Islamic Fashion and De-orientalising the veil.

The book aims to understand the revolutionary character of the increasing global visibility of Muslim fashionable clothing and investigate in what ways does the hijabista fashion challenge existing stereotypes of oppressed Muslim women. This paper first investigates the Western discourse of the veil and the negative connotations associated with it. The study then links that discourse to a discussion of the dominant Western perspective found within the fashion scholarship. Afterward, the research presents a series of challenges posed by veiled Muslim women to the Western dominance by tracing them back to the Islamic revival movements and following them to the present days in which the modern fashionable Islamic attire has come into sight. Following this investigation, the paper engages with the significance of social media in spreading, altering, and claiming new fashion styles. It uses critical discourse analysis to scrutinize two Instagram profiles of Muslim fashion bloggers with an aim to understand how their self-presentation affects the common perception of the veil. The analysis has found that the self-branding of Muslim fashion bloggers as maintaining hybrid identities of both fashionable and modest effectively breaks long-established stereotypes of the voiceless, unhappy and oppressed Muslim women. The findings of the study have shown that hijabsita fashion bloggers are embracing their beauty and identity through hijab and find their liberation and empowerment by creatively experimenting with the headscarves. Taking into account the global spread of Instagram, it could be concluded that Muslim women are successfully challenging stereotypes associated with Islam rewriting the history of fashion.