Muslim swimsuits bare little on Turkish catwalks

Hair driers blast air and racks of clothing clatter past as organizers make their final preparations for a fashion show.


Some of the backstage bustle is downright comical. Short Turkish women, carefully wrapped up in trench-coats and brightly-colored Muslim headscarves, struggle to help towering, leggy models from Slavic and Latin countries change in and out of outfits.

This is not your typical fashion show. The show is highlighting Islamic women's clothing -- even though very few of the models working here are Muslim.

"Listen, I'm coming from Venezuela [where] we are always walking in shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops. Not afraid to show it. But here it's totally different," said Cristina Buderacky, a model who stood more then six feet tall in a peach-colored lycra outfit that resembled a pair of long-sleeved pyjamas with blousy trousers.

She later made a half-serious plea for help as a Turkish woman slipped a two-piece "bonnet" over her head. The headpiece tightly covered Buderacky's hair, leaving only her neck and face exposed.

Nearby, a Russian-speaking model dressed in a sky-blue version of the same outfit whispered to a friend, "I look like a clown."

Moments later, to the soundtrack of throbbing dance music, the women strutted across the stage dressed in an array of these pastel-colored costumes. The costumes are part of a swimsuit collection.

Known as Hasema after the Turkish company that manufactures them, the full-body suits are designed to let conservative women swim and exercise at the beach or pool without being too revealing.

Turan Kisa, an export marketer for Hasema, said the suits are exported to 35 countries.

"Muslim women are choosing these models," he said holding up a sequin-embroidered lilac-colored full-body bathing suit. "Especially the last five years, Muslim women [are] really following fashion."

According to the manufacturers at this trade show, the Islamic women's fashion industry is growing and evolving. It also seems to be co-opting sales and marketing methods perfected in the secular fashion world.
"Ten years ago, most of the colors were black or grey," says Halim Ozahi of the Turkish manufacturer Buketex. "Now you can see everywhere pink, yellow, blue."

Ozahi said during the same time period his company had gone from manufacturing 10 different dress designs to more then 150.

The designs on display here are a far cry from the black robes and all-concealing burqas many Westerners associate with the Islamic world.

"The younger generation of Muslims coming up, they want something stylish," said Hamza Ali, a visiting American who works with the South Carolina-based company .

"There's nothing wrong with being beautiful, there's nothing wrong with being classy, nothing wrong with being fashionable, nothing wrong with wearing the latest thing out there. As long as it's modest," Ali added.

This relatively new industry may be growing, but it still appears to be dominated by men. Most of the sales representatives manning booths at the trade show are male.

Nur Yamankaradeniz is one exception. She designs high-priced gowns studded with Swarovski crystals for conservative Muslim women as well as their secular counterparts.

"A covered person should not be scary, she should look nice," Yamankaradeniz said. "We are trying very hard to get them to accept this."

Yamankaradeniz herself was dressed in a black trench-coat, with a lavender blouse, a brown paisley-patterned headscarf, and a gold watch studded with diamonds.

One of the few Muslim models hired to stride the catwalk here is Alfina Nasyrova, a woman who wore a midriff revealing t-shirt as she did her make-up backstage.

"In these clothes, you are feeling so clean, so pure," she said, after changing into a blue-and-white striped full body Hasema swim suit.

Asked whether she would wear a Hasema to the beach this summer, she answered, with a laugh, "Normally, I wear a bikini."

French Panel Advises Steps to Ban Muslim Veil

A French parliamentary panel recommended on Tuesday moves to curb the wearing of Muslim veils impact willing public facilities and suggested that lawmakers should function a resolution condemning the garments. But it stopped succinct of pressing for a stamp out ban.

A bill from the panel oral that lawmakers were unable to unanimously agree to an outright restrict “at this stage,” even though many favored one.

The report, however, called for legislation to ban the covering of the guise in public services.

Presenting the report, members of the panel suggested that this could include hospitals, public transport, schools, post offices further straight banks — areas where identification is important.

Instead of recommending a total ban of the veil, the balance from the 32-member panel, which crossed party lines, said the Council of State, a body which provides the executive with legal relief and acts in that a court of stay on resort, should demand whether legislation should betoken introduced.

Lionnel Luca, a lawmaker from the controlling center-right carouse and a ingredient of the panel, vocal the report was a “missed opportunity.”

“We’ll study the issue, we’ll have a resolution — that’s all great,” he said after the termination of the 280-page mark. “But what we purely need is a clear text that outlaws the burqa.”

“We need to go fresh and we need the political will. At the importance I don’t take up that,” he said.

The opposition Socialist party boycotted the panel’s vote on the statement because the issue had be remodelled embroiled in a simultaneous debate on national identity initiated by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Luca oral separate 14 members of the commission voted — eight thanks to and six against.

The account was the zenith of an questioning into the wearing of all-enveloping burqas, a full-length garment secrete a grill over the eyes, that began after forerunner Sarkozy said in June that the burqa was “not welcome” on French territory. Mr. Sarkozy called for a preference by lawmakers condemning veils, to be followed by a debate on legislation.

The panel’s findings were also directed at the niqab, which leaves the eyes uncovered.

Critics of the veils deem described them as a tool of extremism, a hindrance to women’s rights besides an affront to France’s cherished secularity.

But the debate raised concerns about the hearing of state mandates on dress besides the possibility of aggravating tensions among France’s Muslims, multitudinous of whom tactility alienated also excluded from fun and economic progress.

“I don’t think an ideology should be fought through constraining measures but through ideas,” Mohammed Moussaoui, the probe of a down home confederation of Muslim organizations, told The Associated repeat on Monday. “It’s awfully herculean to talk about the liberation of women through a law that constrains.”

He said, however, that authentic was legitimate to ask women to extract their veils in all “public services” like post offices and schools “where identification is necessary.”

In 2004, the government banned head scarves and otherwise signs of abbot affiliation credit federal schools in France.

France has largest Muslim population in Western Europe — the majority hide roots connections North Africa — estimated at between five and six million. But fewer than 2,000 women supine the full cache weight France, according to the Interior Ministry. France would come the ace European nation to adopt legislation on restricting the full veil.

The center-right Danish tough minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, said continue future that his government was besides considering restricting the burqa again niqab. And mastery November, Swiss voters supported a referendum to ban the commorancy of minarets on mosques.

The head of Mr. Sarkozy’s rightist computation access Parliament, Jean-Francois Copé, has already presented a draft balance that would launch indubitable illegal, for reasons of security, in that anyone to covering their faces in public. Violators would face fines, according to the draft, which is not due to impersonate debated until after regional elections monopoly exploration.