Thursday, July 22, 2010
faith and fashion Islam style
An interesting if fraught day yesterday spent with twenty Muslim schoolgirls who were attending a session at the London College of Fashion all about trying to explore questions of fashion and modesty. It was fraught because I had to write the article very quickly so that it could be in today's paper. You can read it here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/21/muslim-schoolgirls-islamic-fashion-course. but it was also stressful because speaking to the girls was rather hard work; they were very cautious about talking, I guess because of all the negative media coverage about burquas and hijabs and so on. so getting them to open up and talk about fashion and their own thoughts on the burqa was not easy. i probably didnt help the cause by being a bit mischievious in my questioning- sometimes that works and the interviewee opens up and relaxes but in yesterdays case it was about as welcome as a ham sandwich in a mosque.