How I Wear my Headscarf: Narratives about Dress and Styling from Young Muslim Women in Copenhagen

As the number of autonomous fashion weeks for modest fashion is on the rise, a new pathway is forming for Muslim women to form their own dress identity. In more Western countries, Denmark as well, this takes place in a political landscape where particularly the clothing object of the veil has been heavily politicized and debated (kilde x). However, the emergence of modest fashion bloggers on social media can be viewed as empowering young Muslim women through displays of styling, trends and peer-to-peer advice on appropriate dressing. Modest fashion increasingly influences young women of other non-Muslim cultural backgrounds, too, and this suggests multiple meanings and values embedded in the veil/head scarf.

In this chapter, we wish to investigate and understand how this is played out for young women in a Danish context. Fashion is the 4th biggest export sector in Denmark, and since 2008 the city of Copenhagen has hosted its own bi-annual fashion week. Danish fashion is widely known for its connection with the functional aesthetics of Scandinavian Modern furniture of the 1950’s, and an informal, bohemian style. It is also known for specializing in the mid-price segment due to the small size of country and population and the lack of economic elite to support high-level couture (Riegels-Melchior 2013). We are interested in discovering ways in which young, Muslim women connect with this tradition, and how they use styling to navigate between ‘Danish’ and Muslim style of dress.

Our aim is to investigate and understand gendered clothing of young female Muslims, its meaning and practices presently and in a short 5-year historical perspective. We focus on how clothing and styling are interwoven with practices of faith and situated in a commercial context. Moreover, in the life stages of 18-25, processes of feminization and experiencing with womanhood as well as professional expressions come into play for this target group.

As such, our paper will address how the concept of ‘modest fashion’ seems increasingly to influence the Western fashion system, as it has emerged as a hybrid style in the entanglement of Western and Muslim dress. As is also seen in studies of e.g. Tarlo (årstal), Lewis (årstal) and Moors (årstal), we wish to place the political and religious in the periphery of this discussion, and explore the fashionable aspects, the commercialization, qualities and styles, and the tactile, bodily and aesthetic aspects of veils. Similarly, we will showcase how the use of head-covering might be seen as a highly creative process of styling, and of adaptation between Western and Muslim dress practices. Furthermore, we showcase how dress practices of Muslim women are changing accordingly and offer potential for display of individual empowerment. 

The chapter builds further on the 3-year research project THREAD (Textile Hub for Refugee Empowerment, Education and Entrepreneurship Advancement in Denmark), that investigated opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment of immigrant women in Denmark through textile skills (Nosch et al. 2020). The project involved xx antal textile workshops with various partners and immigrant women in the areas of Kolding and Copenhagen, Denmark, collaborations with Danish fashion brands and retailers, local integration authorities, and migrant and refugee community organisations (MRCO). As part of the initial phase of the project, a small-scale series of wardrobe studies were conducted in the homes of women refugees living in the city of Kolding. The study uncovered situated strategies of individuals for how to use styling of clothing as a way of connecting past, present and future identity. Particularly, how the women navigated the dilemmas of dressing appropriately and fashionably for family and friends, as well as for the Danes (Skjold 2020). The chapter also builds knowledge from the ongoing EU-funded project The Fabric of My Life, which collects podcast-interviews from immigrant women about specific clothing objects in Greece, Denmark and Germany (Nosch & Skjold 2021).