‘Let’s play a game. Yohji or Burkini?’ a friend and fellow fashion writer in Paris lazily suggested. We were sitting by Paris Plage, on deckchairs on the edge of the river Seine. Tourists, families, screaming infants and the usual Paris bobos, clad, this year, in impeccably chic austerity, with hardly a square centimetre of skin revealed, all mingle. Our conclusion was that it’s hard to tell the difference between conceptual designer Yohji Yamamoto’s latest outfits and the modest styles worn for religious reasons.
The burkini, designed in 2003 in Australia but barely known in France until recently, could also easily be worn by both fashion divas or the devout. Yet it has now become a subject of heated controversy. A battle of outraged commentators, each more expert than the next, has threatened the fall of the République all because of an article of swimwear worn by a handful of adventurous swimmers, who don’t want to reveal their entire body. It has culminated in a woman being forced to remove her burkini by armed guards on a beach in Nice. Hardly a symbol of French liberalism.
The debate around religious wear isn’t totally new: since the 1990s, the hijab has been a source of dispute in France. The founding principle of secularism has been difficult to align with France’s Muslim communities (five million strong, the largest in Europe). Whereas Germany and other countries in the EU preach tolerance for all faiths both in public and in private, France restricts religion to the private sphere. It means that public schools and other institutions, including shops, services, police stations – and apparently, beaches too— must forbid any kind of religious display or style, such as a turban, a headscarf or a crucifix.
The burkini is the latest garment to have failed the laïcité test. Cannes, Villeneuve-Loubet and Sisco on the island of Corsica, as well as several towns on the Côte d’Azur have all banned it. Other spots on the Atlantic coast have followed – even though no burkini has been spotted there so far. A special force has been assigned to stop and fine offenders, but fewer than a dozen have been caught across France. Why all the fuss? For some mayors, they see a link between radicalism, terrorism, the veil and now the burkini. The authorities in the region are still reeling from the shock of the massacre in Nice on 14 July, when a truck mowed down a crowd watching the fireworks of Bastille day, leaving 85 dead. A burkini ban is now in place in Nice. Judge Dominique Lemaître has said it is ‘in accordance with the first articles of the constitution,’ and that ‘the state of emergency and the recent Islamist attacks in Nice would indicate that wearing distinctive clothing on the beach other than the usual swimming costume is, in such a context, far more than a sign of religious observance.’
The burkini has morphed into a political symbol of radicalism and allegiance to Isis – even though none of the perpetrators of this year’s attacks in Paris or Nice were female or wearing a burkini. Those on the left, such as the socialist prime minister Manuel Valls, are now trying to support the ban by arguing that the burkini is a ‘political project founded on the enslavement of women’. Women’s rights minister Laurence Rossignol has also claimed that its purpose is to ‘hide women’s bodies in order to better control them’.
In the country where ‘le topless’ or ‘le monokini’ – i.e. bare breasts – have been common on beaches for generations (and casually displayed in family albums), and men wear diminutive Speedos, showing too little skin is what really shocks the French. Going topless, on the contrary, is meant to be a sign of liberation and of national identity. Remember Delacroix ‘s representation of ‘Liberty leading the people’, breast bared, at once militant and maternal?
Ironically, this summer has also seen the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the bikini, which was launched in France in 1946 by engineer Louis Réard. Photos and examples of vintage bathing suits have been on display all summer at the Galerie Joseph-Froissart in the Marais district in Paris. Promotional posters of Ava Gardner in a two-piece swimming costume are plastered all over town. The summer show celebrates the quasi-naked female body in the public space as key to French culture and freedom. The right to bare almost all underpins the French concept of liberty. But the underlying tensions are far more complex than they seem.
‘This national celebration of the bikini is instrumental in reiterating an old, almost cliché notion of national Frenchness, as an act of protest against the radicalisation of Muslim youth,’ says Betül Yarar, a visiting professor of sociology from Gazi University currently at Paris 8, who specialises in body politics and popular culture. ‘Whether a bikini or a burka, women’s bodies are always symbols of political projects, aiming to represent modernity or tradition,’ she says.
Are the burkini and the bikini really the polar opposite of each other? Olivier Roy, a sociologist and specialist of the Muslim world, suggests that the burkini, which is barely thirteen years old, is in fact a sign of hyper-modernity and resistance. ‘The Islamic State would never agree to the burkini! It is a symbol of consumerism, of the West; it is an attempt by second generation North African minorities to bridge tradition and modernity via fashion,’ he said in a recent interview.
A comparable debate to the burkini vs bikini one began last April, when news arrived about ‘modest’ designs hitting the Western high street. According to Rossignol, it was bound to turn French Muslims into raging fundamentalists. Since then, it has become normal to conflate religion with terrorism and confuse fashion with fundamentalism. What of liberté, égalité, fraternité if it discriminates between those women who cover up and those who display flesh?
This leaves my bikini in a twist. Shouldn’t sexual freedom also mean the freedom to conceal? Fashion certainly seems to gave gone that way these days: the popularity of Yohji Yamamoto, Rick Owens, and Lemaire’s chaste designs mark a return of clothing that covers more than imperfections. ‘In a hyper-sexualised environment with omnipresent pornography and sexual harassment, women are increasingly turning to clothing that will keep them safe when they come home late at night. Clothes reflect the daily reality of women’ says Laurence Vely, editor-in-chief of Marie-France magazine. French women famously wear black. But many Western women – like Muslim women – are increasingly embracing a more unisex, androgynous sense of style which has a similar effect to the burkini: it covers up the body and moves it away from an objectifying gaze. And whatever happened to women being free to wear whatever they want, be it a bikini or a burkini? The sight of a woman being forced to remove any item of clothing should shock any genuine liberal.
One key difference remains: As a white, middle-class woman, I can legally wear just about anything I please. I can cover my hair up, and my pale skin will reassure everyone that it is just a fashion statement; I can run around entirely sheathed in dark clothes and claim it’s Martin Margiela Spring-Summer 2017 in my impeccable Rive Gauche accent. But freedom cannot be given to some people and not others. If I am free to wear items of clothing that other women are forced to remove, we all lose some of our liberté.
Alice Pfeiffer is a Paris-based fashion reporter for Le Monde. She has also contributed to The New York Times, The Guardian, i-D and Vogue.
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