Modest Fashion in UK Women's Working Life

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This project looks at how religiously-related modest fashion and associated behaviours impact on UK women's working lives - regardless of their own religious background or beliefs. When well-dressed UK executives borrow badly-fitting abayas for meetings in Riyadh, when schools inspectors are issued with guidance on voluntary dress codes for faith schools and when fashion forecasters mine religious media for style inspiration, we offer a new intellectual framework for understanding flashpoints about religious dress for UK interests at home and abroad. Examining the impact on UK women in Saudi Arabia and the UK, we reverse received wisdom by demonstrating that modest dressing is not only a consideration for religious women and communities. Knowing how to navigate modest codes of dress and behaviour can be an asset for: Women in the job market UK economic and political interests abroad UK policy makers and dialogue groups concerned with social cohesion and interfaith relations Research and commentary mostly view modest dress through the lens of individual choice and spiritual/political commitment. Similarly, the cross-faith modest fashion 'movement' defends women's individual right to choose whether, if and how to cover, challenging the imposition of covered dress in Iran, Saudi Arabia, or ISIS-controlled territories and its enforced removal in Quebec or France. Beyond personal motivation, we explore UK women's response to workplace requirements to change their wardrobe and behaviour - including women with their own form of modest fashion. With Muslim and minority ethnic women facing employment challenges in recruitment, retention and progression, we investigate if religiously-related codes of modest dress can be a workplace opportunity as well as inhibitor. To establish for UK business how knowledge about modest fashion can be a local and international advantage, we include women who work for UK faith-based employers and for ostensibly secular employers but in territories governed by religious codes of dress and gender segregation. At 'home' we focus on women whose work brings them into the orbit of modest dress requirements at faith-based schools, businesses and charities, whether directly employed, sub-contracted, or temporarily present (e.g. visiting artists). Abroad we focus on UK companies doing business in Saudi Arabia (UK's biggest trading partner in the Middle East), talking to women in global consultancy/finance, arts leadership and international education. We investigate Human Resources professionals advising on dress and behaviour at work under UK equalities legislation, and the UK and Gulf modest fashion industry infrastructure supplying garments and style advice for modest workwear. For the fashion industry, we identify and analyse a new modest fashion consumer segment - women not driven by personal religious conviction. London, a world fashion city, is central for the globalised modest fashion niche market; we work with key brokers London Modest Fashion Week and Dubai's Islamic Fashion & Design Council. For policy makers and interfaith organisations, we identify new dialogue partners by expanding concepts of women's everyday religion to include the intra- and interfaith negotiation that goes on in modest fashion commerce and commentary. We will share and test responses to our early research findings with our stakeholder organisations in the UK and the Gulf, including a presentation at the All Party Parliamentary Group for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion. Conclusions will be disseminated via: 2 stakeholder reports (1 for UK policy makers, business and HR professionals, 1 for the fashion industry) available free online and launched in print to stakeholders and parliamentarians at a House of Lords networking event; 5 academic conference papers; and 2 journal articles. Public facing events include 2 Faith & Fashion roundtable discussions, at LCF and Saudi Arabia.