their own reputations. They are anxious about what their critics will make of this generalized ambition to be a fashion designer. They are concerned that their own ambition to become, and to be recognized as, fashion professionals will be devalued and their efforts to establish themselves in this sector will be more easily belittled or disregarded.

An ordinary presence Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals strive to become a regular presence in the locally significant loci of fashion. In their public discussions and in our conversations, the most frequently mentioned loci were Mercedes-Benz Istanbul Fashion Week, Nis¸antas¸ı, a neighborhood that is considered the center of fashion in Istanbul, and Vogue magazine. In the recent period, a growing number of headscarf-wearing women have begun attending the most prestigious fashion event in Istanbul, namely Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Istanbul. In March 2014, a veiled fashion journalist (tesettürlü) posted on Instagram a photograph in which she and two well-known headscarf-wearing fashion designers were depicted attending Istanbul Fashion Week. The accompanying text read: “Four years ago I was alone here:((((Now wherever I turn I see a familiar face. Hey these days hey . . . #mbfwi.” Nevertheless, headscarf-wearing fashion designers have yet to present their collections at this event. In one of our conversations, the above-quoted fashion journalist pointed out that for the moment none of the headscarf-wearing fashion designers met the selection criteria, especially those regarding their previous collections. She also reckoned that secular people— the self-proclaimed legitimate actors in this space of modernity—have yet to accept that headscarf-wearing women have the cultural capital that the fashion world required. Headscarf-wearing women signal thus their desire to participate in the “field” of fashion.4 However, their presence is for now physical and social

4

Entwistle and Rocamora (2006: 735–51).

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rather than cultural, in the sense of being recognized by the established “players” (Bourdieu 1993) in the fashion industry. In contrast to this interest in Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Istanbul, the Islamic Fashion Fair (Tesettür Fuarı) in Istanbul was less popular among these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals. In 2011, only one fashion designer attended its third edition. In 2012, five fashion designers attended the fair. One of these designers took the opportunity to distribute flyers advertising her stand at Istanbul Fashion Week and claiming she was the only designer to attend both events. She also urged me—the anthropologist who declared her interest in veiling and fashion (tesettür ve moda)—to attend Istanbul Fashion Week, for this event would allow me to better understand the local fashion industry. Just as she was handing me the flyer, a visitor stopped in front of the designer’s stand, took from her purse another flyer announcing the designer’s participation at the Islamic Fashion Fair, and compared them. Except for the name and address of the events, the flyers were identical. Both featured the right half of a woman. Her neck and shoulder indicated that she was wearing a high-necked top heavily embellished with sequins. Her head was uncovered. The visitor approached this designer’s stand and addressed the women seated at a table in the middle of the stand: “I can understand why you have a non-headscarf-wearing model pictured on the invitation for Istanbul Fashion Week,” she said, “but why did you use the same picture for the Islamic Fashion Fair? Is this half-veiling (yarım tesettür)?” Neither of the women replied. The fashion designer invited the visitor to browse her “Islamically appropriate dresses,” but the woman refused and moved away, shaking her head in disapproval. The 2012 edition was the fourth and last edition of this fair, the organizers citing lack of profitability as the main reason for its closure. During its four editions, the organizers had tried various strategies to attract exhibitors as well as visitors. The fashion shows that were held during the first edition had provoked harsh criticism and were dropped from the next editions’ programs. The reluctance among many established clothing companies to have their names associated with an event dedicated to Islamically appropriate clothing (tesettür), however, had proved the greatest obstacle. Lack of general interest in the fair had meant a modest presence of the headscarf-wearing fashion designers as well. Some of the designers I talked to claimed that most of the exhibitors displayed products that they—and their young fashion-conscious customers—found outdated and, consequently, being in such company would do them no good. In the last few years, an ever-increasing number of fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women shop and socialize in Nis¸antas¸ı, a centrally located neighborhood recognized as the locus of fashion in Istanbul. It has long been a favorite residential area among the secular elite, and its upscale shops, cafes, and restaurants have long displayed the wares of international fashion brands. Established Turkish fashion designers have their flagship stores there as well. The

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recently opened Istanbul Fashion Academy is also located in this neighborhood. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, like many other inhabitants of the city, recognize the importance of seeing and being seen in this locus of fashion. For them, spending time in Nis¸antas¸ı and publicizing their visits through social media represent a means by which to position themselves in the realm of fashion. However, working in this neighborhood—in the sense of opening a fashion house or a boutique that caters to headscarf-wearing women—can be a challenging experience. During my fieldwork, I encountered only two women, Nazan and Meral, who, for different reasons, took up this challenge. In 2011, Nazan opened her fashion house on the periphery of this neighborhood, thus fulfilling an old dream. Her mother was a renowned seamstress in Ankara. As a child she had often played around her sewing machine, at times following the movements of the hands, mesmerized by them, at other times clothing her dolls in fabric remnants. She had grown up in a house where beautiful clothes occupied a special place, something to be made and endlessly talked about. Upon graduating from a French high school in Ankara, she got married and became a homemaker—the happy mother of three children; the wife of a successful businessman; one of the few women in her family to take up the veil when she was twelve years old and to choose a pious man as her husband. Years later, when her children no longer needed her constant attention, Nazan decided to dedicate time to her old passion. She took sewing lessons, attended a course in fashion design and did an internship in the workshop of an established designer. Her first creations—clothes appropriate for the Umrah and the Hajj—were presented at charitable events and were very well received. Encouraged by this success, she decided to open her own fashion house. Her husband acted as the financial backer of this project. In its initial form, the project had a very short life. She recounts, “We announced to everyone that we were working for veiled women. Six months later we went bankrupt.” She had been counting on those headscarf-wearing women who had claimed they liked her creations and that they could hardly wait for her to open her fashion house. To her great disappointment, only a few of these enthusiastic cheerleaders actually visited her, and none placed an order. As for Nis¸ antas¸ı’s inhabitants and the regular strollers through its shopping venues—secular women—upon seeing her headscarf, they would turn and leave. The “more polite women” left without uttering a word. The “less polite women” advised her to move out of this neighborhood because she did not belong there. As Nazan summarized the situation, “Veiled women have yet to learn to value couture, non-veiled women have yet to learn to value us [pious people].” She did not give up. She moved to a more central location in the neighborhood, changed the name of her fashion house and advertised it as a fashion house for, in her words, “ladies who graciously combine beauty and elegance.” The message that she intended to communicate was, “From now

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on, I don’t focus only on Islamically appropriate clothes (tesettür giyim). I design clothes for everyone.” Explaining the transformation, she added, “After all, I am trying to run a business.” However, her message has yet to convince some of her visitors. A recurrent question she faces—as I read in interviews she gave, and as I heard in conversations of which I was a part—is why she chose to open her fashion house in this particular neighborhood. In public discussions, Nazan reminded her interlocutors that Nis¸antas¸ı was, in her words, “a very special place.” Having a place of their own in this neighborhood was the dream of all fashion designers in Turkey, she added. Moreover, being here, seeing what others did, and interacting with other designers were opportunities to learn and improve. In sum, as an aspiring fashion designer, she wanted to be at the very locus of fashion. In private conversation, she—the wife of a businessman closely connected to the highest echelon of the governing party—defiantly pointed out that secular people must get used to having headscarf-wearing women in this neighborhood. She emphasized that the society had changed; the oncemarginalized religious population now ruled the country and, consequently, had rightfully reclaimed its place in the center. Nis¸antas¸ı was just such a central place. No one contradicted her. In mixed company—that is, when both observant and non-observant people were present—her comments were met with polite smiles and awkward silences. The public answer summarizes a strategy that these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals have devised to position themselves within the realm of fashion, that is, to be physically present in a recognized locus of fashion. The private response demonstrates that behind these strategies there is confidence— the sort of confidence that builds up when the desire to move to the center is politically legitimized. However, spending the day and running a business in this neighborhood posed problems. These included being stared at by passers-by who found curious, if not outright offensive, her and her headscarf-wearing assistants’ presence there; being stopped on the street by a neighborhood denizen and being told that she did not belong there and should return to Fatih;5 visitors leaving the premises as soon as they saw headscarf-wearing shop attendants; and customers canceling orders, presumably because they had second thoughts about buying from a headscarf-wearing fashion designer. Nazan linked these unpleasant reactions to an outdated perspective on Turkish society. This placed, to quote the terms she used, the “Kemalists” (Atatürkçü) and the “Muslims” (Müslüman) on two distinct socio-spatial axes, with “Kemalists” at the center and religious people at the periphery. She argued that those who urged them to leave 5

Fatih is a district of Istanbul where many religiously conservative people live and which occupies a particular place in the city’s symbolic geography as the “most conservative district” of Istanbul.

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this neighborhood were living in the past. The country had changed. “Kemalists” must learn to respect religious people as their equals. As she put it, “This is our country too. I have the right to be here as well. They have to get used to us.” Kandiyoti (2012: 515) identifies this discourse as one of the “master narratives” currently used in Turkey: this discourse opposes “republican authoritarianism against democracy,” wherein “democratization is, for all practical purposes, treated as coterminous with the ascent of previously marginalized Islamic actors to positions of cultural, economic and political prominence.” In our last conversation, Nazan told me she had decided to hire a non-headscarf-wearing assistant. Her responsibility would be to deal with the occasional customer who might be alienated by the sight of their headscarves. Meral, the second woman I introduce here, had employed a non-headscarfwoman in her boutique from the beginning. However, unpleasant encounters and rude remarks could not be entirely avoided. In 2013, Meral, together with her sister-in-law, opened a fashion boutique in Nis¸antas¸ı. They exclusively addressed modest dressers, be they headscarf-wearing women or not. She had previously run a boutique, together with her cousins in Erenköy,6 another neighborhood of Istanbul. A graduate in chemistry, Meral explained her decision to enter this sector in the following terms: “Every woman’s dream is to open a boutique or a café. But only courageous women open and persist in such a business. I am this kind of person: if I start something, then I mean business. And God always helps me.” Nevertheless, this business was not as profitable as she would have liked it to be. There were many other similar boutiques in the area. To distinguish themselves in this crowded market, they established partnerships with well-known secular designers. However, this strategy did not produce the expected results. The clothes were exquisite, but too expensive. Their customers were careful with their money. As she recounted, “The woman who lives in Erenköy is actually rich. She spends a fortune on her Louis Vuitton bag, but when it comes to buying from a local boutique she thinks like this: ‘This is Erenköy. If I buy from here, I cannot pay more than 500TL’ (approx. £150).” Later, personal misunderstandings with her partners prompted her to withdraw from this business. She soon found a new partner, her sister-in-law, and embarked on a more ambitious project. In her words: When you dream, you imagine something in its most beautiful, most marvellous form. When you say “fashion boutique,” Nis¸antas¸ı is the place that comes to everyone’s mind. But then what did we veiled women (tesettürler) do? ‘Ah, is Islamically appropriate clothing (tesettür) alright in Nis¸antas¸ı?’ We think it’s all right in Erenköy. It’s all right in Florya.7 It’s all right in Fatih. It’s all right I don’t 6

Erenköy is a neighborhood in Istanbul where many well-off religiously conservative people live. Florya is also a neighborhood in Istanbul where well-off religiously conservative people live.

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know where. But never in Nis¸antas¸ı! We told this to ourselves so many times that we came to believe it. It was us in fact who dismiss this possibility. We distanced ourselves from that area ourselves. No one has actually tried to open a boutique there. Not only her ambition but Meral’s quotidian experience was also crucial in planning this business. Although she came from, in her words, a conservative family (muhafazakâr bir aile), she had only recently decided to take up the veil. She explained that this decision reflected her desire to better integrate in her new social milieu, all women in her husband’s extended family being veiled. This decision also depended on her realization that the new clothing on offer for headscarf-wearing women permitted a fashionable appearance, that is, the sort of appearance that she found suitable for a woman of her age and status. She extended her circle of headscarf-wearing friends. They often went together to Nis¸ antas¸ ı, to shop and spend time together in cafes and restaurants. As she recounted: When someone says conservative garments (muhafazakâr giyim), Fatih and Erenköy always come to mind. But this is wrong. . . . Most of the elegantly dressed headscarf-wearing women (türbanlı kadınlar) do their shopping in Nis¸antas¸ı. If I weren’t in this business, did not run a fashion boutique, I would do the same. Meral and her sister-in-law listed all the elements that could help them differentiate their business from other fashion boutiques for headscarf-wearing women. In the end, three elements remained on their list: location—Nis¸antas¸ı (taking into account not only its prestige as a locus of fashion, but also the attraction it holds for fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women); the collaborators— established fashion designers; and the products—covered garments created exclusively for their boutique. To select the designers, they watched their fashion shows, scrutinized their Instagram and Facebook pages, and checked the affordable lines that they designed for online shopping sites. They then got in touch with them and presented their project. Meral had subsequent meetings with those who accepted their proposal. Unlike her sister-in-law, she was veiled and, consequently, she was more sensitive to and knowledgeable about the needs and desires of a headscarf-wearing woman. She discussed with these designers how they could redesign their creations for her headscarf-wearing customers, in the sense of lowering the hemline, elongating the sleeves, and raising the necklines. She also assisted them in designing and making new types of garments that would suit these customers.

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In the beginning, the two partners had had their doubts regarding the appropriateness of Nis¸antas¸ı for this type of business,8 but in the end they decided to open the boutique. As Meral put it: “We realised that we would enliven, add colour to and enrich this neighbourhood.” Theirs was going to be the first fashion boutique in the neighborhood that catered exclusively to “conservative ladies” (muhafazakâr kadınlar). The opening of this boutique was reported in great detail in the Islamic fashion magazines, Islamic newspapers, and e-platforms oriented at headscarf-wearing women. These articles also noted that it was then-Minister of Economy who cut the ribbon of this new fashion boutique. Meral began to spend most of her time at the boutique. It was also her responsibility to liaise with the designers. Over time, she included among her collaborators a few headscarf-wearing fashion designers, on the condition that their garments were created exclusively for her boutique. She used social media, especially Instagram, to advertise products from her boutique, modeling the clothes herself. To her dismay, her presence on social media also exposed her to fierce criticism for popularizing an improper way of covering. She took up the veil recently, covered her hair, but did not wear an inner bonnet under her headscarf, leaving her hairline exposed. There was also disturbing gossip about her circulating among headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, as she had learned from a friend. Rumor had it that while she stayed at her boutique, she wore her headscarf in turban style. A turban would not cover her neck, which meant she was not “religiously covered” but “secularly covered” (Özyegin 2015: 167). This upset her more than the few occasions when, upon seeing that she wore a headscarf, visitors left the boutique. To attend mainstream fashion shows, if only as spectators, and to open a fashion house or a boutique in the most famously posh secular neighborhood of Istanbul are challenging but feasible projects. However, to be reported on and to be asked to lend garments for fashion spreads in mainstream fashion magazines are still unachievable goals. Despite the tremendous growth of this sector and the significant number of women who wear headscarves in this country, no Turkish edition of the mainstream fashion magazines has so far included covered dress and headscarves in its pages, nor featured headscarf-wearing fashion professionals. I discussed this topic with a veiled fashion designer (tesettürlü), asking her whether she thought that mainstream fashion magazines and Islamic fashion magazines represented separate “worlds.” This is her reply, the conclusion being uttered on a defiant tone of voice:

8 To convey these doubts, she used a Turkish saying: “Müslüman mahallesinde salyangoz satmak,” which translates as “To sell snails in a Muslim neighbourhood.” This expression is used to describe an impossible endeavor, for snails are a religiously non-permissible food.

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No magazine has ever published something about me! Not a single line. I mean magazines in which veiled women are not included. This is a small world. I think they know what it is going on around them. And if they don’t know, they can easily do a bit of research and find out. Let’s not count me. There are many other popular fashion designers. This has happened to them as well. There is fashion in veiling too. Let’s look. If they said this to themselves, they could have gotten in touch with a few people. If only they admitted this. They should actually include us in their magazines. If you are the Turkish edition of Vogue and a segment of the Turkish population dresses like this, then you shouldn’t ignore this reality. I don’t feel excluded, truth be told. I read Vogue because it is a trendsetter. I don’t read only the local editions of such magazines, but also follow their international editions. After all I sell products to the Turkish people. The more products I myself see, the more satisfactory my designs are. Âlâ and Aysha are actually new magazines. They’ll need many years to rise at the level of Vogue. After all, for these magazines too, Vogue is a source of inspiration. Needless to say, I would like to be featured in Vogue or Elle. But if I’m not featured there, it’s all right. I’m fine with this. They lose, actually. Other headscarf-wearing fashion professionals were of the opinion that this situation could not last long, for everyone must have realized by now that headscarf-wearing women were interested in fashion and, equally important, they created fashion.9 They also pointed out that many secular designers and clothing companies offered garments that would best suit a modest dresser. However, they refrained from claiming that they worked for headscarf-wearing women. Furthermore, these fashion professionals expressed their hope that one day headscarf-wearing models would be included in these magazines and headscarf-wearing fashion designers would have their creations featured in the fashion pages. Until this desired future becomes reality, one designer has found a way to associate her name with Vogue: she uses hashtags such as #vogue, #voguemagazine and #vogueturkiye when posting pictures with her latest creations on social media. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals make efforts to increase their visibility and become a regular presence in the loci of fashion. They do not want to organize separate shows for Islamic fashion, open their fashion houses only in certain places, and be represented only within a dedicated fashion media. They try, thus, to be included and recognized as rightful participants in the realm 9

Jones (2007) points out that in Indonesia, in the 1990s, before the appearance of Islamic fashion magazines, observant Muslim women demanded media recognition. Borrowing authority from the discourse of consumer choice, these readers wrote to the magazine editors and requested that examples of Islamic dress be included in their fashion spreads. The editors responded to these requests, including from time to time covered garments in the fashion spreads or dedicating special issues to this type of dress.

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of fashion. However, the success of these attempts varies from one place to another and one person to another. The boundaries of some places are porous, common economic interests and valuable political connections determining their porosity. Other places are more rigorously policed, particular understandings of fashion, specific definitions of the fashionable person, and distinct ideological perspectives on the social structure translating into the inclusion of some persons and the exclusion of others.

The (re)politicization of fashion The process of becoming a fashion professional is relational, and these headscarfwearing women try to become and be recognized as fashion professionals in a society wherein the headscarf has long excluded its wearers from the realm of fashion, that is, the site of modernity par excellence (Navaro-Yashin 2002); and wherein the headscarf-wearing woman has long been portrayed as unconcerned with fashion, that is, under the realm of wasteful consumption and immoral conduct (Karabıyık-Barbarosog˘lu 2006). At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the newly established Republic of Turkey fashion was attributed an important role in the project of modernization. A series of laws were passed to limit the use of garments that connoted Islam in the public sphere and enforce the adoption of Western fashions. These dress and appearance laws did not specify anything about female dress, arguably to prevent public protests (Norton 1997; Metinsoy 2014). However, politicians recommended that women unveil, supported anti-veiling campaigns, and, in some cases, even banned Islamically appropriate forms of dress through local regulations (Çınar 2005; Adak 2014). At the same time, cultural means were employed to introduce to the public the sartorial repertoire deemed appropriate for the citizens of the new republic. These means reflected a firm belief in the potential of modern dress (i.e., the Western fashions popular at that time) to “fashion” modern subjectivities. Women in particular were expected to embody national identity and demonstrate Turkey’s modernity and secularism (Arat 1997; Kandiyoti 1997). Consequently, the women who wore Islamically appropriate forms of dress were ideologically marginalized as the backward Other and relegated to the societal periphery. Decades after the establishment of the republic, through the bans on wearing the headscarf at universities and in the public office, they were prevented from fully participating in public life. They were, thus, rendered even more peripheral in the public sphere (Saktanber 2006). Important to the argument being developed here is that these women were also excluded from the realm of fashion. In the institutions and events that represented this realm, such as fashion houses, women’s magazines, and

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fashion shows, women who wore Islamically appropriate forms of dress were not accepted, materially addressed, or visually represented (Navaro-Yashin 2002). Today, early in the twenty-first century, Turkey is a country that an Islamrooted party has governed for more than a decade: a period in which people of religiously conservative backgrounds have seen increasing economic and political success. They have tried to leave their mark on various cultural domains as well. Headscarf-wearing women have returned to the center of society. Their integration into the public sphere has become one of the most important indicators of the changes taking place in this society. In the “cultural wars”10 being fought in Turkey nowadays by people with divergent lifestyles, fashion has emerged as yet another site wherein power relationships are being negotiated, reworked, and redefined. The participation of headscarfwearing women in the realm of fashion, despite being ethically criticized—as the previous chapters have thoroughly demonstrated—is politically legitimized.11 The realm of fashion is a part of this center of society into which now overly confident headscarf-wearing women want to integrate and, more importantly, feel they have the right to participate. They want to be “adorned in dreams” (Wilson 2003) as well. However, this is not an assertion of upper-class sensibilities and conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1994). As the ethnography shows, most of these practitioners of fashion do not belong to the Islamic bourgeoisie, neither is it their intention to cater exclusively to the Islamic bourgeoisie (although such moneyed customers are always welcomed). Their goal is to offer clothing with a high design input to headscarf-wearing women from different walks of life. Moreover, this is not only an issue of visibility and identity politics (Göle 1997). Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals demand not only to be accepted as fashionably dressed, assertive, modern yet pious women, but also to be acknowledged as creators and mediators of fashion. They make fashion, do not merely follow it. Their arguments seem to be constructed from a Habermasian perspective (Habermas 1989), where the realm of fashion functions as its own sort of “public sphere” in which all participants, they included, may have their say. However, this is not so much a democratic impulse as it is a desire to conquer a site of modernity, after decades of being kept at a distance. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals make fashion and, simultaneously, style themselves into fashion professionals. Turkey’s early twentieth-century project of modernity had introduced a model of secularity specific to its time and place, and translated its aims in part through fashion. In the early twenty-first century, headscarf-wearing

10

Shafak, Elif. 2014. Turkey’s Culture Wars. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/opinion/turkeysculture-wars.html (accessed February 4, 2016). 11 One aspect of this political legitimation is the promotion in Islamic newspapers of successful headscarf-wearing women, the fashion professionals on whom this book focuses being among them (see also Özcan 2015).

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fashion professionals are contesting the gatekeeping claims by the children of that project to being the sole arbiters of modernity in the here and now.

Confidence and hesitation This glamorous realm seduces. Fashion is an adjunct to power (Simmel 1957), fashionable dress conferring on an individual a charismatic aura. The realm of fashion becomes thus a site that offers opportunities for selfenhancement and self-empowerment. (The vignette in the introduction of this book speaks of this pleasure of participating in the realm of fashion and willingness to ignore the drawbacks of the fashion show and the interested invitation.) This is more the case when one participates as a producer, and headscarf-wearing women have begun to participate as producers (e.g., designers, stylists, journalists, and bloggers), and not simply as consumers of fashion.12 However, this realm might also perturb the individual who aspires to inhabit or already inhabits it. This is more the case when the said individual is a headscarfwearing woman and thus—according to pious Muslims and other observers— someone who should be less concerned, if at all, with the wasteful and immoral domain of fashion. This is more the case when this woman herself holds such views, inculcated through religious education and socialization. This feeling is clearly articulated in the responses that a veiled fashion editor (tesettürlü) offered to my questions: A: Have you ever experienced tension between your religious beliefs and your interest in fashion? F. E.: In the beginning, I actually experienced this problem quite a lot because we got booed so much. I can say this: We faced a backlash. But then I noticed this: If we don’t do this work. . . . This is a need. . . . In one way or another, a woman calls this into question and consequently she does

12

There is a historical precedent to this situation: around the middle of the twentieth century, at a time when non-Muslims dominated the fashion industry in Istanbul, a maturation institute was founded. This was an additional educational institution, alongside the Girls’ Institute. It was meant to provide internship opportunities to the (predominantly Muslim) graduates of this Institute, who were experiencing difficulty in establishing themselves as fashion professionals. This was part of a larger program of national bourgeoisie formation, in which the state facilitated—mainly through a system of differentiated taxation—the transfer of capital from the non-Muslim to the Muslim population. In time, this maturation institute became a successful fashion school and an appreciated fashion house (Altınay 2013b). However, there are limits to this comparison: headscarf-wearing fashion professionals do not benefit from direct financial support from the state; they wish to be acknowledged as equal players in the realm of fashion, and for their religiously motivated sartorial repertoire to be respected and its modernity recognized, rather than to outnumber or dominate the secular fashion professionals.

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it. . . . It’s better if a responsible person advises her. When I put fashion in practice in my life, I do so within certain limits. For example, I don’t wear short clothes. I don’t wear form-fitting clothes. I don’t wear my headscarf without an inner bonnet. I don’t wear red lipstick. I don’t trespass this kind of precise limits. If I personally don’t exceed these limits, and if I  don’t encourage anyone else to exceed these limits, then I have no reason to feel guilty. I don’t take fashion lightly. I don’t say, “OK, put this on you, go out, go in public dressed like this.” I say, “You are a woman. Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, you will enter the public sphere. People will look at you, they will judge you.” I behave responsibly. My responsibility is to offer advice on how to dress properly in the public sphere. I start from this vulnerability, this sensitivity. I do my work accordingly. My ambition is to help a confident modern woman, show her the fashion trends and help her look pleasant, chic and elegant. A: Today, after a few years of working in this sector, are you the same person? F.E.: I am certainly a different person. I was very young when I entered this sector, very childish. This is why I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. In the blink of an eye I became simultaneously admired, praised and severely criticised. I cried a lot. I became very sad. I was very surprised. But in the end, despite having gone through a very rough time, I managed to stand upright. What distinguishes me from others in our community [i.e., headscarf-wearing fashion professionals] is that I’ve had to be on my own and manage my life independently since my dad passed away when I was 15 years old. This is what makes me different. I’ve been standing on my own two feet since the very beginning. If I’d paid attention to what people said, I’d have quit a long time ago. I chose to fight, and God has always been there for me when people mistreated me and tried to make me fail. This is what makes me different. What’s more, I never settled for what I had. Instead, I said to myself, “Yes, God has been gracious to me and now I am in a good place, but that is not enough.” I told myself that to distinguish myself in this sector, I had to study fashion, attend workshops and conferences and pluck up my courage to give talks. I always worked harder to improve myself. All this makes me different from others in this sector. Thanks to all these efforts I’m more certain of myself now. I used to ask myself: “Can I do it? Can I rise to this challenge?” Now I say, “Of course I can do this.” Now I know that I can overcome any problem. For example, when I have a fashion photography shoot, I plan the whole thing with a completely different mindset. I know what a modern woman needs and draw upon this when planning and realising the fashion pages. For me, this work is very special. It makes me feel special too.

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Her presence in this sector elicits mixed feelings and affects her sense of self.13 On the one hand, there is the empowering experience of wearing beautiful garments and working in the glamorous realm of fashion. Miller (2010: 40) has argued for the theoretical possibility of this experience, noting that clothing is not simply “a form of representation, a semiotic sign or symbol of the person,” but “plays a considerable and active part in constituting the particular experience of the self.” Woodward (2005, 2007) has offered ethnographic evidence that assembling outfits that enable the individual to “look good” and “feel right” constitutes an “aesthetics of the self.” On the other hand, there is the perturbing experience of incertitude and doubt regarding the religious appropriateness of one’s own dress and conduct, and the disturbing experience of being constantly subjected to criticism. Ambivalent feelings regarding one’s engagement with Islamic fashion have been noted in other studies about practitioners of Islamic fashion (Jones 2007, 2010b; Gökarıksel and Secor 2012; Tarlo and Moors 2013; Sharif and Tarlo 2013). On the one hand, ambivalence has come to be seen as an integral part of everyday religiosity (Schielke (2009: 38), in particular, has pointed at the “ambivalent nature of most moral subjectivities” (see also Schielke and Debevec 2012; Deeb and Harb 2013)). On the other hand, affectivity has come to be regarded as “the ‘common ground upon which the discourses of a tradition come to be articulated’” (Hirschkind 2006: 88). The ethical fashioning of the self implies also an affective making of the self. Experiences of doubt regarding the appropriateness of conduct involve also experiences of anxiety and insecurity. The tension is thus there. However, it does not translate into a feeling of a bifurcated (and thus troubled?) existence. It is rather something that might be experienced temporarily and circumstantially, and perhaps only by some practitioners of Islamic fashion. It is something that might be resolved over time, as the emic line of reasoning in the above-mentioned quotation suggests.

13

A differently positioned researcher (i.e., a Turkish woman, who has recently taken up the veil, who was raised in, in her words, a “secularist” family but turned to Islam and married a pious man, who dresses in fashionable covered garments and calls herself a süslüman and who is through her husband’s family close to the inner circle of the ruling party) was offered a more intense telling of these internal doubts. The fashionably dressed women confessed their conviction that dressing in these fashionable garments was a sin and they would all burn in hell. The researcher pointed out that this dramatic pronouncement was typical of confessions made by one observant Muslim to another. She also noted that in their conversations, headscarf-wearing women and fashion professionals did not declare to her that their work had an ethical dimension to it. However, she seemed less inclined to reflect upon the fact that her own position, especially that of a recently veiled woman, might have triggered these dramatic pronouncements. That this might have been the case was brought to the foreground by one of her own stories. She recounted how her interlocutors, upon noticing that she was paying attention to their conversation about a diamond ring, swiftly commented that pious people had found themselves in the regretful situation of being consumed by consumerism (perhaps a fleeting performance of the “embarrassment of riches” (Schama 1988)?).

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And finally, it is something with which one might learn to live. Moreover, the presentation of this ambivalence that headscarf-wearing fashion professionals might experience at the intimate level is not meant to contradict, but rather to complement, the previous discussion of their confident public declarations that their work is grounded in the careful articulation of aesthetics and ethics. To put it differently, this section has uncovered the affective, material, and discursive labor implied in fashionable veiling.

Aesthetics, ethics, and politics This chapter has documented the dynamics of a process of becoming. It has presented the arguments and strategies that headscarf-wearing fashion professionals develop in order to demonstrate that they are legitimate participants in the realm of fashion. These range from normalizing arguments about the practice of fashion, corporeal performances in the locally significant loci of fashion, sartorial self-presentations on social media, selfdesignation, and self-styling as fashion professionals, and popularization of fashion-related professions among religious people. It has thus offered glimpses at the struggle to be in fashion, beyond simple proclamations that in contemporary Turkey headscarf-wearing and secular women “follow the same fashions” and share the “same thrills and expectations” (Genel and Karaosmanog˘ lu 2006: 473). The key notion of ordinariness links these arguments and strategies. This emphasis on ordinariness strongly resonates with Miller’s (2010) discussion about “the ordinary.” In his study of the widespread practice of wearing “non-branded, cheap, supermarket or high-street-retail varieties” of jeans, he argues that this reflects a desire to inhabit the mere “ordinary.” This is a category particularly attractive to migrants, who want to blend in rather than stand out in a highly cosmopolitan city such as London. In his words (2010: 426), “People do not wear jeans to express their desire for equality, yet, as material culture, jeans do in some small measure render people more equal.” In the case of headscarf-wearing fashion professionals, the emphasis on ordinariness is explicit and the goal is the same, that is, to blend in. Notable to the realization of this goal is the contribution of material culture, in the form of highly fashionable dress, that is, ordinary clothes in the realm of fashion. By wearing these “ordinary clothes,” one blends in. Equally crucial for the realization of this goal to “blend in” with the realm of fashion are also the arguments, the self-descriptions, the presentations of their professions and the visual representations. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals render their engagement in the realm of fashion ordinary, normal, and natural, and thereby legitimize it. Their expectation is that their observers and critics will

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also interpret this ordinariness as a form of legitimacy and recognize them as legitimate participants in the realm of fashion. This chapter has brought politics to the foreground in a more explicit manner than the previous chapters. It has argued that, although ethically criticized, the participation of headscarf-wearing women in the realm of fashion is politically legitimized. It has proved that their own fashioning as fashion professionals requires the articulation of aesthetics, ethics, and politics. In addition, the chapter has detailed outcomes of this articulation that are aimed at the larger public, be it a sympathetic or critical audience. It has also demonstrated that this articulation takes place at the intimate individual level. The practitioners of Islamic fashion bask in the light of the fashion world and, simultaneously, face criticism. Consequently, they—at least temporarily and circumstantially, or at least some of these headscarf-wearing fashion professionals—vacillate between confidence and hesitation. They articulate aesthetics and ethics also in response to this impingement on their sense of self. In contrast, the previous chapters have offered ethnographic evidence that the manufacture and mediation of garments for headscarf-wearing women similarly necessitate the articulation of aesthetics, ethics, and politics. The chapter has thus illuminated a different aspect of entrepreneurship in Islamic fashion, namely the fact that certain participants in this sector cannot simply run businesses, but they also have to demonstrate that they have the cultural capital and the moral right to do it.

8 CONCLUSION This book has shown in anthropological tradition that a business in Islamic fashion often involves much more than economic calculations, even those through which aesthetic values are rendered calculable. The book has drawn its substance from an ethnographic exploration of Turkey’s thriving Islamic fashion industry, with a special focus on the hopes and efforts that a very active category of newcomers to this industry—namely headscarf-wearing fashion professionals—put into their projects, the challenges they face and the practical and discursive strategies they develop to deal with them. In this country, actors of divergent religious practices and political views employ different strategies to enter and consolidate their position in the clothing market for observant Muslim women. The first, second, and fourth chapters of this book have included examples of strategies, from a fashion show as a means of publicity to hiring a fashion designer and putting one’s sewing skills to use. These actors offer and mediate garments and combinations of garments in accordance with the tastes of the day, as well as with individual and religious understandings of Islamic modesty and the preferred sartorial materializations of these ideas. However, in Islamic fashion, garments and their representations are rarely approached in relation to their aesthetic content alone. In addition, their producers and promoters are seldom imagined only as entrepreneurs and fashion professionals; and, conversely, they often engage in projects that for them are not merely economic. All the chapters in this book have presented the interests and concerns of particular individuals, be they observers, producers, or practitioners of Islamic fashion. They have shown how commodities are evaluated in accordance with whatever interpretation of Islamic dress and/or understanding of modern/ fashionable/contemporary dress the observer holds. They have indicated that the entrepreneurs and fashion professionals are praised or, on the contrary, condemned for their contributions to the expansion of clothing offerings and the production and circulation of fashion imagery for observant Muslim women. They have proven that the consumers, that is, headscarf-wearing women, are considered pious persons, and as such, their interest in fashion is puzzling, if not condemnable. In addition, headscarf-wearing women are contested participants in the public sphere, which exposes everyone to the scrutiny of strangers and requires mastering habits of personal display and reciprocal examination.

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These different perspectives on what is aesthetically accomplished, religiously appropriate, ethically acceptable and politically valuable have an impact on the ways in which, and the means by which, entrepreneurs and fashion professionals become involved in the making of fashionable garments and fashion images oriented toward observant Muslim women. They also affect how these participants define their products, profile their activities, and portray themselves and their position in relation to other people in the sector, and within the discursive context that the veiling debates create. The ethnography has documented their public declarations in the media and on social media, as well as in their interaction with this anthropologist. It has also hinted at—if not directly reported on—the maneuvers, contestations, negotiations, and re-negotiations they engage in, the compromises they make and the mixed feelings they experience while striving to make their involvement in the sector economically profitable. In addition, in this country, headscarf-wearing fashion professionals are the most active contributors to the current aestheticization of covered clothing for observant Muslim women. They experiment with materials, words, and visuals in the making of fashionable garments and fashion images with and for headscarfwearing women. The fifth and sixth chapters of this book have offered nuanced insights into their aesthetic work, in contrast to a common tendency to gloss these endeavors over in their unequivocal admiration or—as is more often the case—outright condemnation. These chapters have also provided ethnographic evidence of a widespread concern with aesthetic self-promotion in different societal strata, in contrast to a common tendency to present this as the exclusive preoccupation of the recently consolidated Islamic bourgeoisie. They have elaborated on the notion that being fashionable is not about showing your social standing, but individuality—“a style of one’s own.” The goal that these fashion professionals share is to democratize fashion, which in this context refers not only to making fashionable garments available to various echelons of society and helping observant Muslim women to develop individual dress styles within the confines of veiling, but also to spreading the idea that headscarf-wearing women can be interested in fashion and that headscarf-wearing women can become fashion professionals. These headscarf-wearing women position themselves in the realm of fashion as actors who possess the required aesthetic and political capital. These strategies range from arguing for the ordinariness of fashion in a woman’s life and maintaining a regular presence in the locally recognized loci of fashion to demanding to be acknowledged as creators and mediators of fashion. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals enjoy political support, albeit rarely overtly, as promoters of a new aesthetics of modernity in the “New Turkey,” as the ruling AKP leaders like to call their societal project. Nevertheless, they are the most exposed to the criticism that Islamic fashion engenders on moral, religious, and ideological grounds. In response, they use different discursive strategies to position themselves in the sector as economic actors who possess

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the appropriate ethico-aesthetic sensibility. These strategies include avoiding the religiously and morally loaded Islamic notion of tesettür when defining their products, individual religious identities and professional positions in the realm of fashion, arguing for the practical possibility of creating fashionable outfits within the sartorial confines of veiling, and refraining from defining their aesthetic experiments and interventions as attempts to, in their words, “modernise” the revivalist notion that proper veiling consists in a loose overcoat and a tightly fastened headscarf that covers the hair, neck, and ears. The fifth and sixth chapters of this book have also illustrated the gap that often exists between actual design preferences and sartorial choices, as well as the discursive sacralization of the revivalist interpretation of what veiling materially consists of. These observations have been collected in Turkey, a country in which not only did the Islamic fashion industry begin to develop earlier than in other Muslim societies, but also in which past and present debates over veiling and the current social and political context pose numerous challenges to the reconciliation of Islam and fashion. As such, they have the potential to illuminate the inner workings of Islamic fashion in other locations and contexts. It is the contention of the book that the demands on businesses in Islamic fashion can be synthesized with reference to aesthetics, ethics, and politics and their articulations. Islamic fashion is about aesthetics. This means experimentation with materials and forms, stylistic innovation, the qualification of garments as “beautiful,” “elegant,” “fashionable,” and “modern,” and the formulation of aesthetic ideals. Islamic fashion is also about (apparently) unchanging ideals as to the design and look of religiously appropriate clothes. This translates into constraints on the form of fashionable garments and the content of fashion images. Islamic fashion is also about ethics. The Islamic practice of veiling— fashionable veiling included according to the practitioners of Islamic fashion—is part of a process of ethical cultivation. Therefore, both producers and wearers of fashionable veiling are expected to share an ethics of responsibility—and, as illustrated throughout the book, they claim they do. Headscarf-wearing fashion professionals in particular argue that their aesthetic decisions are formulated in relation to ethical considerations. They present aesthetics as being simultaneously ethics. Islamic fashion is also about politics. More precisely, it is about the politics of aesthetics, that is, a power struggle over fashion as a locus of aesthetics and, equally important, a locus of modernity. It is a power struggle to keep headscarf-wearing women away from the realm of fashion. It is also a struggle to legitimize the headscarf-wearing women’s role in the making and mediation of fashion. These are instances of the “culture wars” in which old and new elites are caught in contemporary Turkey, and which implicates women and men, pious and secular people alike. It also includes people who proclaim their belonging to the religious community and publicly claim their religiosity, but hold

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different understandings of what veiling materially consists of. In this last case, the struggle is being mobilized around who has the right to define both what is religiously acceptable and aesthetically adequate within the religious community (i.e., headscarf-wearing fashion professionals contest, though rarely publicly, pronouncements about the unacceptability of their sartorial practices by religious authorities and Islamic intellectuals, as well as decisions about the fashionability of garments by male producers). The demands on businesses in Islamic fashion crystallize in the interstices between “what looks good” and “what looks right,” “what is beautiful” and “what is religiously appropriate,” what is “modern” and what is “un-modern,” what is “fashionable” and what is “out-dated.” By shedding light on these formulations, the book contributes to current scholarly efforts to understand the global phenomenon of Islamic fashion. The book also illuminates a new development in contemporary Turkey, that is, the appearance of young, fashionably dressed headscarf-wearing women who argue for their right to choose, in the words of an interlocutor, “how to look Muslim.” This young headscarf-wearing woman, whom I met toward the end of my fieldwork in Istanbul, rephrased my research agenda as follows: “You should ask why we want to dress fashionably and should ask women who wear çars¸ af what they think about us.” Indeed, the headscarf-wearing fashion professionals on which this book has focused are the most visible and most vocal among these women. Their visibility is enhanced through their skillful use of social media. They can reach—and potentially influence—a significant number of young women, followed as they are by thousands of people on social media. A neologism has been employed in the last few years to describe fashionably dressed observant Muslims, that is, süslüman, a portmanteau of süslü (“adorned,” “embellished” or “dressed up”) and müslüman (“Muslim”). Some of my headscarf-wearing interlocutors rejected this epithet on the premise that it negated their faith, while others embraced it as a good descriptor of their pious subjectivity. One headscarf-wearing fashion designer, for example, rejected it as an insult that trivialized her piety. She claimed that there were no rules regarding veiling in the Quran, and that those who insisted such rules existed were trying to homogenize Muslim women. She identified herself not as süslüman, but as “a Muslim woman who benefits from the needs of the modern age” (my emphasis). As shown in the seventh chapter of this book, headscarfwearing fashion professionals argue that fashion is a “need” in contemporary society. Being fashionable does not make a headscarf-wearing woman less religious, it merely allows her to occupy her place in the modern world. This self-definition can thus be reformulated as follows: she is a Muslim woman who responds to the demands of the modern age, including the demand to be fashionable.

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In contrast, another headscarf-wearing woman embraced this characterization, emphasizing the first term in this pairing, which in her opinion suggested the empowerment of headscarf-wearing women under the governance of the Islamrooted AKP. Both rejection and acceptance of the epithet süslüman demonstrate that practitioners of Islamic fashion demand recognition—if not acceptance—of their piety and their form of veiling, as well as of their fashionability. This demand does not contradict their near sanctification of tesettür and the form of veiling this notion proposes. These women put more emphasis on the covering of the head and body than on the material details of their garments, such as color, texture, shape, and form, which separate or together might contradict certain understandings of Islamically appropriate dress. For them, such details are illustrative of an aesthetic of modernity rather than one of non-religiosity. An inclination toward individualism is discernible in their arguments. This inclination has been distinguished in the words and deeds of other headscarfwearing women as well. Göle (1996: 22) noted that a “latent individualism” emerged among “the increasingly autonomous female elite cadres of the revivalist movements.” Genel and Karaosmanog˘lu (2006: 473) foregrounded the desire of young headscarf-wearing women to “freely express their individualism.” Ozyegin (2015: 168) pointed out that headscarf-wearing university students tried to “free themselves from the path of blindly reproducing either secular Muslim or backward Muslim identities” and forged an “individualized sense of self.” In general, studies of Muslim subjectivities in Turkey have documented different instantiations of an Islamic individualism through a focus on more or less visible signs of identity, with fashion often included among the visible signs (I˙lyasog˘lu 1998; White 1999; Göle 2000, 2002). The headscarf-wearing fashion professionals on whom this book has centered have also chosen fashion to frame their emergent desire for individualism. This has happened despite the vehement criticism they face from their religiously conservative observers, among them being the “cadres of the revivalist movements” (Göle 1996: 22), women who are still politically and culturally active. However, they have chosen a medium that enables them to assert individualism within the framework of collectivism. Finkelstein (1997: 4) argued that “the historic success of being fashionable has been to provide a sense of individualism within a shared code, since individuals can look acceptably distinctive only within a restricted aesthetic.” Fashion allows headscarf-wearing women to remain within the framework of the “collectivist culture” that Turks, be they secular or pious, share. This is a culture in which “collective identity remains central to the construction of subjectivity” (White 2012: 104). Incomprehensible as their endeavors are to their secular observers, and condemnable as they are to their religiously conservative observers, these young women’s preoccupation with fashion does not distance them from the community of observant Muslims.

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It rather permits them to carve out a distinctive place within this community as a “society of young women,” in Le Renard’s (2014) words. The interest in fashion, the desire to make fashion and the pleasure they take in wearing fashionable clothes reunites headscarf-wearing women in a “community of taste” (Maffesoli 1996) wherein the aesthetic takes on the function of sociality and mediates religiosity. Nevertheless, in this process of carving out a place for themselves, they may be enacting change for the whole “conservative segment” of contemporary Turkish society. As one of my interlocutors noted, today “the conservative community” (muhafazakâr camia) is too broad a concept to work with. They may also alter the meaning of the secular as well as the meaning of piety in contemporary Turkey through their actions and choices.

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INDEX

aesthetics aesthetic concerns 36 aesthetics is ethics 121–7, 175 aestheticization of conservative clothing 34, 49–53 definition 11 everyday aesthetics 115–18 experimentation 95–103 festive aesthetics 111–14 ideals 107–10 innovation 104–6 Âlâ magazine 14, 55–7, 70, 83, 85–7, 131–47. See also Islamic fashion magazine criticism 37, 85, 144–5 founding 55–7 AKP (Justice and Development Party) 3, 7, 17, 19, 30–2, 41–2, 70, 174, 177 Erdoğan, Tayyıp Recep 20, 32 Asad, T. 37, 42 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 25, 26, 120 başörtü 22, 28, 48, 134 bonnet 71, 74, 75, 83, 87, 88, 96, 97, 99, 107, 108, 109, 111, 115, 119–21, 125, 134, 138, 140, 164, 169 conservative clothing (muhafazakâr giyim) 2, 22, 39, 45, 78, 80 conceptualization 54–8, 76 conservative clothing manufacture, 47–8 avoidance of term tesettür conservative clothing brand 40, 41, 62 fluid sectorial boundaries 11, 40–3, 47, 61–4 Tekbir (conservative clothing company) 54–7

conservative wardrobes colourful 77 eclecticism 73 covered woman (kapalı) 21, 22, 128, 134 as opposed to veiled woman (tesettürlü) çarşaf 26, 48, 75, 110, 114, 134, 176 Çınar, A. 26, 29, 30, 166 entrepreneurship business in Islamic fashion 4–6, 10–11, 13, 60–1, 173–4, 175 business meeting 19, 39–45 ordinary business 6, 19 Entwistle, J. 6, 10, 11, 128, 144, 146 ethics 11–12, 110–21 ethical act 129 ethical considerations 36, 142, 143, 175 ethico-aesthetic sensibility 92, 129, 149, 175 ethnography 13–21 ethnographer as “guest” 16, 18, 20 ethnographer as “stranger” 16, 18, 20 fabric colorfulness 77, 96, 106, 125 composition 53, 71, 97, 99, 101, 103, 104, 125 non-transparent 76, 83, 123, 126, 141 quality 40, 78 styling potential 73, 96, 98–100, 104, 107 fashion 9, 11, 121 democratization of fashion 91–4, 167 fashion moments 95 and modernity 12–13, 33–4, 175

188

and multiple sources of inspiration 86, 102, 103, 110, 127, 165 (re)politicization of fashion 166–8 “slaves of fashion” or “victims of fashion” 36 George, K. 12 Göle, N. 15, 25, 26, 27, 28, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 42, 44, 47, 55, 57, 167, 177 headscarf ban 6–7, 29, 31, 121 başörtü 22, 28, 38, 48 discrimination 17, 29–30, 68, 90–1, 121, 160 the Islamist headscarf 27–32 politicization 7, 28–32 quasi-normalization 30–2 the right headscarf 107 wrapping styles 52, 75, 96–7, 134, 136, 144 headscarf-wearing fashion professionals 7, 11, 20, 58–9, 174 blogger 57, 74, 80, 84, 99, 104, 110, 146 designer 42, 66–83, 115, 119, 158 distinctions of education, age and class 65–6 editor 83–4 legitimacy 10, 150 “neither pious nor modern” 34 stylist 83–8, 88–91, 131–47 Hirschkind, C. 12, 170 hospitality 16–20 Imam Hatip schools 27, 68, 73, 156 individualism 177–8 Islam 7–8. See also nefis political Islam 28–31 Sufi Islam 153 Sunni Islam 27 Islamic capitalism 9 Islamic dress 25–7 Islamic fashion aesthetics 11, 175 approach 9, 10, 11, 21 conceptualization 55–8, 121–9, 134–5 debate 33–8, 110–21

INDEX

ethics 11–12, 175 faith and fashion 11, 66 Islamic catwalk show 1–4, 6, 20, 33, 54 Islamic Fashion Fair 65, 68, 159–60 Islamic fashion magazine 14, 33, 39, 55–7, 70, 83–4, 131–47 modest fashion oxymoron 5, 38, 45 politics 13,175 relation to (mainstream) fashion 9–10, 142 veiling-fashion 9 Islamic fashion industry economic potential 4–5 fluid sectorial boundaries 11, 40–3, 47, 61–4 thriving sector 5–6 Islamic revivalism 6, 27, 47–8, 54. See also tesettür Islamically appropriate clothing (tesettür giyim) 7–8, 22, 54–8, 61–4, 70, 76, 121 Islamism 7 dinci 17 Islamist 17 Istanbul 13 Bağdad Boulevard 44, 62 Erenköy 44, 162 Fatih 14, 54, 62 Florya 44 Kadıköy 17 Nisantasi 14, 44, 62, 158, 159–64 Ümraniye 14 Jones, C. 8, 9, 93, 133, 144, 146, 165, 170 Kandiyoti, D. 15, 17, 48, 65 Keane, W. 10, 12 kemalism 6–7, 120 kemalist 15, 17 Kuechler, S. 10 Lambek, M. 12 Lewis, R. 8, 9, 21, 67, 133, 144 Mahmood, S. 8, 16, 20, 35 materiality 10 Miller, D. 10, 171

INDEX

modest dress, 9, 22, 58, 59, 62, 76, 83, 116, 121, 125, modesty 8, 15, 33, 35, 38, 52, 54, 58, 74, 86, 88, 122, 124, 126, 127, 128, 131, 133, 143–7, 153, 173 modernity, 5, 7, 12, 26–9, 33, 45, 50, 102, 143, 149, 158, 166–8, 174, 175, 177 Moors, A., 8, 9, 10 Muslims 9, 20, 176 as Other 5 süslüman 38, 44, 176 Navaro-Yashin, Y. 32, 48, 49, 54, 55, 58,166–7 nefis 36, 72, 76, 150, 153–5 ordinariness as humanity 153–5 logic of ordinariness 150, 171–2 as mundanity 150–3, 155–6 as normality 156–8 as regularity 158–66 pardesü 28, 48, 53, 54, 99, 100, 101 piety 9, 12, 20, 143, 145, 178 pious femininity 9 pious goods 9 pious people 17, 18, 20 the pious self 170, 176 politics 171–2 the Gezi protests 3, 15, 32 politics of aesthetics 12–13 religious sensibilities 142, 144 secularism 7, 17, 26, 29, 31 laikçi 18 secular lifestyle 16, 17 secularist 15, 17, 20, 26 self-enhancement 35, 36, 37, 168 shawl 71, 83, 104, 136, 142 social media 74, 77, 110, 115, 131, 163, 165, 174, 176 Facebook 31, 71, 74, 110, 111 Instagram 74, 87,119 style 7, 33, 35, 45, 49, 50, 53, 66, 79, 83, 85, 87–8, 90, 93, 103, 115, 116, 119, 135, 142–3

189

“retro” style 102–3 “style of one’s own” 93, 152–3, 174 sunglasses 107, 108 Tarlo, E. 8, 9, 21, 35, 170 tesettür 21, 27–8, 38, 54, 63, 111, 121, 122, 175, 177 başörtü 22, 28, 48 “half-veiling” (yarım tesettür) 28, 75, 159 “the lines of veiling” 71, 143 “modern veiling” (modern tesettür) 27, 39, 44 pardesü 28 , 48 Turkey, 6–8, 13 “cultural wars”, 13, 167, 175 “Green Turks”, 37 “new Turkey”, 7, 174 “pious Turkey”, 7 societal polarization, 18, 19, 45 “White Turks”, 37 veiled woman (tesettürlü), 2, 22, 41, 42, 68, 73, 76, 78, 83, 85, 108, 115, 116, 119, 122, 168 as opposed to covered woman (kapalı) 21, 22, 42, 76, 116, 126, 134 as opposed to the türban wearing woman 17, 21, 22, 29, 36, 134 as “Other” 26, 27 veiling anti-veiling campaigns 26 as clothing style (tarz) 35, 87, 121, 124 conscious veiling 28 debates 25–45 differing interpretations 7–8, 20, 111–18, 176 ethical practice 12 and modernity 20, 27 “new veiling” 28 (see also tesettür) religious duty (farz) 35, 121, 124 un-veiling 16 White, J. 15, 47, 49, 177 Wilson, E. 9, 12, 128, 146, 167