Muslim Fashion and Global Politics

Building on her new book, Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures, Professor Reina Lewis investigates how fashion plays a role in multi-faith and multicultural communication.

In the past 15 years a niche market for modest fashion has developed to provide fashionable clothes for women who want to dress modestly. Joining women from Muslim, Christian, Jewish and other faith groups, who are motivated by their own interpretations of their faith, are women who are secular or who don’t identify as religious but who do want more options about how they cover their body. In a women-led field, the internet has provided routes to commerce and to commentary in which designers, creative entrepreneurs, bloggers and social media "stars" have emerged as important tastemakers whose images and opinions cross the world. Moving beyond "mere" fashion, discussions and debates in what some term a modest fashion movement, combine style debates with discussions about spirituality and society. Facing often virulent online criticism from the self-appointed guardians of women’s morality, participants struggle to maintain an ethical commitment to respect women’s individual interpretations and views. Recognized by their peers as important role models, modest fashion style leaders are routinely overlooked by community leaders and by policy makers — a situation that Reina Lewis thinks should be changed.