Fashion influencer Saida Khak has designed abaya clothing options. Photo: Social media/Telegraph
British designer Nike caused a scandal with French teachers by urging schoolgirls to ignore the new law banning abaya, or full-body clothing.
London fashion authority Saida Haq has developed modern versions of a similar on a robe of abaya clothing. designed to preserve the modesty that will be banned by the French state in public schools in accordance with its policy of preserving secular spaces.
British Bengali designer Ms Haq urged French schoolgirls to wear abayas to school in defiance of the new ban.
The 25-year-old girl, collaborating with the global brand Nike, spoke about this on major social networks. She can then offer the controversial clothing for free to anyone who wears it at school.
“The abaya is not a religious clothing, but a cultural one. It is not a symbol of religion,” Ms Haq said.
“The ban on controversial clothing leaves sanctions up to school principals and those in power. This will not always be fair and in most cases involves discrimination against some groups while allowing others, such as those closer to whiteness.»
Ms. Hack also said: «Prohibitions on modest clothes are dangerous and repressive: you give the girls an ultimatum and force them to expose their bodies. They may feel uncomfortable doing this for reasons unrelated to religion, perpetuating self-doubt and oppression. It creates a barrier to education far more harmful than any piece of clothing.»
Women wear abayas as they walk down an underpass in Nantes, western France, this week Photo: LOIC VENANCE/AFP video on Tiktok: «France's ban on abaya in schools this week makes no sense and will continue. perpetuate the media's negative narrative of conservative modest dressing.»
In a video featuring girls in a flowing abaya, which usually covers the body from the neck to the ankles, she added her new clothing models. The clothes will be sold «exclusively for France».
He continues: «And if you send me a photo of you wearing it at school, I might even return your entire order.»
“Streetwear has always been a movement, so don’t be surprised, we haven’t even started yet. How about neutrality?”
Saida Haq online Photo: Social media/Telegraph
Ms Hack made a big following after participating in London's first modest fashion week in 2017 and partnering with Nike, the company whose social media accounts promoted her clothes.
Her call to challenge the ban , announced this week by French Education Minister Gabriel Attal, has been denounced by the French trade union confederation UNSA, whose education wing represents teachers who will fight the ban on the front lines.
French Education Minister Gabriel Attal, who said France would ban Islamic clothing known as abayas in schools from September. Photo: Christian Livig/Corbis News/Getty Images
Frédéric Marchand, Secretary General of the UNSA Office of Education, told The Telegraph: “Education needs a safe and peaceful environment. All those who, for one reason or another, want to make a fuss about schools are irresponsible,” he said.
“They prevent us from concentrating on the main issues. Sometimes they also seek to weaken the Republic.
“In France, laïcité (secularism) and its application in schools around the ban on wearing religious symbols or clothing that might promote proselytism is an important freedom. This is freedom of conscience.
“You cannot be identified at school by your religious affiliation.”
The spat comes amid rising tensions in France over Islam's «separation» from the country's secular laws, exacerbated by recent nationwide riots and the 2020 beheading of a teacher. Samuel Paty after allegedly showing students a picture of a Muhammad cartoon.
President Emmanuel Macron vowed to fight «separatism» in secular France, which banned the full-face hijab in 2011, but witnessed a move that resulted in some schoolgirls wearing an abaya as it occupied a gray area.
This week, Mr. Attal announced that students returning to school would be banned from wearing the abaya, saying: “We have to stick together. We will stand together. Abaya has no place in the school, nothing more than religious symbols.»
Speaking in a radio interview, he stated that secular rules are often tested by «violations, attempts to destabilize», adding: «Public schools must, at all costs, perhaps, more than any other institution, to be protected from religious proselytism.”
While some polls show that the vast majority of the French population is against allowing students to wear an abaya, there is a debate in France about whether whether the garment is a religious symbol, with far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon calling the ban unconstitutional.
France bans all conspicuous religious symbols from public schools and public buildings, as well as from the front. coverings are also prohibited in public areas.
Nike has been contacted for comment.
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