Thread: Designers pander to extremist Muslim groups right here in US

http://www.slate.com/id/2128906/?GT1=7407

Here's the article for those too lazy to click the link.



Hijab Chic
How retailers are marketing to fashion-conscious Muslim women.
By Asra Q. Nomani
Posted Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005, at 4:38 PM ET



Undercover at Nordstrom

"Full coverage," not your typical fashion show prerequisite, was the theme at a "fashion seminar" recently hosted by Nordstrom at the tony Tysons Corner Center mall in McLean, Va. The show, called "Interpreting Hot Trends for Veiled and Conservative Women," was perhaps the first high-fashion hijab event sponsored by corporate America. The target: well-heeled Muslim women living in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, where mansions and mosques are filled with rich Muslim immigrants, an increasing number of whom shop at Tysons Corner.

The Nordstrom show is part of a growing trend: Western retailers and designers are beginning to market directly to Muslim women. In 2000, for instance, European designers Yves Saint-Laurent and Jean-Paul Gaultier showed at the International Festival of African Fashion in Niger while ultraconservative Muslims paraded through the streets in protest of the "satanic" presentation. A 2004 Hermes ad featured two women with the dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin of many Middle Easterners and wearing the company's iconic scarves wrapped around their heads in the Muslim style of hijab. (When asked, the Hermes advertising department would say only that its marketing pitch is "global.") And a little over a week ago, French designer Judith Duriez, co-owner of the Dubai-based company Arabesque, debuted her fall 2005 collection of "sheilas" (veils) and "abayas" (gowns) for the cloaked Muslim woman. These fashions, traditional long black gowns (the color is one rule Duriez refuses to break), are enhanced by non-traditional accents such as mother-of-pearl trimmings and chiffon ribbons.

Retailers have likely caught on to the fact that conservative Muslim women are as interested in fashion as any other women and that, as a population numbering at least 500 millionâ€â€

Thanks for posting it in full. This is just another example of them cramming this one global mentality crap down our throats. This is exactly the typ of nonsense I've been hearing about. They really are determined to make us all wear the hijab.

By the way, today at my new house I picked up a Cox cable brochure written ENTIRELY in Spanish. Believe me, they will hear from me.