Professional Documents
Culture Documents
mandatory course Malaysian Muslims take to learn how to insure a good marriage.
When FashionValet opened its new headquarters in the greater Kuala Lumpur area,
Yusof published a picture of the facilitys prayer room for her Instagram followers, who
now number in the hundreds of thousands. A few posts later, she announced that a
new line of handbags, which a regional designer had based on her style and named
after her and her sister, had sold out forty-five minutes after their release. I really
dont know what to say except THANK YOU ALHAMDULILLAH, she wrote.
It was the donning of the hijab, though, that caused Yusof s following to escalate most
steeply. It also presented her with a clear business opportunity. Seven months after she
posted the snapshot of herself in a head scarf, she launched a line of luxury hijabs,
called dUCk, which the company describes as the new cool for scarves. . . for stylish
ladies who appreciate a dash of luxury in their lives.
The dUCk brand strives to replicate the experience of buying the iconic, prohibitively
expensive scarves sold by Herms. Indeed, the dUCk box and the Herms scarf box
are strikingly similar. Both are flat, square, and sturdy, set apart by their color and trim:
bold orange with a thin black border for Herms; bold purple with a thin white border
for dUCk. Upon opening a dUCk box, the customer finds a head scarf with a
delicately stitched scalloped hem, available in colors with names like Banana Pudding,
Diamond Rose, and Mint Frosting. The scarves can be long or short, and they barely
crease, even after being scrunched up. Each has a subtle gold duck charm affixed to
one corner, and costs a hundred and twenty ringgit (nearly thirty dollars).
The countrys hijab industry already hosts a slew of competing brands. In Kuala
Lumpur, a single street like Jalan Masjid India provides consumers with a dizzying
array of hijab designs and brands to choose from. But there, the trade takes place in
small, often hot and humid prewar shops, with low prices the primary draw. Hijabs on
Jalan Masjid India can cost as little as four ringgit, or about one dollar, but they more
often range from twenty or twenty-five ringgit, for a scarf that stops around the chest
area, to forty-five ringgit, for one that goes to the hips. Style and being on trend do
matterone vender told me that dua muka (two-faced) scarves, showcasing different
colors on an inner and outer layer, had been particularly popular recently. But for most
customers comfort and religious suitability are key. They look at . . . whether the scarf
makes it easy to go for prayers, Hajj, a vender named Ayuniza binti Safrozal told me.
Other Malaysian designers have gone after the convenience end of the market. The
actress and television host Noor Neelofa Mohd Noor, who is better known simply as
Neelofa, produces the Naelofar Hijab line of instant shawlsexpress versions of
conventional head scarves that consumers can slip over their heads without the fuss of
pins or draping.
Yusof was determined that dUCk be different from the outset. She told me that, when
the label was still in its infancy, her husband (and FashionValets C.E.O.), Fadzarudin
Anuar, suggested that she avoid competing with the existing markets and instead
make hers an aspirational brand. The high price and the packaging were part of this
strategy. Yusof s blog and social-media postsin English, which is spoken by a higher
percentage of affluent Malaysians than of the public at largeimplicitly added to the
part of Malaysias dual legal systemwhich includes Islamic law, for Muslims,
alongside secular laws that apply to all citizenscertain areas of Malaysia are stricter
about matters of dress than others. Local authorities in some states, like Kelantan and
Terengganu, can fine Muslim women who wear tight clothing or who dont wear the
hijab, but in urban areas, like greater Kuala Lumpur, the pressures are lighter, and
officials tend to favor promoting Islamic dress over punishing the failure to adhere to
it. Members of the Malaysian government, notably Zaidel Baharuddin, a special
officer to the countrys minister of domestic trade, coperatives, and consumerism,
have described the kind of self-expression and promotion that women like Yusof are
doing as empowering. He told me that he views self-expression by Muslim women on
social media to be equally relevant to feminism. And whether hijabs are simply in
vogue or a sign of devotion to Allah, he said, the surge in popularity for Muslim
fashion is a good thing. You can follow the religious obligation and look good with
it. Media outlets owned by the Malaysian government and the ruling Barisan
Nasional coalition have featured Yusof and her business ventures, with accompanying
photographs of her in close-fitting trousers and bright colors.
Though Malaysian films such as Norhayati Kaprawis documentary Siapa Aku?
(Who Am I?) do question the reasons the countrys Muslim women choose to don
the head scarf, domestic media rarely presents public critiques of the hijab, or of the
governments role in promoting it. But independent glossy fashion magazines are
sometimes wary of the hijabs potential to alienate the countrys secular, cosmopolitan
women. After Yusof began wearing the head scarf, she told me, some magazines that
had previously demonstrated great interest in her stopped calling. One, she said,
cancelled plans for a feature about her after learning of her decision, even though an
interview and photo shoot had already been scheduled. They dont want . . .
akampung[village] girl, she said.
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