Hijab Chic

Over the last few years it has become evident that radical feminists in the West are in the process of making an accommodation with Islam. As long as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir, etc. remain the enemy in “George Bush’s war”, they are by definition the friends of the Left, and thus their little ideological quirks must be overlooked.

Dymphna and I have often speculated about how sharia principles will be reconciled with the tenets of feminism. It has to happen someday, because the Muslims will give no ground, and the feminists have declared by their silence that they have no objection to the way Islam treats its women.

So how will this particular frog be boiled? What will be the minute incremental steps between Women’s Lib and Full Sharia?

Presumably the tight control exercised by Muslim men over their women will be seen as “true equality”. After all, Islam recognizes women as persons, and not as objects — that’s why it wants to protect them from men, who are all rapists at heart anyway.

And how about the adoptions of various forms of hijab?

Ah, now that’s already underway. The means for the transformation is the effete and decadent Western fashion industry, and the useful idiots are the fad-hungry designers and their customers. We’ve already discussed the burkini, the ridiculous full-body bathing suit that was covered so eagerly by Sweden’s mainstream media.

Next is the headscarf, as reported by Islam Online:

Headscarf New Fashion Vogue

Big names in the fashion industry are leading the new headscarf fad with their designs.

CAIRO — Headscarves are becoming the new hot trend in Western fashion, with famed designer labels and industry biggest names explaining the appeal of the headwear as a comeback of elegance and chastity to the runways.

“We wanted to revamp the headscarf,” Domenico Dolce, co-founder of the Italian fashion house Dolce and Gabana, told The Telegraph on Wednesday, July 16.

“[We want to] give it a new life and introduce it to a younger generation.”

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According to Dennis Nothdruft, curator of London’s Fashion and Textile Museum, the headscarf resurgence is about a new sense of “chastity” in fashion.

He affirms that the trend is not all new after all.

“Women wore headscarves in medieval times to maintain their modesty,” he explains. [italics added]

Modesty? Chastity? Since when has high fashion been interested in those qualities?

Don’t we consider them suffocating restraints on the freedom of women?

Aren’t they the oppressive tools of the patriarchy?

Or has there been a subtle change?

I think there has, and now it has become explicit:

Alexander, of Hermès fashion house, says that a sizable proportion of their customers are Muslims, who wear their products as hijab, Islam’s obligatory code of dress for women.

The Muslim market. Get used to it, Paris.


Hat tip: TB.