Islamic Fashion and Anti-Fashion : New Perspectives from Europe and North America

Introducing innovative new research from international scholars working on Islamic fashion and its critics, Islamic Fashion and Anti-Fashion provides a global perspective on muslim dress practices. The book takes a broad geographic sweep, bringing together the sartorial experiences of Muslims in locations as diverse as Paris, the Canadian Prairie, Swedish and Italian bath houses and former socialist countries of Eastern Europe.

What new Islamic dress practices and anxieties are emerging in these different locations? How far are they shaped by local circumstances, migration histories, particular religious traditions, multicultural interfaces and transnational links? To what extent do developments in and debates about Islamic dress cut across such local specificities, encouraging new channels of communication and exchange?

With original contributions from the fields of anthropology, fashion studies, media studies, religious studies, history, geography and cultural studies, Islamic Fashion and Anti-Fashion will be of interest to students and scholars working in these fields as well as to general readers interested in the public presence of Islam in Europe and America.

“The collection of essays is a decidedly successful attempt to demonstrate the complexity of notions of gender and Islamic dress, as it highlights the ambivalence of the term "Islamic fashion," thematizes both inner-Muslim debates about appropriateness of women's dress and notions of modesty, and provides ample evidence that differences in geographical, socio-economic, ethnic, religious, and age impact the ways in which conceptualizations and understandings are constructed, and such constructs impact sartorial bodily-physical expressions, which in turn affect the conceptualizations.” —Alfons H. Teipen, PhD, Furman University, Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online

“Until recently, the focus has been on the significance of visibility; but with this new book by [authors] Tarlo and Moors, new light is shed on the meanings of dress for Muslims.” - Fashion, Society & Popular Culture