Fashion statement

By Libby

The wingers who call me a conspiracy theorist for believing those who currently hold power are capable of grossly abusing it, are largely the same people who are forever warning me about the hordes of Muslims that are going to invade America, install a Sharia government and force me to wear a burqa. Putting aside that no one has ever been able to force me to wear anything since I was five years old, anyone who has ever seen me on a bad hair day might think that's more of a blessing than a curse.

But what if they're right and women were suddenly forced to dress in a certain style? In the first place, it wouldn't be so different from the 50s, the decade the wingers seem to be longing to return to. We had fashion police in those days too. You couldn't wear white except between Memorial and Labor Days. You must wear short gloves and a little hat to be respectable. Hemlines were strictly enforced by the fashion magazines and society mavens. Heck there was a time hankerchiefs were mandatory to avoid social ostracizing.

Further, it appears the Muslim dress code isn't as strict as it's cracked up to be. The burqini is flying off the shelves and doesn't look that different from an ordinary jogging suit to me. Curiously, the demand isn't just coming from devout Muslims.

Conservative Christians, cancer patients, burn victims and senior citizens, among others, have shown surprising interest. ...

[T]he Burqini swimsuit is making a statement. And that's the point, the designers say: the suits allow women, Muslim or not, to choose comfort over conformity. "I know it sounds like an oxymoron," says Sabet. "But this is really about freedom."

I think the pictured version is actually a rather attractive suit and that's a probably a good thing. It's more likely we'll all be forced to wear similar garments in order to spend a day in the sun because of environmental damage to the planet, long before any imagined universal Sharia law might ever require us to do so. [h/t Judi H.]