Modest Fashion

I recently met up with Professor Reina Lewis, Artscom Centenary Professor of Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion, who is running a very interesting project looking at Modest Fashion.
Faith-based Fashion and Internet Retail studies the growing market for modest clothing among women of the three Abrahamic faiths: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. With increasing numbers of women who are religiously motivated to dress modestly, online retailing is making it easier for women who dress this way to combine fashion with faith.

For women seeking fashionable ways to dress modestly, like the growing numbers of Muslim women who obtain modest clothing over the web, the internet has been indispensible. Other faith groups that have dress requirements show similar developments in the commercial production and distribution of clothing: observant and orthodox Jews, and some Christian groups like the Church of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

Internet marketing has been invaluable for consumers who want specialist items and has reduced overheads for specialist producers and retailers. This has been especially important in clothes marketing, where consumers seeking non-standard items can now shop online to replace or augment the high street. In most cases, internet marketing allows brands to reach beyond their immediate location, serving consumers internationally. Women are now far more likely to be able to dress in line with their sense of piety but still in fashion.

The project has three main aims:

1. To discover if the expansion and diversification through e-commerce of clothes for modest dressing is creating a new retail and style category of 'modest fashion' that has the potential to transcend specific religions and reach out to consumers across faith groups.

2. To explore the extent to which 'modest fashion' is beginning to be recognisable as a form of dressing adopted by women from different faith communities.

3. To evaluate the social and personal impact of modest fashion for the future development of interfaith dialogue and religious/secular community relations.

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Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat.