Abstract

The aim of this article is the examination of the historical development of "tesettür" as an Islamist anti-fashion ideology against the secular Kemalist fashion politics in Turkey and its relationship to other forms of fashion/dress within the context of a Turkish multi-fashion system. For this purpose, the paper will conduct a discourse analysis of monographs, journal articles and newspaper columns of female Islamic writers from different eras of political Islam, who have dominated the formulation of the tesettür ideology. The article states first that the emergence and change of the tesettür ideology and of its outlook mirrors the development of political Islam in Turkey, like the transition from islamism to post-islamism. Second, the article asserts that the emergence of tesettür as a practice and ideology is also a result of the genuine state centered and authoritarian nature of Turkish modernization. As a consequence the paper hopes to provide a valuable contribution about the role of dress as a site of political struggle in a specific historical political context.