Tag: headscarf

Turkey’s middle-class women mix fashion with Islamic piety

Models in headscarves feature in magazine tapping into wealth and self-confidence of new bourgeoisie

Constanze Letsch in Istanbul

The Guardian, Tuesday 18 December 2012 19.41 GMT

Turkey muslim fashion

Young Muslim women wearing headscarves in Istanbul. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA

Do Coco Chanel and Islam go together? Turkey’s Âlâ, a high-fashion magazine and the first to feature models in headscarves, certainly seems to think so. After its first issue hit the newsstands in June 2011, circulation quadrupled to 40,000 in only four months.

It comes down to simple economics. Over the past decade, Turkey has enjoyed an economic boom that has benefited, as before, the secular urban elites, but also conservative supporters of the AKP governing party and former rural entrepreneurs who have enjoyed unprecedented upward mobility, leading to the formation of an Islamic, urban middle class.

This new Islamic bourgeoisie has money to spend and the opportunities to do so are increasingly diverse: luxury gated communities, boutiques, restaurants, hotels and sports clubs catering to a more pious lifestyle are springing up in urban centres.

“The AKP successfully integrated a large, formerly disregarded part of society into the consumer market,” said the anthropologist and journalist Ayse Çavdar. “In that sense, market dynamics succeeded where politics have failed: it normalised [a religiously conservative lifestyle]. A magazine like Âlâ is a product and a sign of this normalisation.”

Âlâ’s fashion editor, Büsra Erdogan, thinks that the magazine filled an important void. “It was a veritable explosion – obviously scores of conservative women had been waiting for a publication like this for a long time. Many readers told us, ‘Why did it take so long?’”

While Âlâ adheres to Islamic clothing rules – headscarves and the length of hemlines and sleeves – it does not cater exclusively to women who cover their heads, and Islamic clothing companies feature next to designer brands such as Gucci, Louboutin and Stella McCartney.

Ebru Büyükdag, Âlâ’s editor-in-chief, said the magazine was initially criticised as being Islamist by secularists, and for commercialising Islam by some pious Muslims. “But we are not handing out fatwas, and we don’t break any Islamic rules,” she said. “Why should conservative women not be allowed to wear nice clothes?”

With wealth and visibility comes a new self-confidence among conservative women. “People used to look down on women wearing the headscarf,” said 35-year-old Esra Can, owner of a beauty salon in Istanbul’s conservative Fatih neighbourhood. She opened her own business after her decision to wear the headscarf put an end to her career as a sales director in the textile industry. “I was put before the choice between my headscarf and my job,” she said.

Adile Türkmen, a beautician who had to drop out of university because of her headscarf, said she breathed a sigh of relief at the appearance of Âlâ. “It brought a sense of normality,” she said, arguing that Âlâ was a sign things had changed. “When I used to go to the opera, people stared at me like I didn’t belong. Now I go everywhere, to restaurants and rock concerts.” She laughed. “Headbanging with a headscarf? No problem!”

Esra Can agreed: “With the AKP government and through economic growth people started to look past this piece of fabric. Now people judge me by what I achieve – which is a whole lot.” Her beauty salon, nestled between brand name shops, wedding gown boutiques and fancy patisseries, draws clients – with and without headscarves – from the neighbourhood and from all over Istanbul.

Âlâ’s editor-in-chief Ebru Büyükdag underlined the importance of featuring articles on professional conservative women who have succeeded – women like Esra Can. “We want to present positive examples and role models to young women.”

She admitted that female employment in Turkey was still dismally low – only 28% of women currently participate in the workforce, less than half the European Union average. “We rally for female quotas at the workplace and for an end to the preconception that women wearing headscarves can only work in low-skilled and low-paid jobs, if at all,” she said. “Many companies still refuse to employ highly qualified women for executive positions only because they cover their heads.”

Büyükdag said that magazines such as Âlâ also helped to bridge the gap between practising Muslims on one hand and secularists who are anxious about an Islamisation of Turkey on the other. “It shows that we like the same things: we like to look good, we like style, we like to eat good food. It’s a place to start.”

via Turkey’s middle-class women mix fashion with Islamic piety | World news | The Guardian.

December 20, 2012
Common Muslim American Head Coverings

Common Muslim head coverings in America -and non used in Turkey

July 10, 2012
Istanbul, Take Two – The Atlantic

In my previous post from and about Istanbul, I noted, by way of conveying the Islamic-yet-Western feel of the city, the very high ratio of uncovered female heads to covered female heads. I then got an email in which a woman living in Istanbul said it sounded like I had been spending my time in the “Starbucks/shopping districts.” In some neighborhoods, she said, “women who don’t have headscarves will often get a disapproving stare from men and from other women.”

CoupleOnBench.jpg Actually, my sample wasn’t terribly narrow in a quantitative sense. It was based on a four-mile walk I took with my older daughter. But it’s probably true that, without really trying, we stayed more or less within the Starbucks corridor. By way of correction, I offer you the picture to the left, taken by my daughter, that reflects an unStarbucksy side of Istanbul. Plus, below, a few pictures I shot with my cell phone that feature varying ratios of uncovered to covered heads.

I should emphasize that, as these pictures may suggest, there isn’t a clear dichotomy here; “women who wear head scarves” and “cosmopolitan, Starbucksy women” aren’t mutually exclusive categories. (Veiled women may be another story, but I’ve seen almost none of them so far, and I don’t know whether the ones I saw were Turkish.)

I should hold off for now on further observations about Turkey. Since I got here my attention has been largely consumed by a conference on the future of the global economy (more on which later). But the conference is over, and my researches into Turkey per se can now begin. So watch this space. I continue to believe that Turkey is one of the most important countries in the world, and now I’ll start examining that thesis in earnest and will report back as I learn more.

via International – Robert Wright – Istanbul, Take Two – The Atlantic.

more photos :

June 28, 2012
New Twists and Turns in Turkey’s Head-Scarf Debate

By SUSANNE GÜSTEN

ISTANBUL — When the auto writer Merve Sena Kilic shifted a Mini into gear for a recent test drive, she had little idea that she was fueling a remarkable shift in the head-scarf debate in Turkey.

Covering her hair with a patterned cream and brown scarf, Ms. Kilic steered the sporty Mini down winding forest roads outside Istanbul for a November episode of her television program, “A Passion for Cars,” while discussing its merits with her co-host Burcu Cetinkaya, a glamorous blonde who also happens to be a champion rally driver in Turkey.

The program on the private station Kanal 24 initially aired without causing a stir, but when a photo of the women and the car appeared last month in the society pages of the daily newspaper Hurriyet, Ms. Cetinkaya received a call from Borusan Holding, the company that distributes the Mini and BMW brands in Turkey.

via New Twists and Turns in Turkey’s Head-Scarf Debate – NYTimes.com.

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February 6, 2012
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.

January 29, 2012
What Turkey has done right

Turks are proud of their language, and Turkey is emerging as Europe’s new shinning star. PHOTO: AFP

Turkey is turning heads. A few weeks ago the top brass of the entire Turkish army resigned- an act that could have previously brought down whatever democratic government was at the helm- but Prime Minister Erdogan reacted coolly and appointed a new army chief. The present AKP (Justice and Development Party) government has slowly chipped away the power of the deep state. Moreover many have alluded to Turkey’s pluralism and democracy as an example for all Muslim countries to follow.

Turkey was also the fastest growing country in the world last year, with a growth rate of just over 9%. It has transformed itself from the sick man of Europe to its shining star, as countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, because of their inability to depreciate currency, gasp under the Euro zone’s hangman noose. Indeed, in a conversation I had with a member of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, I discovered that Turkey was not going to go begging for European Union EU) membership but would accept it on its own terms if offered.

The greatest challenge the country faces is making a new constitution.

In a 1980 coup the military drew up a defacto constitution for the country. As one would expect the focus of this constitution was stability, not individual rights. With the AKP’s third term in power, it looks like the party is going to attempt to draw up a new constitution. From the perspective of an international observer the two most interesting things to look at will be how the constitution defines (or does not define) the role of religion and secularism, and the Kurdish issue.

It is common to associate Turkey with secularism – where religion has no business of the state. However, the Turkish state is not secular in that sense, in fact it is laicist – where the state controls what parts of religion are acceptable and what are not – an important distinction. A secular state does not care whether a woman adopts a headscarf or not; a laicist state decides whether a woman should be allowed to wear a headscarf in a university or another public space (France and historically Turkey have ruled that they cannot). The laicist state was established by Ataturk whose cult still lives on even after more than 60 years of his passing. Ataturk’s paintings are ubiquitous inside homes and on public spaces. A friend of mine who was travelling the country related to me that a person she spoke to said Ataturk was like a father to him. His importance can be judged by the fact that the Turkish blasphemy law protects Ataturk not religion!

The Kurdish question also needs to be resolved. After the breakup of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire because of various rebellions of nationalism within the country, the Turkish state imposed homogeneity. There was a single idea of Turkishness and anything that deviated from this was perceived to be a threat to the Turkish state. The largest dissidents against this policy have been the Kurds. The Kurds (who have no country of their own but are split over 4 countries) demand that their cultural rights be accepted and that they be allowed to learn their language in schools. The state has been slow to respond, but in the past few years there have been signs of progress; recently a Kurdish channel was allowed to broadcast for the first time in Kurdish. The new constitution is likely to raise many questions about what kind of state Turkey wishes to be for the better part of the twenty first century.

What lessons can be learned from Turkey?

The first thing to note is that Turks are proud of their language. They do not have insecurities or inferiority complexes about not knowing any English and their pride in their language gives them a strong and authentic sense of identity – for both the elites and the non-elites, something which post colonial states like Pakistan lack.

The second lesson is that democracy does work given time. Whenever the Turkish army has come to power it has caused short term stability but in the long run it has not helped the country. In the absence of transparency and checks, all militaries make questionable policy decisions. It may surprise readers to know that even the staunchly pro-secular Turkish military employed violent religious militant groups (sound familiar?) at one point to suppress the Kurdish rebellion.

Ataturk’s reforms lifted Turkey from a backward country to a modern nation but they came at a cost; his secularization reforms were harsh on practicing Muslims in the country and have galvanized support against secularism by conservative Muslims all over the world. Some people told me stories about Qurans being flushed into toilets in the countryside during the post reform years. There was no way to confirm the veracity of this claim but it’s important to note that this impression was created. The fear of secularization as a threat to religion is a real one from the perspective of conservative Muslims and it must be addressed

The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of The Express Tribune.

via What Turkey has done right – The Express Tribune Blog.

September 18, 2011