Under Cover By Sarah Raper Larenaudie/Dubai
Give or take a few Inshallahs, the sound track inside the glass conference room at a far-flung MTV affiliate in Dubai one recent morning was pretty familiar. As several young television producers filed into the room, chitchat turned to coffee orders, music preferences and fashion. "Check out Wesam, man. Is that Lomar? That script is hot."
This was no hipster haiku between a cool T shirt and a pair of customized jeans. Instead, playing out across the table was a magnificently absurd Fashion Moment: two young guys in identical Middle Eastern white robes critiquing a third guy's robe.
The routine had YouTube potential. Maybe they were spoofing colleagues at the music channel, most of whom were wearing trendy jeans and T shirts. These might be the same pranksters who had taped a crime-scene-style outline of a dead body under the reverential oil paintings of the ruling sheiks downstairs. ("That's Sam—he got promoted," a woman walking by had explained, nodding at the tape.)
On closer inspection, one white thobe, as the traditional long men's robe worn in Dubai and other gulf states is known, looked crisper than the others. Cut closer to the body, it was more tunic than caftan, and there was a subtle tone-on-tone embroidery in Arabic script on the lapel. With a Diesel watch and highlighted hair, Wesam Kattan, 27, the Saudi brand manager at the music channel, looked as if he had bypassed the Hugo Boss and Prada suits hanging in his closet that morning, opting instead for Middle Eastern mod.
Kattan is in excellent company. Across the region, where about half the population in key markets is under 25, fashion-loving teenagers and twentysomethings are fixated on traditional garments like the thobe and the women's long, black abaya and head scarf—but only once they've been souped up to reflect the wearers' personal style. Chic schoolgirls in Dubai snub abaya stores at the mall and order full-length robes from tailors who specialize in more fitted cuts with bold butterfly appliqués and floral embroideries. (Underneath, of course, they're wearing the same jeans and tops as their peers in Europe). Abayas with kimono sleeves lined in bright silks and studded with Swarovski crystals are also popular. Even fashion's biggest names are weighing in on the craze. At Villa Moda's Kuwait City store beginning in May, clients can special-order retooled dishdasha robes, head scarves and abayas from Western designers like Tom Ford, Dries Van Noten and Jil Sander.
"Some people see the abaya as oppressive. I wear it by choice," says Sidiqa Sohail, 17, a senior at a private girls' school in Dubai, as she and her best friend, Rawaa Talass, scout stores at Dubai's Mall of the Emirates. "It's so funky, don't you think?" Sohail is showing off her full black sleeve, trimmed with a river of subtle garnet beading. She stops and flips her matching head scarf. "Dalo'oua," she giggles. Talass laughs and translates the slang for spoiled brat. Talass is wearing a sleeveless top and pants and says she never wears the abaya or covers her head. At school it's the same thing; some girls do, others don't. But both narrow their eyes warily as a wild-looking group of girls strolls past in garish tops and accessories with their standard-issue abayas worn open over tight-fitting jeans.
"I understand the girls you saw," Nayla Yared, project manager of Dubai International Fashion Week, comments later. "It's really tough for them. They are still wearing the abaya, but they are exposed to all these Western influences by satellite TV and Internet, and they are trying to find a way out."
They sound like designer Rabia Zargarpur's target clients. Her new label, Rabia Z., is dedicated to conservative ready-to-wear and features separates that cover the arms and fit loosely around the hips. She received so much attention during fashion week that she says she can't believe the larger fashion chains are ignoring this segment. "The young generation wants to wear the hijab and be trendy too," says Zargarpur, 31, who studied fashion and business in the U.S. Her goal is to meet the standards of modesty, no abaya needed. Criticism from some older wearers of the niqab—the veil favored by conservatives that covers everything but the eyes—has been harsh. "One of them said, 'This is wrong,' but you know, she's not my target—she's not struggling. I admire her, but frankly, not all of us have that level of faith," Zargarpur says. "But on the other hand, I have failed my client if a woman wearing my clothes was called a muhajababe."
That's the title of a recent book on the "sexy, devout" Middle East youth culture by English journalist Allegra Stratton. A twist on muhajabah (one who veils), the term refers to girls who pair black hipster pants and stilettos with black sheer head scarves wrapped tight. For some, covering up becomes a pure act of fashion. "The friends of ours that are veiling are doing it because a tight head scarf and a tight outfit is a good look, they think," a Jordanian girl tells Stratton.
That ambiguity ignites Internet chat rooms and riles grannies. They're unnerved by the way fashion is scrambling the signals of dress, blurring the distinctions between those who cover their body and head for religious reasons and everyone else. And it's not just the muhajababes. The plain black abaya accessorized with gaudy logo sunglasses and flashy jewelry also draws flak. It seems silly to correlate bling wattage and spirituality, but change the context and imagine the Amish adding diamanté trims to their brown, wool, buttonless dresses. What would be the point? That unease spills over into media and advertising. Even the normally freewheeling mtv executives praised—and laughed at—agency ideas for commercials that focused on dress, but they ultimately rejected them. One mixed traditional dress with an Abba Dancing Queen sound track, and another scenario smiled at the way Saudi girls slip in and out of their abayas on takeoff and touchdown when flying abroad. Both ads were deemed too risqué.
From customization it's just a baby step to more radical challenges to the rules, especially for trendsetters in countries like Saudi Arabia, where Islamic dress codes are strictly enforced. In most parts of the world, fashion's capacity for revolution seems spent, but in the Middle East, fashion looks like a subtle but powerful tool for rebels and reformers trying to provoke the Establishment and connect with a younger generation. In the cosmopolitan Saudi Arabian port city of Jidda, the girls have taken to letting their cowl scarves rest on their shoulders, tugging them into place over their head only if they feel harassed by men. Or skipping the traditional scarves altogether. Local designer Sarah Bin Hejaila proposes a perky alternative—a newsboy cap tricked out with a printed bandanna. At the cafés near the medical school, female students substitute their white lab coats—unbuttoned—for the black robes. In Iran, the authorities keep an eye on the trends; in December, the Tehran police chief announced he was cracking down on "tight trousers tucked inside long boots while wearing short overcoats," which he said violated Islamic rules.
As always in this region, it's simpler for the guys. Lomar was launched six years ago by a husband-and-wife team, Loai Nassem and Mona al-Haddad, who started with a few designs produced by a tailor working out of their house in Jidda. Along with their partners Eissa Bougary and Marwan Qutub of the 3 Points ad agency, they noticed that the younger generation was ditching the thobe (traditionally favored by 90% of Saudi males, Bougary said) and choosing Nike and Puma instead. "If you do not provide young people with a local solution that fits their lifestyle, they will buy Western clothes," says Bougary. The loose-fitting thobe has survived because it's better suited to the hot desert climate than clingy European and American designs. It's also easier, he argues, because there are no shirts, belts, ties or socks to coordinate.
Today Lomar has two stores, and it will open five more, including ones in Bahrain and Dubai, later this year. The brand's big breakthrough was replacing the traditional buttons with a zipper. Plus, the brand offers activity-specific thobes: Beach, with its fast-drying fabric, is sold for a day at the seaside. Walk boasts a rubber-band hem for exercising. While Bougary says the brand would never "draw faces or bodies" on its designs—figurative art like this may be frowned upon in some Islamic countries—a recent collection, Tattoo, featured an unusual graffiti-like motif. A few conservatives complained, but Bougary says it only cements Lomar's street credibility. "Wearing Lomar says, 'I am Saudi, but I am a progressive Saudi,'" he insists.
The next obvious step would be women's wear. "With the women's side, it's bordering on something religious," says Bougary hesitantly. "We thought about it, but in the end we think we are better concentrating on thobes."
Both niqabis and muhajababes source the rules for modest dress to the same handful of verses from the Koran and the Hadith, as the examples of Muhammad's life are known. One of the most commonly cited instructions: "Enjoin your wives, your daughters, and the wives of true believers to draw their veils close to them. That is more proper, so that they may be recognized and not be molested." But interpretations of how to apply the recommendations today vary tremendously.
"It doesn't say anything about black," said Jidda-based designer Bin Hejaila, 33, as she settled into a chair at a Starbucks in Paris in December. "I noticed that all the Chanel windows show mannequins wearing head scarves. I was so happy to see that," she said as she opened her laptop and clicked through photographs of her designs in feminine flowing bright silks. The great-granddaughter of a Saudi general who liaised with Lawrence of Arabia, Bin Hejaila launched her line Niyaah (Arabic for intention) with an afternoon fashion show and tea for 250 at a trendy restaurant in Jidda in March 2006. Her website is clear about her priorities: to "serve God and Islam" and promote "dignity through fashion."
"Islamic clothing for women across the Arabian Peninsula historically was rich in color and embroidery," says Bin Hejaila, "so who are these guys in Saudi deciding we must all be in black?" Which is funny because she is in black, from her cap-with-bandanna to her patent-trimmed coat and patent Miu Miu boots.
After studies in the U.S. and a stint at Citibank, Bin Hejaila changed direction, adopting the hijab after a post-9/11 pilgrimage to Mecca in 2001. "I love dressing up and having people around me looking good. At first I found nothing to wear," she says. Others began asking about her mod ensembles, so she signed up for design courses in Italy and hired seamstresses to produce her ideas. Her biggest thrill came when she wore one of her designs, a puff of ruffles, to an international luxury conference and caught the eye of hip New York designer Zac Posen. He paid her the ultimate compliment, she remembers, when he asked, "Is it religion, or is it fashion?"
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