The study group that had been holding regular “second-hand meetings” has reorganized itself into the “Linking Cloth-Clothing Globally (LCCG) Study Group. The group, under its new name, held its first joint study meeting on October 25. The event was marked by the presence of a large number of women, who accounted for more than 80 percent of the participants. In such an atmosphere, which is uncommon in ordinary study meetings, there were three presentations.

Goto Emi (Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (IASA), The University of Tokyo) started the meeting with her presentation entitled “How was Fashion Created?: A Case Study on the Islamic Movement in Egypt in the 20th century.” Basing her talk on her recently published book, Kami no tameni matou veru (Veil for the Sake of God; Chuo Koronsha, 2014), Goto reviewed the process by which veils came into increasingly wide use (or became in vogue as a fashion) in the period from the 1970s to the 2000s. She concluded that this phenomenon took place against the backdrop of the “permeation of a religious discourse that linked the veil with women's religious faith.”

Changes in clothing in modern and contemporary Egypt began during the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, and, in the 20th century, girls attending mission schools and groups of women who were active in the feminist movement took the lead in ceasing to wear veils. From the 1950s, there was a gradual and noticeable increase in the number of women who dared to expose their hair, faces, arms and legs. However, this trend changed in the wake of the defeat in the Third Arab-Israeli War, as people were called upon to reflect on their lack of religious faith. As Muhammad Anwar El Sadat took the helm of the country in place of Gamal Nasser, Islamic organizations were established in various parts of the country, and a noticeable move among both men and women away from Westernized fashions began to occur. During the 1990s, stores specializing in veils started to appear, and veil-wearers gradually increased. With the onset of the 2000s, veils clearly came into wide use.

As an important factor underlying this change, Goto focused on the religious discourse of Amr Khalid, a popular Muslim preacher. Unlike the existing and influential religious discourse with its assertion that women should “wear a veil in order to put a curb on masculine desire, and thereby keep society on an even keel,” Khalid urged women to wear veils on their own initiative in order to express their religious faith. Goto also pointed out that Khalid’s sermons, which emphasized the need to relax existing conditions concerning veil-wearing, have had the effect of expanding the possibilities for a fashion-oriented use of veils.

Nonaka Yo (Keio University) commented on Goto’s presentation. Nonaka pointed to the novelty of Goto’s methodology, which focused attention on the consciousness and mental processes of individuals, and made use of a wide range of sources, including the holy books of Islam, a popular preacher’s discourses, and brochures reporting on talks given by entertainers. By way of comparison, Nonaka made mention of the situation in Indonesia, where, in the wake of the collapse of the Suharto regime, not only did processes of democratization and economic growth unfold but also things Islamic became highly visible and prominent. Nonaka pointed out, for example, that veil-wearers are playing a leadership role in urging the veil industry to press for the diversification and commodification of veils, and that the industry is receiving government support as an essential industry. It was also pointed out, as an indication of the diverse nature of religious authority in Indonesia, that considerable latitude is allowed on how to interpret the conditions concerning veil-wearing.

Next, Tsunoda Nao (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)) gave her presentation as the second commentator. She raised a question: While the veil-wearing by Egyptian women is a fashion, is it really possible to apply the Euro-centric fashion structure to the Islamic world? The expanding use of veils among Egyptian and Indonesian women may be characterized as a bottom-up type of street fashion, but the same phenomenon can be characterized as a top-down fashion, if importance is attached to the role played by religious leaders. Existing studies on the history of clothing and fashion have failed to pay attention to issues of religious faith. The use of veils as a “fashion” raised important questions about such a state of affairs.

During the discussion that followed these presentations, one member of the audience observed that “traditionally, Islam used to be a male-centered religion, and Muslim women’s clothing did not constitute a matter of grave concern, but it is in the process of its becoming conscious of Western modernization that the Islamic world has begun to take note of women’s veil-wearing as an issue.” Another participant asserted that “there are two factors prompting a person to wear clothes, namely, society and oneself.” Both Goto and Nonaka responded to this latter view by pointing out that in order to understand the wearing of veils, it is imperative to look not only at the relationship between “an individual and society (or social authority)” but also at “the dialogue between an individual and God.” In this connection, the following remark was made from the floor. “Veil-wearing is a modern phenomenon connected to a religious norm, and as such should be regarded as a code of conduct, rather than a fashion. There is a possibility that the norm is internalized by individuals. It is an illusion harbored by Europeans in the 19^th century that the individual can decide on everything. The question of veil-wearing is a phenomenon expressing the oscillation of individuals’ values between the norm and the individual. There is a norm on the one hand, whether religious (or God-given), social, or ethical, and there is, on the other hand, a desire or an ideal about a lifestyle that stems from the environment, and this gives shape to a fashion. By experiencing a collision between the norm and one's own ideal the individual devises a new way of wearing a veil.”

Sugiura Miki (Hosei University), who hosted the event, defined “fashion as something that a modern individual can choose,” and emphasized that the advent of Khalid has made society more diverse than previously by transforming the practice of imposing a male-centered authority as a norm onto the question of how individuals should make choices on their own initiative through their interaction with God. As for the future, Nonaka was of the opinion that even if the form of a veil might change, its function of covering certain parts of the body would likely remain unchanged, while Goto stated that, given the probability that religious discourses would continue to change in the future, it is conceivable that veils might fall into disuse.