Last week, Copenhagen Fashion Week took place, with the majority of designers putting out the minimal designs you’d expect from the Scandi scene. One designer who decided to look at things from a different perspective was Reza Etamadi of label MUF10.
In response to a law passed a few days before the show, Etamadi staged a protest against the burqa ban with his collection. “No man should be the judge of what a woman chooses to wear,” the designer said in a statement. “We should not sanction a woman who neither threatens nor inflicts damage on others simply because of her garments.”
The show itself featured Arabic slogan sweatshirts, as well as hijabi models. The biggest statement came at the end of the show where niqab-wearing women appeared and gave bunches of flowers to a group dressed like policemen. The recently passed law states that “anyone who wears a garment that hides the face in public will be punished with a fine” with a woman already being charged this month.
“In Iran, where I was born, women are fighting for the right to choose what to wear,” Etamadi says. “They are fighting for freedom with their lives on the line because, what we see as a basic human right, society and politicians view as a reactionary movement that threatens their beliefs.”
While there have been protests against the newly passed law, there has been no mention of the ban being revoked by the Danish government.