Othman, Enaya

English

epublications@Marquette

Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteArabic Languages and Literatures Languages, Literatures and Culture FacultyResearch and Publications1-1-2017Book Review of Muslim Fashion: Contemporary StyleCultures, by Reina LewisEnaya OthmanMarquette University, enaya.othman@marquette.eduAccepted version. Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 40, No. 8 (2017): 1377-1379. DOI. © 2017 Taylor& Francis. Used with permission.                                                                                       Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquetteForeign Languages Faculty Research and Publications/College of Artsand SciencesThis paper is NOT THE PUBLISHED VERSION; but the author’s final, peer-reviewed manuscript.The published version may be accessed by following the link in the citation below.Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 40, No. 8 (2017): 1377-1379. DOI. This article is © Taylor &Francis (Routledge) and permission has been granted for this version to appear in e-Publications@Marquette. Taylor & Francis (Routledge) does not grant permission for this articleto be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission fromTaylor & Francis (Routledge).BOOK REVIEWMuslim fashion: contemporary stylecultures, by Reina LewisEnaya OthmanDepartment of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WIThis is a needed manuscript that discusses and traces the rise and popularization of transnational Muslim women’s fashion from the 1980s to the present. It especially focuses on the beginning of thetwenty-first century that witnessed the emergence of a subculture that normalizes Muslim women’sways of dress, specifically the veil, as part of contemporary mainstream fashion. This fact refutes thestereotypical Orientalists’ binary assumptions of West versus East that places Muslim women’s fashionas anti-Western and pre-modern. Lewis argues that Muslim fashion is a complex concept thatintertwines multiple fashion systems within different levels of modernity; moreover, fashion’s meaningschange depending on generation, class and temporal and spatial contexts. The book provides a vividillustration of the ever-changing cultural landscape (virtual and physical – i.e. Internet, social media,Istanbul and London streets) where “shopping, fashion, and veils” are pitched together (3). The growth                                                                                                                                                                                              of this youth fashion subculture is an expression of identity negotiation in which a young generation ofMuslims acquire more than one type of cultural capital (using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory) that enablestheir communication and “engagement with mainstream fashion” and with “coreligionists and tomajority of non-Muslim observers alike” (3).Historically, Muslim fashion systems have been influenced by the evolving relationship betweenreligion, gender and society. Lewis affirms this relationship. She uses an interdisciplinary approach toexplain and analyse the political, economic and cultural contexts embedded in the emergence ofcontemporary Muslim youth fashion culture. Geographically, she covers West Europe, North America(WENA) and Turkey as major production centres and consumer markets. She uses a large range of archival and non-archival sources including print and online fashion magazines and catalogues, alongwith oral interviews with consumers, floor shop sellers, managers, bloggers and others.Lewis’ book consists of seven chapters organized chronologically and thematicallythat support her major argument of the emergence of an ongoing Muslim youth subculture in WENAsince early 2000s. She implements various postcolonial theories in her analysis and discussion of Muslimidentity politics in relation to faith, culture, ethnicity and gender. Chapter One provides backgroundinformation on the history and demographics of Muslim populations in WENA. Further, it explainsTurkey’s government policies that used women’s and men’s bodies to illustrate the country’s secularismthrough the banning of the Fez (1925) and the veil (1928). The chapter connects the emergence of Muslim fashion with the revival of a transnational Muslim community, the umma. Chapter Two is a goodillustration of Lewis’ key point that specific fashion choices are a result of what society chooses to sell.She explains how veil wearing in Turkey had been connected to an older and more rural generation of women until the 1980s when the veil’s meaning changed with the emergence of the Turkish Muslimfashion industry that incorporated it in a “Western aesthetic” (71). The chapter showcases how Turkeyemerged as a market leader in Muslim fashion. Lewis explains the development and thecommercialization of Turkish fashion globally through her discussion of three major firms: Tekbir Giyim,Armine and Aker. Chapter Three outlines the development and the content of Muslim fashion media and argues that Muslim lifestyle cultures are products of the engagement with various media including in-print and online magazines, in which bloggers, photographers, editors, stylists and models providesubstance that aims to meet conflicting readers’ and commentators’ demands from both mainstreamand minority fashion industries. The portrayal of women’s bodies illustrates the ability of Muslimlifestyle magazines to utilize secular media to provide new “preferred modes of femininity nuanced byconcerns about modesty, type of covering, and the spiritual dilemmas of picturing the human body”(113). The chapter provides visual examples from these magazines, such as Emel and Sisters in Britainand Azizah andMuslim Girl in the United States.Throughout the book, Lewis makes a key point that religious identity is achieved not ascribed.Likewise, hijabi, or women’s “modest” fashion, is a choice that reflects a combination of “mainstreamhigh street and specialist diaspora and international retail offering” (164). Nevertheless, Muslimwomen’s fashion enforces the connection between mainstream and ethnic fashion, key points ofChapter Four. In addition to choosing how to dress, Muslim women are more deeply engaged in thefashion industry as shop floor sellers giving their faith visibility in high streets and malls. Theseengagements, as Chapter Five argues, brought with them a “series of legal measures that for the firsttime provided protection from religious discrimination to all faiths, including Islam and Muslims”                                                                 (200). Chapter Six continues Chapter Four’s discussion of the contribution of Muslim lifestyle media andexplains the ways in which hijabi bloggers and designers utilize digital media “to create a new form ofmodest fashion” and a new understanding about the contemporary renewal of the umma (25).According to Lewis, the marketing and commercialization of Muslim women’s dress is constantlyinfluenced by an exposure to increasingly global mediums, including digital communications andmagazines. Also, as Chapter Seven explores, there is a connection between Muslim fashion marketingand “Islamic branding, interfaith dialogue, and new Muslim taste communities including non-hijabi modest fashion” (287) that will keep the Muslim fashion industry an ongoing process that is constantlyin renovation through the usage and reinterpretation of what would constitute modesty in Islam.The book is a significant contribution to ethnic, gender, cultural, Middle East and migrationstudies. It will greatly benefit graduate and undergraduate college students in these fields. It is also anattractive topic to general readers who want to learn about Muslim fashion away from the dominantpolarized politics about Islam and Muslims in the West.

Book Review of \u3cem\u3eMuslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures\u3c/em\u3e, by Reina Lewis

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Book Review of \u3cem\u3eMuslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures\u3c/em\u3e, by Reina Lewis

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