Veiling in Fashion: Space and the Hijab in Minority Communities

Description

Veiling in Fashion enters the worlds of women who wear the hijab, both as an aspect of their religious observance and community belonging, and as a fashion statement, drawing upon global Islamic fashion history. The book uses rich ethnographic investigation of everyday veiling practices among Muslim women in the city of Helsinki as a lens through which to reflect on and advance understanding of matters concerning Muslim dress in international Muslim minority contexts. The book provides an innovative approach to studying veiling by connecting varied realms of practice, demonstrating how domains as apparently separate as fashion, materiality, city spaces, private life, religious beliefs, and cosmopolitan social conditions are all tightly bound up together in ways that only a sensitive multi-disciplinary approach can reveal. It will appeal to scholars and students in fashion, gender, religion, material cultures, and the construction of space.

Anna-Mari Almila is Research Fellow in Sociology of Fashion at London College of Fashion, University of Arts London, UK. Her research interests include the materiality of dressed bodies and their environments; fashion globalization and the history of fashion studies; the historical/political construction of urban spaces; and wine and gender. Her edited books (with David Inglis) include The Globalization of Wine (forthcoming), The Routledge International Handbook to Veils and Veiling Practices (2017) and The Sage Handbook of Cultural Sociology (2016).

Almila skilfully brings together discussions of local and global politics, fashion and community relations, performances of religious commitment and gendered spatial behaviour in Veiling in Fashion. These themes are thoughtfully woven together from an interdisciplinary perspective ... This innovative research provides a much-needed counterpoint to simplistic discussions about veiling which tend to dominate academia. * The Sociological Review * Based on extensive ethnographic research, Veiling in Fashion unravels the complexities of the veil's entanglement with spatial ambiguities. This is a compelling work which offers a much-welcomed, novel approach and moves our understanding of veiling beyond a simplified dichotomous representation. -- Yildiz Atasoy, Simon Fraser University, Canada Almila makes a compelling argument for the global political significance and interconnectedness of everyday veiling practices, all the while drawing attention to the spatial dynamics of Islamic fashion. This is a valuable contribution to cultural studies, sociology, anthropology and Middle Eastern studies. -- Ozlem Sandikci, University of Glasgow, UK