Fashion Theory, Volume 11, Issue 2/3, pp. 319-346
Reprints available directly from the Publishers.
Photocopying permitted by licence oniy.
© 2007 Berg.
DOI 10.2752/136270407X202853
Annelies Moors
Fashionable
Muslims: Notions
of Self, Religion,
and Sooiety in
San'a
Annelies Mcxjrs holds the
ISIM chair at the University of
Amsterdam, and directs the
research program on Muslim
Cultural Politics. She is the author
of Women, Property and Islam:
Palestinian Experiences 1920-
1990 (Cambridge University
Press. 1995), and co-editor of
Religion, Media and the Public
Sphere (Indiana University Press,
2006). She v*?rites on Islam and
gender, styles and convictions
and public presence and visibility.
a.c.a.e.moors@uva.nl
Abstract
Most San'ani women appear in public completely covered in black,
often including a face-veil. At first sight, this locates San'a, the capital
of Yemen, outside the world of fashion. This article, however, argues
that fashion is part and parcel of women's outdoor dressing styles
in San~a. While some women link their dressing styles to authentic
San ani customs and traditions and others highlight ideological and
religious convictions, all refer in one way or another to matters of style
and aesthetics. Not only modernist women are engaged in wearing
fashionable outerwear, but also women protagonists of an Islamist