Veiled is beautiful, say Egypt's feminists and
fashionistas
By Nyier Abdou in Cairo
13 December 2003

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=472809

Every year, I try to pull together the various strands
of my extensive Cairene family for a family portrait.
These pictures have become a chronicle of many things
- the birth and staggering growth of new generations,
for one.

In the past few years, the most noticeable trend is
the covering of the women in the family. Four years
ago, one or two headscarves could be spotted in the
crowd; today, only one or two women are without one.

The increasing number of women wearing the hijab has
brought about a radical change in the image of the
Egyptian woman. As young, urbane women increasingly
take the veil, age-old associations between hijab and
the traditional religious conservatism dissipate.
"It's not a matter of old women getting veiled, just
out of a habit," says Nesrine Samara, project manager
at the new English-language magazine Jumanah, a
fashion bible for veiled women due to launch this
month. "It's not a matter of just covering up; it
means a lot of other things." Ms Samara, a 27-year-old
marketing executive, is a political science graduate
of the American University of Cairo. Smartly dressed
in camel boots, a long coat and a bright orange scarf,
she resists the notion that being veiled is simply
about being modest. Women are increasingly taking the
veil as a way of identifying with the larger culture
of Islam, she argues.

But it's not just a statement of identity, it's a
fashion statement. One friend spent weeks scouring
shops offering a dizzying array of brightly coloured,
lavishly printed material to find a scarf that would
perfectly match the dress she was wearing to her
cousin's wedding. At a trendy café in Cairo's Zamalek
district, well-dressed veiled women gossip while
seated on plush couches over a late lunch or huddle
over lattes, their laptops open on the tabletop. This
is the dawn of the "new hijab". The trend, however, is
fraught with contradictions. When it hits the stands,
Jumanah will bump up against magazines such as the
English-language glossy, Enigma. The cover of Enigma's
December "Glamour Issue" bears a lusty picture of the
Romanian designer Ramona Flip wearing a lacy black
dress with a deep-plunging neckline.

Speaking of Egypt's pioneering feminists such as Hoda
Shaarawi, Ceza Nabarawi and Nabawiya Moussa - who
famously unveiled after a trip to the International
Women's Suffrage Alliance congress in Rome in 1923 -
Ms Samara notes: "The first thing they did was take
off the veil, as a statement. It was political then,
and for a long time, it was only the daring, the
educated and the freedom-seekers who were not veiled."

Does the return of the veil imply a backward trend in
Egyptian feminism? The question is a contentious one,
but for progressive Muslim women like Ms Samara, the
suggestion that the veil is somehow reactionary or
oppressive is antediluvian. Putting on the veil has,
in fact, become as bold a statement as taking it off
once was.

"When you're veiled, it's not because you're a sex
symbol, or because you're sexy, so you have to cover
up," she says. "It's the contrary. It's something that
tells you, you're a woman. You're not a figure. You
have to be treated as an independent mind, something
of bigger value than just wearing a short, tight skirt
and showing off your legs. I see it as a privilege
that Islam tries to tell a woman that you are more
than a figure."

But Ms Samara and other marketing colleagues who had
taken the veil found that it could be difficult to be
both fashionable and veiled. The group saw a large
market virtually untapped and founded Jumanah. The
credo "Veiled is beautiful" is emblazoned on the front
of the Winter 2004 issue. Inside the models are all
covered up, but in the new fashionable hijab.

Rasha Saad, 33, who began wearing the veil three years
ago, is pleased to find a magazine dedicated to
wearing the veil with style. She notes that in the
past few years local fashions have been more
compatible with wearing the veil. There is a
difference between attracting attention and just
paying attention to one's appearance she says. "If
you're wearing tight clothes, that's something
different. But just trying to wear something that
looks good, there's no problem in that."


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