Turkish Forum

Tag: Ala

  • Turkish Beauty Magazine Ties Muslim Veil to Glamor

    Turkish Beauty Magazine Ties Muslim Veil to Glamor

    Editor of Ala Magazine Hulya Aslan at her office in Istanbul on March 2. It is exactly the type of challenge posed for a little less than a year by Ala, the first fashion magazine dedicated to Turkish women wearing headscarves. (AFP Photo/Ala Magazine).
    Editor of Ala Magazine Hulya Aslan at her office in Istanbul on March 2. It is exactly the type of challenge posed for a little less than a year by Ala, the first fashion magazine dedicated to Turkish women wearing headscarves. (AFP Photo/Ala Magazine).

    Can the Muslim headscarf be synonymous with glamor? Turkey’s first fashion magazine for conservative Islamic women hopes to prove that it can.

    Launched last June, the monthly Ala, which means “beauty,” has become a mainstream glossy.

    With a circulation of 20,000, it is only slightly behind the Turkish versions of Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Elle magazines.

    Ala’s pages are splashed with models reflecting a conservative Islamic style, all wearing headscarves and long dresses, with their arms and necks covered.

    Ala’s editor, 24-year-old Hulya Aslan, has first-hand experience with Turkey’s headscarf troubles. Because she insisted on wearing one, she had to give up a university education, instead finding work at a bank.

    Ala, created by two advertisers, offers the usual fare of health tips, travel pages and celebrity interviews, supplemented by a strong dose of loud and clear Islamic activism.

    “Veiled Is Beautiful” proclaims one advertisement, driving home the point with the words: “My way, my choice, my life, my truth, my right.”

    But such slogans sound more like a reference to the struggles of the past, when secularism monopolized the social scene and the Islamic headscarf, often viewed as a political symbol, met hostile reactions.

    The struggle continues despite the 2002 poll victory of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots and many of whose members have spouses who wear headscarves, including Erdogan’s wife, Emine.

    Although the strict application of secularism has been loosened under AKP rule, headscarves are still off-limits for civil servants. It is now allowed in some universities, while many others ban them.

    In Turkey, 60 percent of women wear some type of hair covering, according to a 2006 survey conducted by the Istanbul-based Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation.

    “There are now much prettier things than before,” said Merve Buyuk, a 22-year-old trainee at Ala. “Designers have now understood that we exist. They’ve started making clothes that are not necessarily black or brown. … I’m pretty happy with this change.”

    Communication scientist Nilgun Tutal of Istanbul’s Galatasaray University said Ala attested to the rise of middle- and upper-class Muslims who were adapting to the consumer society, thanks to almost 10 years of AKP rule and Turkey’s sustained economic growth.

    “At one time, Islam, to distinguish itself from the West, took a position hostile to consumer society. But today, these people, to express their success, can only do that through consumer society,” Tutal said.

    AFP

    via Turkish Beauty Magazine Ties Muslim Veil to Glamor | The Jakarta Globe.

  • Turkish fashion magazine Âlâ appeals to fashionable Muslim women who wear a veil

    Turkish fashion magazine Âlâ appeals to fashionable Muslim women who wear a veil

    Magazine’s sales figures are catching up with Turkish ‘Elle’ and ‘Cosmopolitan’.

    image

    The staff of the magazine are firm believers that wearing the veil is perfectly compatible with style and femininity.

    A new magazine has filled a gap in the market in Turkey: Âlâ is a monthly publication aimed at women who wear a veil. After just a few months, it’s already selling almost as many copies as the Turkish version of ‘Elle.’Since it hit the shelves in June last year, Ala magazine has become a feature of the Turkish high street.

    The brainchild of two Turkish businessmen, it’s a fashion and beauty magazine aimed at women who wear the veil.

    “We’re saying that veiled women can follow fashion. There are more and more products on the market that veiled women can use. We’re saying: let’s not remain stuck with just one style,” says Editor-in-chief, Ala Hülya Aslan.

    Like their readers, the staff of the magazine are firm believers that wearing the veil is perfectly compatible with style and femininity.

    “People have started to take more of an interest in this section of the public. They’ve finally understood that we exist. They’ve begun to make veils which aren’t just black or brown, which are more colourful – personally, I’m obviously pleased with the change,” says Merve Büyük, Staff member.

    The sight of veiled women striking relaxed poses in glossy magazines is a novelty in Turkey. But visible displays of piety have become more common since the conservative, Islamic AK party came to power in 2002.

    Some believe it’s also part of a more relaxed attitude to money on the part of the faithful.

    “At one time, Islam, to distinguish itself from the West, adopted a hostile position towards the whole consumer society; but nowadays, to show their success, this section of the population can only do it through the consumer society,” says Nilgün Tutal, Sociologist.

    After less than a year on the market, Ala’s sales figures are not far behind those of Western staples such as ‘Elle’ and ‘Cosmopolitan’.

    And in a country where at least 6 out of 10 women wear the veil, it could become one of the country’s essential style guides.

    via Turkish fashion magazine Âlâ appeals to fashionable Muslim women who wear a veil – NY Daily News.

  • A Turkish Fashion Magazine, Ala, Is Unshy About Showing Some Piety

    A Turkish Fashion Magazine, Ala, Is Unshy About Showing Some Piety

    29TURKEY1 articleLarge

    The magazine Ala uses Eastern European models, including this woman from Ukraine, partly because their pay is relatively low.

    By DAN BILEFSKY

    ISTANBUL — Across a neon-lighted corridor in a hyper-designed modernist loft here, a group of Eastern European models posed coquettishly for a magazine spread, their heads covered in brightly colored scarves.

    Except for the religious headgear, the shoot could have been for any glossy fashion magazine. But Ala — called the “Vogue of the veiled” in the Turkish news media — is no conventional publication. In an unlikely fusion of conservative Muslim values and high fashion, it unabashedly appeals to the pious head-scarf-wearing working woman, who may covet a Louis Vuitton purse but has no use for the revealing clothing that pervades traditional fashion magazines.

    One of Ala’s founders, Ibrahim Burak Birer, 31, a religious Muslim and a former marketing analyst who favors jeans and designer jackets, said he decided to start the magazine — its name means “the most beautiful of the beautiful” in Turkish — after seeing a transsexual with strap-on breasts in a transparent dress on the cover of an international fashion magazine.

    “We realized that there was a gap to be filled for conservative Muslim women in Turkey who have a different worldview,” he said in an interview at Ala’s sleek offices, where young women in head scarves sit hunched over Apple computers. “Until now, most fashion magazines have offered a lifestyle centered on being sexy, being skinny and eating sushi. But not all women dress like those girls from ‘Sex and the City.’ ”

    Ala adheres to strict Islam-inspired sartorial guidelines: arms and heads must be covered; tight pants and skirts above the ankle are forbidden. But, Mr. Birer said, the Koran has no prohibition on five-inch stiletto heels. “You can be elegant and sophisticated,” he said. “Female beauty is O.K. as long as it’s not seductive.”

    The success of Ala, which has attracted 30,000 subscribers since its founding in June, reflects the rise of an Islamic bourgeoisie in Turkey that has prospered under the Islam-inspired Justice and Development Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    This religious merchant class, which sees nothing incompatible between wearing a head scarf and driving a Mercedes, is altering the society in a country once dominated by a secular elite that banned the wearing of head scarves in public institutions. In Istanbul today, religious businessmen endure six-month waiting lists for $150,000 BMWs, while hip young women in head scarves, skinny jeans and bright red lipstick throng the more than 80 shopping malls in the city. Head scarves are also now ubiquitous on college campuses.

    In Ala, page after page of beautiful women in designer head scarves underscore Turkey’s growing comfort with such outward displays of religion.

    Yet for all of Ala’s avowed restraint, the magazine and its attention-grabbing images of pouting models staring suggestively in their costly outfits have been criticized by some religious scholars. They argue that regardless of whether a woman is photographed showing off a head scarf or sexy lingerie, such behavior violates Islam, which calls for women not to flaunt their femininity.

    via A Turkish Fashion Magazine, Ala, Is Unshy About Showing Some Piety – NYTimes.com.

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  • Alâ: Turkish fashion magazine created for women who wear headscarves

    It’s Vogue for the veiled! Turkish fashion magazine created for women who wear headscarves

    By Katie Silver

    A magazine for the modern, fashion-conscious Muslim woman is proving that when it comes to Turkey, you don’t need bikinis, breasts and legs to sell issues.

    Outraged when he saw photos of transsexuals in a magazine, devout Muslim Ibrahim Burak Birer, 31 decided to create a magazine in Istanbul that would contest the ‘diktat of nudity’.

    With his friend Mehmet Volkan Atay, 32, he created Alâ, a magazine described as the avant-garde of ‘veiled’ fashion.

    The first issue: Released in June, Alâ has been described as the ‘Vogue of veiled fashion’. It appeals to the modern, education, fashion-conscious Muslim woman

    The magazine only shows women in headscarves

    Alâ, which is Turkish for ‘the most beautiful of the beautiful’, only shows models in headscarves and will only advertise clothing that conforms to Islamic customs.

    ‘Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, Marie Claire, it’s all about sex and naked skin,’ says Mr Birer. ‘The motto is that sex sells. But we, and millions of women around the world, believe that fashion can also be different.’

    Despite having only six issues under their belt, the magazine has been so successful that they have needed to increase circulation multiple times.

    The magazine now has a circulation of 30,000 with some 5,000 subscriptions are sent abroad.

    ‘We had no experience with magazines before that. We’re marketing people,’ Mr Atay told SpiegelOnline. ‘We specialised in recognising market niches.’

    1,500 of the subscriptions are sent to Germany alone where the magazine has a big following amongst devout Turkish migrants.

    As a result, entrepreneurial Mr Birer and Mr Atay said they could definitely foresee coming out with a German Alâ in the future.

    The magazine has been very successful with a circulation of 30,000

    And not just a Muslim product, it would be marketed to all females since the ‘battle against nudity’ is important to all women, Mr Birer said.

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    Selling for 9 lira, or £3.20, it has been described as ‘the Vogue of the veiled’ by German magazine Radikal.

    Atay and Birer have found a product for an increasingly prevalent part of Muslim society: the educated, fashion-focused woman with disposable income who still believes in wearing the veil.

    Creating the magazine: Mr Brier and Mr Atay attribute their success to finding an untapped market

    Creating the magazine: Mr Brier and Mr Atay attribute their success to finding an untapped market. Their backgrounds are in marketing, not magazine publishing

    Cosmopolitan

    Scarlett Johansson

    Mr Birer was fed up of the ‘dikat of nudity’ in found in others women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Vogue

    But the men have faced objections from their own camp with one theologian complaining that women should be submissively behind rather than putting themselves forward.

    ‘That’s not our understanding of Islam,’ says Mr Atay. ’We don’t believe that women should hide themselves. Even the veiled have a right to stylish fashion.’

    via Alâ: Turkish fashion magazine created for women who wear headscarves | Mail Online.