My beard. My hair. My kurta. My cropped shalwar. My jewelry in Urdu script. My hijabs. My usage of black. Friends and acquaintances have brought them up as a point of concern. That people will think I am a Muslim. That it’ll bring about unnecessary attention when I travel, especially international travel. That they find it intimidating. That I won’t be welcomed in certain establishments in this country.
The everyday habit of wearing clothes has always been a political act. When the Egyptian feminist Huda Shaarawi, in 1923, was returning from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance Congress in Rome. When her train arrived in Cairo, she drew the veil back from her face as she stepped out. This unimaginable act elicited loud applause from the women waiting on the train platform to greet her.
We run labels and production houses where one hears – ‘No one cares about the story. People just want clothes.’ Or ‘…we have a business to run.’ But is it enough to create a seasonal body of work and put out press releases stating how you were inspired by a random flower to make this line of clothing?
How do we make meaningful clothing which best captures the zeitgeist? We’ve got to get ourselves and our design assistants out of our privileged, ideologically isolationist bubble, step out and see what is happening. Read up better. Engage with our communities, neighbourhoods and cities on a more visceral level. We cannot churn out 40 ensembles in a runway show and call it a sustainable line, without even addressing the manner in which fashion consumption is impacting the industry.
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