Bouvier, Gwen (2018) Clothing and meaning making: a multimodal approach to women’s abayas. Visual Communication, 17 (2). pp. 187-207. ISSN 1741-3214

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Abstract

This article takes a multimodal discourse approach to women’s fashion in the Middle East. It places the Islamic abaya in the UAE in the context of the wider literature on fashion and identity, exploring the way in which clothing features and forms can prescribe ideas, values and attitudes, and framing this discussion within newer ideas on globalization. As Roland Barthes argued, it is not so much personal choice or diversity in fashion that is of interest, but the kinds of values and expected behaviours that they imply. The abaya, on the one hand, represents a more newly arrived idea of traditional, local and religious identity, linking to some extent to an imagined sense of a monolithic notion of Islamic clothing. But, on the other hand, this is itself reformulated locally through international representations, ideas and values, and integrated with newer ideas of taste.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	abaya; clothing semiotics; discourse; fashion; globalization; identity; Islamic fashion; Middle East; multimodality; semiotics;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of English, Media & Theatre Studies > Media Studies
Item ID:	11865
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357217742340
Depositing User:	Gwen Bouvier
Date Deposited:	25 Nov 2019 10:13
Journal or Publication Title:	Visual Communication
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher

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