From New York Times
by Tim Arango
ISTANBUL — The models, tall and lithe and strutting down the runway to the beat of Moroccan-themed house music, are from Russia and Eastern Europe. They could be displaying the latest designer styles in Paris or New York, but instead they are here, in Istanbul, wearing high heels, flowing tunics and colorful head scarves.
The fashion show, part of Istanbul Modest Fashion Week, was held at an Ottoman-era railway station, with old-fashioned train cars and vintage luggage as props.
This is not the Islamic fashion of Riyadh or Kabul, nor is it the dark and dreary dress stereotyped in the West. Islamic fashion here is a colorful, creative and joyful enterprise. It is also a huge business.
“We’re taking over,” said Dina Torkia, a Muslim fashion blogger from London, who wears a head scarf and was mobbed by fans hoping for a photo. “There are a lot of us Muslim girls who wear the hijab, and we like fashion.”
As Europe grapples with the burkini — a full-body swimsuit that some French beach towns have tried to ban as a symbol of the oppression of women — Islamic dress in Turkey has become a symbol of religious freedom from the strictures of secularism.
Istanbul has sought to become an Islamic fashion capital, an ambition that reflects the degree to which Turkish society has been reshaped under the Islamist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Under Turkey’s old hard-line secular system, the head scarf, or hijab, was seen as a symbol of backwardness and banned in government offices and schools. In recent weeks, as France debated the burkini, Turkey again chipped away at old taboos, allowing female police officers, for the first time, to wear head scarves on the job.
No longer an object of derision in Turkey — and with the backing of the Islamist government — the head scarf has spurred an Islamic fashion revolution, complete with fashion houses, magazines, bloggers and Instagram stars. Powerful women in the region, like Mr. Erdogan’s wife, Emine, and Sheikha Mozah, a wife of a former emir of Qatar, have become fashion icons for young conservative women.
“Everyone was like, ‘Muslim market?’” said Kerim Ture, a former technology industry executive who now runs the Islamic fashion houseModanisa, based in Istanbul.“Black burqas. That was the stereotype.”
