The ‘veil’ is a religious symbol and a controversial one, loaded with symbolic. A historical outlook across various cultures and religions tells us so. The practice of veiling has not always been exclusively Muslim. Obviously, the creative industry needs to catch up. While some recent advertisements are shifting how Muslim women are portrayed in their marketing campaigns (Nike, H&M, Rihana’s Fenty Beauty), most of the creativity displayed in ads remains descriptive, promoting a homogeneous collective self-image whenever addressing the Muslim woman. Much less attention has been given to the different ways in which new understandings of Islam are part of people’s lives, the ways that they practice their faith at the intersection of modernity and consumption. Muslim women, in all their diversity, tend to become reduced to a simple visual representation - with a twist here and there, reinforcing a binary opposition between the veiled and the unveiled, and reducing women to one aspect of their public appearance. Giving this PR hit the benefit of the doubt, it contributed to the surplus of attention to the veil which has produced over the years quite a large collective of visual and conceptual myopia. These images of eyes staring through the narrow slits of a black niqab, remind us of the ads that followed the lifting of the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia: visually striking and a tad “mono-tone”. Is it a headscarf (hijab), a face veil (niqab), a full-length gown (jilbab), a hijab covering the head and chest (khimar), an abaya? And if we decide to forego the semantics, a good number of ads show more of the same. And even the word ‘veil’ has become one of those blanket terms that does not stand for a clear-cut definition. Muslim women in ads, whenever represented, are mostly dominated by one single-minded image and concept: the veil. The advertising industry is yet another that has been moving at a snail’s pace. If 2017 was pivotal for modest fashion, the fashion industry itself was slow to see the potential of the rising global multibillion-dollar modest fashion industry and its audience. The same Vogue Arabia that previously published Gigi Hadid in a hijab and a face veil back in March 2017, and then corrected that faux-pas by featuring hijabi model Halima Aden on its June cover that same year. Send us feedback about these examples.Vogue Arabia has just published its April cover portraying hijabi models. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'faux pas.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Emily Tannenbaum, Glamour, 29 June 2023 See More Isiah Magsino, Town & Country, 30 June 2023 What once was considered fashion's biggest faux pas is officially influencer-approved, though it's always been a favorite of suburban dads. USA TODAY, 17 July 2023 Sign up for the Book World newsletter Q: What is Barbie’s biggest fashion faux pas? - Karin Tanabe, Washington Post, 16 July 2023 Cline's protagonist Alex, a 22-year-old woman who was recently expelled from her much older (and richer) lover's Long Island beach house after committing a faux pas at a social event, is a character of this particular ilk. 2023 Snapping selfies at a Miranda Lambert show is a picture-perfect faux pas. Rachel Donadio, New York Times, 12 June 2023 French manicures might seem like a ’90s or 2000s faux pas come back to haunt us, but the trend has actually grown up since its suburban nail salon days. Berlusconi and utterly vexed by him, a politician who seemed to be made of electoral Teflon despite a raft of international faux pas, failures to deliver on pie-in-the-sky promises and the tanking of the Italian economy. Kathleen Wong, USA TODAY, 28 June 2023 Opponents were both obsessed with Mr. Town & Country, 29 July 2023 Not using headphones Unfortunately, no one cares about your taste in movies – 70% of people said not wearing headphones when watching something is a faux pas. Recent Examples on the Web Historically, women wearing watches to formal events was considered a faux pas.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |