Modest Fashion in UK Women's Working Life

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.

This project researches how UK women and UK businesses accommodate religiously-related modesty codes of dress and comportment at work in the UK and Saudi Arabia. Our findings will impact on 1) UK business employers and HR professionals regulating work in those circumstances, 2) the fashion industry and fashion industry professionals providing the commodities and services required, and 3) policy makers and organisations concerned with social cohesion and interfaith and intercultural dialogue.

1 Employers and HR Professionals have regulated religious dress at work since the 2010 Equality Act (following 2003 regulations) protected employee rights to express religion, belief and faith identities. As corporate and institutional HR functions find themselves arbitrating which forms of religious and belief expression are legitimate for 'reasonable accommodation' under UK and EU law, religiously-related dress, adornment, and body management (hair, beards) become media and legal flashpoints.

Given that more companies and organisations are asking women employees (or contracted staff) to accommodate modesty regimes that may not be their 'own', our research offers tools for addressing contentious issues of cultural and religious authenticity, ownership, and authority. We reframe approaches that see religious dress as static by highlighting syncretism and changeability as typical of everyday lived religion. This nuanced understanding of the effect of religiously-related dress on individual identity and workplace performance is amplified by the more 'extreme' example of employers whose female staff encounter state-mandated modest dress in contexts such as Saudi Arabia.

Alert to the HR challenges, we meet head on the 'cultural cringe' - the fear of causing offence - that inhibits discussion about the workplace intersection with religion and belief. Designed to generate a mix of personal narratives and modest workwear solutions utilised by women from diverse faith and ethnic backgrounds, our research will assist in the development of strategies for staff recruitment, development and retention, providing exemplars of value also to those providing inter- and cross-cultural sensitivity training.

2 The fashion industry, including its media, will benefit from how this research reveals the breadth and diversity of participation in forms of modest fashion. By bringing to attention women who encounter modest codes as a workplace requirement, rather (or in addition to) practising modest dressing out of personal piety or community convention, we reveal a significant new consumer demographic for modest attire.

Providing details of how women acquire and learn to wear modest dress (e.g. abayas for Saudi Arabia), our research delivers valuable pointers about consumer behaviour. By recognising the role of local Saudi and expat women as guides in modest attire, and of women from religious communities in the UK, we redefine fashion mediation for fashion brands, retail, and media. Paired with reports on the rapidly growing international modest fashion infrastructure, our research informs mainstream fashion industry participants about how interaction between sectors may be developed.

Disaggregating modest fashion know-how from personal religious identity, we show how literacy about modest fashion can be a corporate market opportunity and individual career asset, building on the recent increase in Islamic branding and Muslim marketing.

3 Policy makers and groups concerned with interfaith and intercultural dialogue have variable levels of experience with issues of dress, despite that modest fashion commerce and commentary can function as a conduit for wide-ranging interactions between and within faiths. Our research reframes how religious authenticity and authority can be recognised; identifying new types of interlocutor for interfaith mobilisation in UK and global dialogue initiatives, and new cohorts of influencers for policy consultation.