A Fusion of Muslim Faith And Contemporary Style
SAN FRANCISCO — When Max Hollein announced his idea two years ago for an exhibition of Muslim fashions at the de Young Museum here, where he was director, he received some “very intense reactions,” he recalled.
“I got a number of emails complaining, some in very harsh terms, that this is not the right time for America to celebrate Muslim culture,” Mr. Hollein said. “On the other hand, there were also people accusing us of celebrating the oppression of women.” The museum also heard from people of Islamic faith who found the notion of “fashion” antithetical to the religion’s modest dress codes. For them, the very idea of the show seemed sacrilege.
“We knew from the start we were entering new territory,” said Mr. Hollein, the director at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who took a break from his new job to attend the September opening of “Contemporary Muslim Fashions” at the de Young.
“The idea wasn’t to provoke,” said the Vienna- born museum leader. “We wanted to share what we’ve been seeing in Muslim fashion with the larger world in a way that could create a deeper understanding.”
Muslim consumers spent an estimated $243 billion on clothing in 2015, and are projected to spend $368 billion by 2021, according to a Thomson Reuters report.
“Contemporary Muslim Fashions,” which runs through January 6, explores the fusion of faith and fashion, modesty and modernity.
The 80 ensembles on display range from updated versions of the traditional cloak known as the abaya, to relaxed, hip-hop inspired sportswear, to the richly textured ensembles crafted with batik and ikat fabrics by the rising Indonesian designers Dian Pelangi and Khanaan Luqman Shamlan. The show also includes videos of newsworthy events, including the controversial French bans on the burkini, the fullbody swimsuit, in 2016, and the 2018 hijab-shedding in Iran.
Mr. Hollein brought the idea for the show to Jill D’Alessandro and Laura L. Camerlengo, the textile and costume curators at the de Young. They persuaded Reina Lewis, a professor of cultural studies at the London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts London and a leading expert on modest fashion — which she calls “a cross-faith movement” — to come aboard. “There hasn’t been any exhibition of this size or scale before,” Ms. Lewis said.
She said she was prepared to encounter a range of prejudices and stereotypes. “Some people say if you’re dressing modestly, it’s not modest enough,” Ms. Lewis said. “Other Muslim women might say, ‘Allah loves beauty, it’s part of my religious practice to dress smartly and aesthetically.’ ”
The curators also heard the feminist critique that Muslim coverings like hijabs are symbols of patriarchal oppression. Ms. Lewis’s perspective is that “some women try to create change from within, and that we all live complex and contradictory lives.”
Mr. Hollein commissioned the New York-based, Iranian-born architects Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri. They have created a sleek, quasi- futuristic setting that riffs on traditional Muslim screens and arches.
“We didn’t want the exhibition to be dark, veiled and impenetrable, like stereotypes of Muslim culture,” Gisue Hariri said. “We wanted it to reflect what the fashion was showing us: something light, powerful and beautiful.”