Al Jazeera World’s an upcoming documentary, Cover Story, goes behind-the-scenes at Ala, a glossy women’s monthly magazine aimed at Muslim women who think that fashion and Islam are compatible.
According to the Press Statement released by Al-Jazeera Media Network and made available to Malawi Muslims Official Website, the documentary will screen on Al Jazeera World on 9 May 2015 at 2000 GMT.
Run from Istanbul, the magazine has 30 000 readers, serving a market that has grown rapidly in recent years for women who wear the hijab (headscarf) but want to dress fashionably, with colour and style.
“It reflects the way a new, female middle class has emerged in Turkey, less worried about being socially accepted and more comfortable sharing public spaces with secularists,” reads part of the statement.
According to Aljazeera, Ala sets trends for the roughly 500 ‘conservative fashion’ companies, a multi-billion-dollar industry where modest dress no longer means just ‘pardessus’ tunics but includes colours, glossy magazines and high street ‘hijabi fashion’ stores.
“But Ala has its female critics who feel it’s promoting consumerism and, by revealing ‘feminine curves,’ is immodest and ‘portrays women as sexual objects’,” concludes the statement.
