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New York:
The launch of the world’s first Muslim model agency, in New York’s
fashionable Tribeca district, offered an interesting alternative
to the options presented at New York Fashion Week a few blocks
uptown.
A coming-together of a particularly stylish segment of the Islamic
community in this cosmopolitan city, the event on Saturday night
played host to everyone from a fully veiled woman in black abaya
to dramatically coiffed fashionistas (and fashionistos) curious
about a groundbreaking project.
The founder of the Underwraps agency, Nailah Lymus, is a
born-and-bred New York Muslim with a love of fashion and a mission
to prove Islam’s worth and tolerance to a city whose inhabitants
remain, in many cases, emotionally fragile and somewhat suspicious
of Islam more than a decade after the tragic September 11
terrorist attacks.
“It’s just always been about contradicting a lot of the negative
stereotypes and misunderstandings about Muslims and our religion,
as well as about Muslim females; there’s a whole lot of other
negative stereotypes that go with that,” says Lymas at the launch,
in the Rare salon on Church Street. “We can walk on the runway, we
can wear colours, we can do things independently of our husbands …
It breaks down so many misunderstandings, even regarding
nationalities of Muslim women; it’s a religion that’s
international.”
In fact, arguably, much of the fashion that has been shown so far
in New York for autumn/winter 2012 would be perfectly at home on a
Muslim model, with hats, high necks and long sleeves all crucial
trends. One guest at the event, Ismail Sayeed, a Harlem-born
blogger and artist otherwise known as The Calligrafist, argues:
“Those things are incorporated into western fashion. People who
are not Muslim can cover and still be fashionable. If you look at
the runway a lot of models are covered, and designers especially
play with veils.”
The owner of Rare, Fatima Sheikh, agrees. “When I met Nailah, I
didn’t even realise she was wearing hijab. It just looked so hot
that I was like, I love what you’ve got going on!”
Sheikh runs a monthly “hijab night”, during which she blocks off
the windows on the premises, allowing local Muslim women to enjoy
the benefits of a beauty salon in the privacy required by their
beliefs. A practising Muslim herself, she was attracted to Lymus’s
project from the start, and was happy to offer her salon for the
buzzy event.
“We met and everything she was talking about, the femininity and
mysteriousness, that there’s more to being feminine than being
naked all the time, I agreed with. Anything I can do to help out
each other [in Muslim fashion] I’m down to do.”
Judging by the eclectic crowd that gathered on Saturday night,
there are plenty of people with the same approach: some were there
out of curiosity, some were bloggers looking for the next big
story and many were Muslim fashionistas wanting to be part of a
bigger movement.
Mohammed Shariff, a New York-based fashion and entertainment
lawyer, was there to support his fellow New York Muslims, but he
also saw a business opportunity. This was, he thought, just the
tip of a future iceberg. “When I saw this I thought it was a
perfect fit for Muslims and non-Muslims who don’t want to be so
revealing. I know we’re going to start catering for this
international market in America, whether it’s at Neiman Marcus or
JC Penney,” he argues. “It’s happening.”
Shariff also points out the issue that has been troubling for so
many of those who would like to be Muslim models – and those who
would employ them. “I work with models and modelling agencies,” he
says. “I do see Muslims in modelling agencies who suffer from the
assignments; they feel that they compromise who they are for it.”
Sayeed has a similar experience. “I personally know many Muslims
who want to model but they don’t want to take anything off; they
want to stay within their faith. People have their different views
on it, but if you look around the world, Muslims dress
differently. Culture plays a big part in how Muslims dress.”
It’s nevertheless a thorny issue for Lymus, who inevitably finds
herself “representing” the Muslim world in fashion. How has she
dealt with the doctrinal and religious issues?
“I’ve spoken to two imams, and they seemed to be supportive of it
as long as I’m representing the religion properly, once I
explained the direction I’m going in, which is really to bring
awareness to a fashion forum. The models know that I’m devout in
my religion.” Still, if, as she suggests, the agency does start to
cater for an international market (“I would love for my girls to
walk Lincoln Centre during New York Fashion Week”), there are
going to be some serious backstage issues, in a world in which it
is completely normal for models to change in front of a whole room
of men and women.
“Our contracts are really detailed, to make sure everything is
understood,” she says. “I’m even in the process of designing a
portable fitting room for the individual model, because we can’t
have men dressing us, and I don’t want it to be a burden or
inconvenience to designers who might want to use our models.”
Whether the madness that occurs backstage at a mainstream fashion
show will support such measures remains to be seen.
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