Fourteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper focuses on Muslim women social media influencers negotiating through the heady narratives inside and outside the Muslim community on what “good” Muslim women should wear. Looking at the current trend of Muslim women creating modesty/Islamic fashion content on social media platforms, I analyze images of modest fashion expressed on digital platforms, where Muslim women content creators are actively using aesthetic driven communities to produce self-expressed visual content. I explore the questions: Is this move an appropriation of western rhetoric seeking to create a market and image that is palatable to the western eye without significant internal challenge from the Muslim community? Or is it simply for them, a material act of publicly promoting piety through “fashionable” dress?