Conflicts sway world of fashion- Muslim-ization' of Women's Fashion

[MugenOne]

Yike! I hope this is only a one year fashion trend.

MugenOne
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Conflicts sway world of fashion

Mar. 2, 2006. 08:06 AM
DAVID GRAHAM
FASHION WRITER

PARIS—Fashion is taking cover.

In a CNN world of religious wars and ethnic conflicts, fashion designers here are turning their backs on overt sexuality, preferring to shroud women in layers of heavy, dark clothing, leaving everything to the imagination.

Unlike sexually charged trends of the past that brazenly exposed women’s legs, breasts and midriffs with controversial names like “heroin chic” and “porn style,” this new approach to solemnity also has a name that’s sure to raise eyebrows.

In a front-page story this week, the International Herald Tribune reported, “There is even talk among some designers about the `Muslim-ization’ of fashion.”

Hot designer labels such as Jun Takahashi’s Undercover premiered its upcoming fall/winter collection Monday with models mummified in heavy knit bandages and scarves with their heads completely covered, like the bags placed over prisoners’ heads before they’re shot. Other designers including Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Dior and Viktor & Rolf illustrated this new approach to repressed sexuality with voluminous proportions, clothing that drooped from the shoulders into shapeless egg silhouettes and elaborate face coverings.

Said designer Karl Lagerfeld, whose own New York show presented dark layers, “If you read the daily papers, you are not in the mood for pink and green.” And this from designer Miuccia Prada, “We have to deal now with a whole world connected.”

Hard-core fashionistas, accustomed to wearing clingy dresses with killer heels, may lament the move to modesty.

But Suzy Menkes of the Herald Tribune offered some encouraging words, suggesting what is “hidden, secret and interior” will become the new erotica.

thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1141253417082
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iht.com/articles/2006/02/27/opinion/rdark.php**

 

[DaveBj]

I don’t see the need for women to dress in chadors, but hey, if this sparks a trend toward women dressing more modestly, I’m all for it.

DaveBj

 

[Eileen_T]

Modesty in dress?

I’m all for it, let’s follow Our Lady’s advice at Fatima when she warned that many of the day’s fashions offended God. And that was in 1917!!!

 

[anna1978]

If Islamic dress becomes just another ‘fashion-statement’, it’ll get OUT of fashion sooner or later

Anna x

 

[JimG]

How much design creativity does it take to make a burqa?

 

[inJESUS]

JimG:

How much design creativity does it take to make a burqa?

looooooooooooooooooooooooooool

 

[pro_universal]

This is a perfect example of how intolerance for other peoples (for mostly political reasons) can lead us to abandon or ignore our own beliefs.

More modest dress and behavior is a good thing. America, where I’m from, could use a serious helping of sexual and socially conservative values.

Question for MugenOne or anyone who agrees with this point of view:

Why would you criticize Muslims for adhering to more conservative dress? Is this really something bad, or is it only because of its association with Islam that criticize it?

 

[Cyber_Knight]

M1, next time pls becareful when post the issue. mr. tolerance seems doesnt happy with your post although I think that was funny

 

[StMarkEofE]

JimG:

How much design creativity does it take to make a burqa?

Lets see now, hmmm, how about black on black or black on black. Now thats a fashion statement.

I think that a couple of years of this stuff in Paris will bankrupt the fashion industry and this will also be the end of this new design “creativity”. But maybe by then the Muslim revolution would have taken hold and the fashion industry will move to another country.

 

[pro_universal]

M1, next time pls becareful when post the issue. mr. tolerance seems doesnt happy with your post although I think that was funny

You are proving my point. Even though modest dress and less sexual innuendo in public is a good thing by Catholic standards, you’re perfectly willing to trash Islam just because it might have influenced some notoriously immodest people to design less revealing clothes. I would like to see if you will answer the question I posed above:

What exactly are you criticizing here? Do you think more conservative clothes are bad, or do you think conservative dress is bad only if muslims do it?

I think that a couple of years of this stuff in Paris will bankrupt the fashion industry and this will also be the end of this new design “creativity”. But maybe by then the Muslim revolution would have taken hold and the fashion industry will move to another country.

Shame on us for not bankrupting a fashion industry that puts a premium on selling casual sex already.

What’s next? Supporting pornography because muslims denounce it?

 

[MugenOne]

I’m not critical of Islamic dress. I don’t even care what they wear. I’m for modesty, but not in a way that looks like oppression of women or personal freedom. Yes, I do like women who dress conservatively i.e. smart businesswomen.

So, you see beauty in women when you see a big black hole passing by you? That’s not modesty. That’s oppression.

pro_universal:

You are proving my point. Even though modest dress and less sexual innuendo in public is a good thing by Catholic standards, you’re perfectly willing to trash Islam just because it might have influenced some notoriously immodest people to design less revealing clothes. I would like to see if you will answer the question I posed above:

What exactly are you criticizing here? Do you think more conservative clothes are bad, or do you think conservative dress is bad only if muslims do it?

Shame on us for not bankrupting a fashion industry that puts a premium on selling casual sex already.

What’s next? Supporting pornography because muslims denounce it?

 

[pro_universal]

Yes, I do like women who dress conservatively i.e. smart businesswomen.

So, you see beauty in women when you see a big black hole passing by you? That’s not modesty. That’s oppression.

How different from traditional arab clothing is a traditional habit?

Are all of our Sisters oppressed?

The point of the article was a move towards modesty, and not showing off all of one’s shapes. To me, when you have to make a point of seizing on styles of dress to criticize islam, you have gone away from being concerned with their spirituality and towards being upset that there are people different from you.

Considering that our tradition includes similar codes of conduct and dress by women, I fail to see any reason for criticizing this trend besides “they’re muslim and therefore whatever they do is bad-even if it’s something we also do.”

 

[Cyber_Knight]

TO : PRO UNIVERSAL

Are you having a menstrual syndrom lately? look you always against everyone’s opinion. Hey… remember, muslim, we are not muslims so we are free to speak our opinions. We do not laughing on that your sisters are wearing (although I think that is so funny) we do not asking them to take off the burka or hijab or whatever you may call it this yardages of fabric. we do not insult a muslimah by discussing about muslimization…we are juts expressing our opinions here!! cant you get it? no! of course not.

Why are you so annoying with what we are discussing here? why do you always wanted to become saint without even being fair to the catholics here. Wherever we talked about islam, you always there. Where the hell are you when we are dicussing about protestant? you cannot be there huh because you are a muslim. stop lying first, then people might considered you to be an honest person rather than just whining you are catholic all the time.

 

[pro_universal]

Are you having a menstrual syndrom lately?

I am a man.

we do not insult a muslimah by discussing about muslimization…we are juts expressing our opinions here!! cant you get it? no! of course not.

As a Catholic, I perceive intolerance to be a serious threat to my faith and as an American, to my country. Anti-muslim bigotry and hatred is rapidly filling the gap that racism and anti-semitism left in my country, and it’s something I think we should be particularly sensitive to. Hence, I speak up about it when I see it happening.

Why are you so annoying with what we are discussing here? why do you always wanted to become saint without even being fair to the catholics here. Wherever we talked about islam, you always there. Where the hell are you when we are dicussing about protestant?

With God’s help, we have made great strides in accepting protestants and in being respectful towards their beliefs while maintaining our own. There are plenty of people engaging protestants in productive discussion here as I see it. I’m glad, and I’d like to help foster the same kind of productive discussion both about and with muslims.

stop lying first, then people might considered you to be an honest person rather than just whining you are catholic all the time.

Okay, since you have accused me of this repeatedly, I’d like to know on what grounds you have decided that I am a liar.

Is it because I say that I am Catholic, or because I say we should not hate muslims? Which is it, and why do either of those things make me a liar?

 

[inJESUS]

pro_universal:

Why would you criticize Muslims for adhering to more conservative dress? Is this really something bad, or is it only because of its association with Islam that criticize it?

more conservative dress? no…i call it muslim dress…coz hiding the hair or the ankle or the arm is not modesty but obsession.

 

[anna1978]

pro_universal:

Why would you criticize Muslims for adhering to more conservative dress? Is this really something bad, or is it only because of its association with Islam that criticize it?

No, not at all, I’d feel the same way whether it’d be a Catholic, Protestant or Muslima!..Coming from a strict Dutch Mennonite family, we always dressed extremely modestly…it is just that I have seen the sin of pride involved for a lot of us: ‘See, we wear long skirts and long hair in braids, we avert our eyes from men, and don’t wear trousers or bathing suits, we are the True Christians!’…I don’t like that attitude. Purely my personal experience growing up though, but I see it in a lot of Muslimas as well…

Anna x

 

[4HisChurch]

The very nature of the fashion industry is one of extremes. The way it often works is, the fashion “gurus” design an extreme style, and it tends to “trickle down” to the everyday stores in a less extreme way.

So, IMO, if the extreme style of all black, long and layered ends up meaning something other than underwear as outerwear and micro mini skirts, then I’m all for it.

As far as it being opression–no way. Opression is when a person is FORCED to wear something like a burka, not when the fashion industry decides to go long and layered for a change. On the other hand, the ridiculously immodest styles of the recent past with almost no other option in the average store…maybe that could be considered opression…

 

[StMarkEofE]

pro_universal:

You are proving my point. Even though modest dress and less sexual innuendo in public is a good thing by Catholic standards, you’re perfectly willing to trash Islam just because it might have influenced some notoriously immodest people to design less revealing clothes. I would like to see if you will answer the question I posed above:

What exactly are you criticizing here? Do you think more conservative clothes are bad, or do you think conservative dress is bad only if muslims do it?

Shame on us for not bankrupting a fashion industry that puts a premium on selling casual sex already.

What’s next? Supporting pornography because muslims denounce it?

Sounds like a lot of westerners would feel very comfortable living under the Muslim Sharia law. The only problem is once your stuck with this law your are stuck and it is extremely hard to reverse it. The cost of freedom includes some elements that are not to our liking but as we have seen the western form of democratic republicanism has worked pretty well so far even with its pitfalls but to trash this freedom to hide ones body parts seems a little too extreme for me. No thanks.

 

[StMarkEofE]

anna1978:

No, not at all, I’d feel the same way whether it’d be a Catholic, Protestant or Muslima!..Coming from a strict Dutch Mennonite family, we always dressed extremely modestly…it is just that I have seen the sin of pride involved for a lot of us: ‘See, we wear long skirts and long hair in braids, we avert our eyes from men, and don’t wear trousers or bathing suits, we are the True Christians!’…I don’t like that attitude. Purely my personal experience growing up though, but I see it in a lot of Muslimas as well…

Anna x

What I get a kick out of is when a Muslim women (somewhere in the northeast part of the U.S.) fought to keep her burka on when having here drivers licence taken. What was even more interesting were the lawyers lining up to defend her request.
Of course she lost out but even the thought floored me.

 

[inJESUS]

well we all agree…yes to modest dress, no to muslim one…but whats more important is a modest attitude instead of mere outer appearance…a muslima covered up from head to toe can even pass by her husband with her boyfriend and her husband will notice nothing…yes to modesty, no to extreme, obsession and fear.