|
Associated Press| For years, the only thing
sold openly in Saudi stores selling women's cloaks were of
the all-black, drab covering variety. Now, streaks of
vibrant color, bands of glittering crystal — even sheaths of
sexy leopard skin prints — are showing up on the racks.
And that's not all. Women are snapping
them up and even sometimes wearing them in public.
For stores to openly stock the new
generation of cloaks, or abayas, and for some women to wear
them in public are not just fashion statements. They are
risky acts of defiance in a nation where the powerful
religious police have for years raided stores to confiscate
"illegal" abayas as part of their mandate as guardians of
the kingdom's rigid interpretation of Islamic teachings.
These days, the "legal" abayas that
conform to the strict standards of the religious police have
been relegated to the back of many stores in major Saudi
cities. In their place are the new ones.
While salesmen and designers say women are
snapping up the new abaya models and feel pressured to
produce more styles to meet demand, some Saudis are unhappy
that what is supposed to hide women's curves and detract
male attention is becoming a fashion statement sure to turn
a man's head.
"You look around you and you find abayas
that are embroidered, fitted or with wide sleeves. Most
abayas now need abayas to cover them," says a religious
pamphlet available at malls in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
"When some girls go out they (look) like
prostitutes who invite people to carry out lewd acts. How
else can you explain how some women adorn themselves with
their abayas ... ?" it says.
Girls in Saudi Arabia are required to wear
abayas when they hit puberty. And all women expatriates have
to wear them in public. The religious police say the abayas
should be loose, worn on the head and left to fall down to
the ground without outlining the body. They should not be
transparent or ornamented, they say.
Things were not always that strict.
Sarah Kennedy, an American who has lived
in Saudi Arabia for almost 30 years, said that in 1979 when
she first arrived in the kingdom foreign women were not
obliged to wear abayas. But as the kingdom became more
conservative in the 1980s, foreign women began wearing
abayas too, but ones that looked like capes and fell just to
mid thigh.
"But then, suddenly ... you couldn't find
the ones you normally wanted," said Kennedy. "So you bought
them anyway."
No one really knows why or how it became
OK to sell the new stylish abayas. Major stores in big
cities carry them openly and there have not been reports in
the local media of religious police confiscating them.
But like everything else in the kingdom,
the change was subtle and incremental.
Glitter started adorning wrists or was
sprinkled on the edges of the veil that must be worn on the
head. Then color began creeping on the black fabric and the
loose shapeless cloaks became more fitted. The cumbersome
panels that hooked to the shoulders to ensure that nothing
peeked from underneath the abaya as a woman walked slowly
disappeared.
Today, the new abayas are without the
panels and close straight down like a long coat.
The new styles cropped up first in the
more open western seaside city of Jiddah and in the Eastern
Province.
"We in Jiddah are fashion conscious," said
abaya designer Ghada al-Sairafi. "I try to come up with a
new model every week because of the demand."
Hanan al-Madani, another Jiddah designer,
said abayas are "no longer just abayas."
"Today, they reflect a woman's taste and
personality," said al-Madani, whose custom-made abayas sell
between $402 and $2,145.
Jiddah boasts the most daring abayas. In
one store, there were cloaks with red lace hanging down from
the black sleeves, some with crystal sprinkled around the
collar and waist and a few double-layered ones with bold
reds, greens and yellows underneath a sheer black chiffon
top.
The best-seller among these was one with a
leopard skin pattern underneath the top cover.
But not everyone in fashionable Jiddah
likes the new abayas. Tahani al-Jihani, 42, is one.
She bustled into one Jiddah store to
choose abayas for her daughter and her sister and later
announced: "I don't like the new styles but my sister and my
daughter love them.
"I feel they attract too much attention,"
said al-Jihani as she watched her daughter try on one with
balloon arms.
Despite Jiddah's relatively liberal
atmosphere, many Saudi women avoid wearing the daring abayas
in public places such as malls and restaurants.
Hala Ahmed, a 21-year-old interior design
student, said she wears the new styles to weddings and to
college, which are segregated.
"They're more like dresses, so I wear them
to places where no men will see me in them."
|
