MSLM

If fashion is the face of a society, then ours had changed at the start of the new millennium. Was it a new subculture popping up?

What it was and is still today, is a group of people with a religious cultural background who are showing it off and looking very stylish in doing so.

In 2006 i was asked by Showroom MAMA in Rotterdam to lead a project about young muslim women living in the Netherlands.

Focussing on the randstad (Western Netherlands), our schools, our cities and streets were and are filled with brown eyes, brown hair, Middle-Eastern traditional clothes and scarfs. Noone had really adressed this fact outside of a political or social opinion, focussing on problems and differences instead of the beauty of the new style they brought.
I wanted to approach it with a more open view, NOT focussing on differences, and with a fashionable view on a group in our society called MOSLIMA’s. Mostly second generation, muslim, female, young, strong and fashionminded.

Being integrated in the Dutch society with their own trends, codes and fashion, these girls were and are part of a revolutionary fashion movement. The 21th century clash AND juxtaposition between ‘covering’ Eastern and ‘seducing’ Western fashion.

I addressed this with an exhibition in showroom MAMA and a publication, in the form of, ofcourse, a fashionmagazine.