Muslin women: Beneath the veil

Amid all the recent controversy and hand-wringing over what Muslim women should and shouldn't wear in this country, I found myself wondering - perhaps in my capacity as a fashion editor, but mainly just as a woman - if there wasn't a more interesting question worth asking about Muslim women and their clothes. There is a tendency, in the Western world, to assume that if a Muslim woman is observant of her faith - and covering her body, with varying degrees of extremism, is symbolic of that observance - that she is automatically excluded from being fashionable; she is, in some way, "outside" of fashion. There is also is a tendency to lump traditional Muslim dress into one dull generic pile of black cloth and to assume that one size fits all.

But any time I have been in one of London's most immediately identifiable Muslim areas - Edgware Road at night; Brick Lane on Sundays; the Serpentine during the summer months - it starts to become clear that there is a whole other fashion lexicon at play among modern Muslim women. Sometimes it's in the eyes, other times it's in the tie of the robe or the texture of the cloth; and while those subtle nuances might not initially mean much to most Western eyes, it's obvious that something intriguing is definitely going on beneath those veils.

A gaggle of Arab women, swathed in dark drapes and shopping for Saudi in Harvey Nichols and Harrods remains a popular "foreigner" stereotype. We brazenly stare at them, grimacing in fascination at their seemingly infinite platinum credit-card limits and insatiable appetite for gold taps. So it might come as a surprise to hear that while we've been smugly basking in our 1980s anachronisms, many parts of the Arab world - the Emirates in particular - have been establishing themselves as vital leaders in luxury retail. This, in turn, has given rise to one of the most sartorially savvy, high-fashion buying demographs in the world. Middle Eastern Muslim women aren't just prolific shoppers, now they are discerning, prolific shoppers. And, unlike most of us, they know exactly what they want.

To gain a real insight into just how important young, fashionable Middle Eastern women are to the fashion industry, you need look no further than one of their favourite destination shopping experiences - Harrods. "Some of the strictest Middle Eastern Muslim women are some of our most fashion-conscious customers," says Marigay Mckee, Harrods' fashion and beauty director. While the rest of us try to get our heads around barely there, bum-skimming dresses, gold leggings and 1980s neon acid colours, her Muslim clientele will have their own distinct take on the spring/summer '07 shows. "The Cavalli animal prints - we'll be selling lots of those," says Mckee. She knows this for sure because she's already taken 24 pre-orders and the Cavalli show only took place three weeks ago. "The jewel colours such as turquoise will be big and Matthew Williamson's new line for Pucci was a real hit. The colours and prints and the full-length, 1960's-inspired tunics are just up their street." Unsurprisingly, accessories are a very lucrative business among fashionable Middle Eastern Muslim women - no amount of niqab is going to come between these women and their special-edition Bottega Veneta ostrich-skin weekend bags or crystal-clustered, sparkly Gina stilettos.

And don't think for a moment that something as trivial as girth-size would play any kind of inhibitive role within this group of happy shoppers. While the Western world still persists in viewing the concept of being fashionable and being on the wrong side of a size 16 as inherently mutually exclusive, this particular set of Muslim clientele have so much clout within the fashion industry that by the time the spring '07 stock hits the shop floor, Missoni will have knocked out a healthy order of size 18-20 floor-length water lily-motif dresses faster than you can say "size zero [yawn] model debate". "They do it because they know they are getting a regular customer," explains Mckee.

A measure of just how much weight these new customers carry is evident in the designers' willingness to accommodate their specific tastes and requirements. Mckee tells me that designers will often provide special orders and adapt collections just to suit the Muslim market. "Diane Von Furstenberg designs a version of her classic wrap dress for us," says Mckee. "But she makes it floor-length, with long sleeves and it's often embellished with black crystals. It retails at £2,500, is exclusive to Harrods, and it sells out every season."

And what of fashion snobbery? Well, if, hypothetically, the kind of labels that feature large in avant-garde fashion glossies and pride themselves on a more modern, minimalist aesthetic, didn't want Arab custom, it wouldn't matter anyway; Middle Eastern women don't want clean black lines and distressed leather, they want colour and print and embellishment and embroidery and brocade. But these days, even more discerning labels such as Lanvin, are starting to make longer versions of dresses shown on their catwalks to accommodate Muslim requirements. They know that it would be foolhardy not to.

One man who knows just about all there is to know about Middle Eastern Muslim fashionability is the self-styled "sheikh of chic" - Sheikh Majed al-Sabah, nephew of the Emir of Kuwait and founder of the £40m "luxury bazaars" that are Villa Moda Kuwait and Villa Moda Dubai. He says that throughout his 16-year career in retail, he has been constantly frustrated by how the rest of the world underestimates the sartorial sophistication of Middle Eastern Muslims. "In the early years, we faced a lot of prejudice," says Majed. "Not so much from Europe but certainly from the US. They wanted to know who on earth would wear these sleeveless tops and short skirts? Sometimes I felt like they thought we still lived in the desert, surrounded by camels.

"People seem to forget that the Arab world is full of liberal and conservative Muslims," continues Majed. "You can't just lump us into one group. There are many open-minded people in places such as Kuwait and we have freedom of choice and speech in our country, so it stands to reason that people make up their own minds and have their own opinions." The sheikh does concede that as Muslim women get more and more exposure through the international press, those stereotypes are being eroded, but he still marvels at how slow the rest of the world was to realise. "No one fully understood the demand," he says. Which presumably, for him, in his capacity as the leading purveyor of luxury goods to the Middle East in the early 1990s, turned out to be a pretty profitable oversight.

As far as Muslim tastes are concerned, Majed says that this season there has been a big demand for 1980's-influenced clothes following the recent spring shows. Celebrity branding is as powerful a shape shifter as it is over here - Victoria Beckham's 'VB' jeans are a current favourite; and one of his biggest surprises has been the phenomenal success of the quintessentially girly label Marni. "I never anticipated that," he says.

So how do we begin to make sartorial sense of £500 cotton floral tops buried beneath layers of floor-length black robes? Why wear it, let alone pay for it, if no one sees it? "What you have to understand about the female Muslim culture is that everything happens indoors," says Christina Estrada Juffali, the former American model who is married to royal Saudi sheik Walid Juffali. "The Western world can't seem to get its head around the idea that affluent Middle Easterners are both modest, pious and mass consumers. Though the women might wear full hijab, when they get together behind closed doors and throw women-only parties, that's when they get to show off." As Estrada Juffali points out, women who are very respectful of the veil and come from the more closed communities, never "got their kicks" - as it were - from walking down the street and getting male attention. "It's not even on their horizon," she says.

But Estrada Juffali says that's it's also about feeling good. "Instinctively, they are drawn to sumptuous, gorgeous things that look and make you feel beautiful," she explains. "They like richness of texture and colour and fabric and detail. Plain means poor to a rich Middle Eastern Muslim, they just don't get it." Juffali maintains that when it comes to using clothes to make oneself feel good, the Muslim woman is no different from any other. "They dress for their men, they dress for each other and they dress for themselves - just like us. We tend to overcomplicate the issue, but most of them see it this way - the jilbab keeps the dust out of your eyes and the dirt off your Chanel suit."

Mckee says that during her eight years of working at Harrods, the most discernible change among young Middle Eastern female shoppers is their increasingly expansive knowledge about fashion. "They travel extensively - shopping in Tokyo, Paris and Milan," she says. "They watch fashion TV and they read fashion magazines. These women know who the designers are behind the labels and they know that the Ralph Lauren bag they want is called the 'Ricky' bag and the Dior bag they want is called the 'Gaucho'. Exclusivity is everything so they often order pieces from the actual runway collection, pieces that never normally make it on to the shop floor." What is key, says Mckee, is "newness" - getting it first, getting it before anyone else. Now if that isn't a profoundly primal, and unifyingly universal, female shopper's instinct, then I don't know what is.

Nima Elbagir is 31 years old and a foreign affairs reporter for More 4. She is Sudanese, and a Muslim, but she grew up in Britain and lives and works in London. "I don't wear hijab, but I am a practising Muslim so I do a feel pressure to dress fairly conservatively," she says. "Sometimes I think that puts me in the most difficult situation of all because you face criticism on all sides. By wearing the veil, you are setting yourself apart by saying 'I am a Muslim,' but by not wearing hijab you are - in some people's eyes - not being Muslim enough.

"Fortunately," continues Elbagir, "a big part of my remit is covering stories in the Islamic and African world so if I am in Darfur, I have to wear a shawl over my shoulders anyway. That kind of solves the problem for me." Elbagir says that when she is on TV, she is always aware that she is representing something about being a Muslim, so she dresses accordingly: "I wouldn't ever wear a skirt above the knee and I wouldn't wear a short-sleeved shirt. I tend to use the foolproof litmus test: 'How much would my mother complain?'"

Elbagir maintains that while being Muslim might mean adopting a more conservative approach, it certainly doesn't exclude fashionability altogether. "Some of my trendiest friends wear the veil," she says. "But they still shop at Zara, Topshop and Selfridges. There are so many ways to combine the two things." She notes that in recent seasons, catwalk trends have been particularly Muslim-friendly: "Dresses over jeans; tailored tunics; shift dresses; layering - you name it, we've embraced it."

Having spent a lot of her youth in Saudi Arabia, where her father has an office, Elbagir has witnessed, first hand, the Middle Eastern Muslim's woman's passion for fashion; and the irony - that it's the more conservative female Muslims who really go to town when it comes to style - is not lost on her. "The girls I know from Saudi have an incredible love of fashion," she says. "It's precisely because they wear abayas that they can be so outlandish underneath. Because it all goes on beneath the veil and behind closed doors, they don't feel inhibited. Sequins, miniskirts, pink hot pants - the more garish the better."

Dina Juffali, a 25-year-old Fashion Investment Analyst who is Christina Estrada Juffali's stepdaughter, is a British Muslim with a Saudi Arabian father and she too lives between her homes in Jeddah and London. She says that fashion plays such an important role in the more affluent parts of the Arab world - especially the Emirates - that you'd feel like an outcast if you weren't up on the latest trends and designers. "At times I've been an out-an-out fashion victim," says Juffali. "And I'm proud of it. A passion for fashion is something that goes way back among the women in my family - my grandmother used to get her suits made for her at Dior."

And when it comes to traditional dress, you can put all thoughts of one-size-fits all to one side because, according to Juffali, the abaya business is booming. If a fashionable Muslim woman would like her robes and veils lined with Swarovski crystals or denim - that's no problem. "Tiger-print, any shade of green, lace, transparent chiffon - even a Prada or Pucci print is possible. Anything goes," says Juffali.

"What you need to understand about the hijab," she continues, "is that it's a personal thing between you and God - it's about modesty of the soul and discretion and hiding your form so as not to tempt men but that doesn't mean the symbols of those meanings can't be interpreted in a personal way. My friend wears a full hijab and she is the most stylish person I know. When she comes to London, she'll wear some Victoria Beckham VB jeans; a long-sleeved Dolce and Gabbana shirt that she'll often buy two sizes too big so its not tight-fitting; and then she'll tie a funky headscarf over her head. That's hijab to her. Why does it have to be black and boring? As long as it does the job it's meant to do, who cares what colour it is?"

Elbagir agrees. She also says that she finds it strange that Jack Straw should be concerned about what he has referred to as "a growing trend in the wearing of the full veil". "It's a trend among a tiny minority," argues Elbagir. "Only about 3,000 Muslim women in Britain wear the full veil. How can that be a significant trend?" According to her, the future and the present is this: Muslim women, certainly in Britain, are increasingly adapting hijab and making it work for them. "Islamic dress is being appropriated so that it works within fashion's perimeters," says Elbagir. "Not against or outside it. It's about individual expression - we are not choosing to demarcate our 'otherness', but rather we are choosing to express out individuality." An Alexander McQueen skull-print niqab it is then.

Glossary

Niqab Square of black material with adjustable straps that goes around the face with slit for eyes. The full robe cover-up comes together with this piece, so it wouldn't be worn in isolation.

Jilbab A kind of one-piece that covers the head and body in one black full-length robe that normally zips up the front.

Hijab Long rectangular piece of black material that wraps around the head - can be worn on its own and replaced with any kind of scarf/material as long as it covers the head.

Abaya Another name for full-length robe - a more common term in countries such as Somalia and Pakistan.

Juba Another name for a veil around the head - normally Pharaoh-shape and lies much closer to neck.

Full purdah Everything is covered including hands and feet; all that's seen is the eyes through a slit in the material.

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