Fundamental Fashions: the Cultural Politics of the Turban and the Levi’S Ozlem Sandikci, Bilkent University Guliz Ger, Bilkent University

"The December 2, 1999 issue of the Washington Post newspaper included an article with the following headline: "Spreading Faith Through Fashion: Turkish Chain Promotes Islamic Clothing." The article reorts a Turkish company which built a lucrative business in the last decade by marketing Islamic fashion: "Mustafa Karaduman is a profoundly pious Muslim who says he is spreading the faith through fashion. Karaduman owns Turkey’s largest Islamic-style clothing chain, Tekbir Giyim, which means "Allah is Great apparel." Stroking his neatly trimmed beard with one hand and fingering a string of worry beads with another, Karaduman explained during a recent interview at his flagship store here [Istanbul] that he is serving God by encouraging 'my sisters to dress in accordance with the teachings of the holy Koran. In so doing, Karaduman has built a multimillion-dollar clothing empire, with 600 outlets across Turkey and as far away as Sarajevo, Bosnia and Sydney" (Zaman 1999)."
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"In the last decade an Islamic consumptionscape competing against the secular consumptionscape in every domain of life emerged in Turkey. Summer resorts, fashion shows, fitness and beauty centers, popular culture and entertainment products targeted specifically at the Islamists became common place. In this paper we explore one of the most visible sites of the Islamic consumption culture, Islamic fashion, and discuss the newly-emerged fashion style which mixes Islamic dressing codes with Western clothing patterns as an example of consumption fusion. We argue that today’s Islamic consumptionscape is characterized by pluralism and difference, and cannot be explained as either rejection of consumerism, capitalism and globalization or resistance to modernity. Constructing a modern Islamic identity within the local power network involves simultaneously negotiating multiple tensions both between the local and global and within the local itself, and increasingly finds its symbolic expression in the domain of consumption."

Fundamental Fashions: the Cultural Politics of the Turban and the Levi’S
Ozlem Sandikci, Bilkent University
Guliz Ger, Bilkent University
http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=8459