This obsession with clothes is wearing a little thin

Rasha Elass

• Last Updated: October 20. 2009 11:21PM UAE / October 20. 2009 7:21PM GMT

When I worked in banking I used to stuff myself inside a pair of tights, put on a business suit and hop into my low-heel pumps to race to the train. Summertime on the New York subway in rush-hour was enough of a challenge, but in that outfit it was oppressive. 

So was wearing a full abaya to middle school in the Saudi Arabian sun, which I had to do from seventh grade. At first we 13-year-olds had a blast seeing each other in full-face covering, but the laughs faded after an eight-hour day and a hot, humid commute back home.

What women wear (or don’t) is an obsession as old as time. In the UK they’re been arguing over whether airlines can force flight attendants to wear high heels, and unions want them banned from every workplace. In France, it’s about banning the burqa. The arguments sound the same.

What is it about our clothes that attracts so much attention, when menswear doesn’t? No one ever seems to call the fashion police about a man’s wardrobe offence, no matter how much of an eyesore it is.

And western commentators seem obsessed with female Muslim garb, which is a non-issue for most Muslims. Predictably, Muslim commentators retort by criticising western clothes for “exploiting” women’s bodies. The French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s argument for banning the burqa was that it “repressed” women and “lowered their status”. His fleeting and naive feminism gave satirists some good material. “Absolutely,” said Kristen Schaal, an announcer on the US mock TV newscast The Daily Show. “The guy who divorced his second wife and immediately shacked up with a supermodel is right.”

Modesty, warmth and protection from the elements are not the only reasons people wear what they do. Fashion statements mutate and evolve to reflect the latest trends – like “the bump”, as Hollywood calls it. Britney Spears, Demi Moore and Angelina Jolie are among the celebrities who have been happy to expose their pregnant bellies on magazine covers.

Which brings us to the craze for fashionable maternity clothes. Most popular seem to be tops that narrow at the rib cage so as to highlight the bump, or T-shirts cut in a way that shows the bare and bulging belly. Style and political statements aside, it is indeed wonderful to find a pair of good jeans with an expanding waistband flexible enough to carry the mum-to-be through her third trimester and into the maternity ward.

Sometimes a discussion about women’s wear can turn awkward. A US army officer addressed new recruits at an orientation session I attended once. His audience were primarily Iraqi men and women of all ages, some of them families with two or three generations. They had signed up for a 30-day exercise in which soldiers would be trained in how to communicate and interact with Iraqi civilians. “Women must wear a bra at all times except during sleep,” the officer announced. Most women in the audience were veiled. “And no white T-shirts for women. If it rains or you get wet, we can see right through, and that would not be appropriate.”

I worked for a brief time as a tour guide at the UN headquarters in New York, and to complement my UN-issued uniform (and my long, thin, difficult feet) I picked what I thought was a stylish and comfortable pair of shoes – a pair of black horsehair flats. They cost around $200, but I was confident it was a smart investment.

That didn’t last long. “Wow! You have such big feet,” a male colleague said. My boss, after glancing at my shoes several times a day, finally asked: “Are you sure those aren’t slippers?”

The UN does not force female staff to wear heels. But it seemed my flat feet, which can look rather large in flats, combined with peer pressure, compelled me to endure the torture of a pair of pumps on at least some days of the week, just to be accommodating.

On another occasion, on assignment in full business attire inside a New York courthouse, I met a little girl. The imposing thud of my power pumps had attracted her attention when I walked through the hallway, and it seemed she too thought the shoes made the woman. When I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said: “I want to be like you, so I can wear shoes that make a noise when I walk.”

relass@thenational.ae