Veiling fashion, consumption culture and identity: A qualitative analysis for interpreting the veiled Turkish women's changing clothing practices

Covering the body with clothes happens to be one of the primary vital needs for humans throughout the history. However, in Islam, it turns into a religious order for Muslim men and women based on Islamic decretals. The rules of clothing for Muslim women are defined as 'veiling' that differentiates them from their counterparts as being encumbered with symbolical, social and religious meanings. Today, this bodily practice can not be interpreted without analyzing the rising pressures and changing circumstances of modern life if the veiled women are examined as consumers. The increasing purchasing power of Muslims and their rising visibility as demandants, also modern but religious identities, resulted as the identification of Muslims as an untapped and viable market segment which leads to the necessity to investigate their changing needs deeply. This research analyzed the veiled Turkish women's changing clothing practices in the light of veiling fashion for the post 1980-period, in Turkey. The religious interpretations and regulations about veiling practice, the relationship between Islam and consumption, the rise of Islamic consumptionspace and veiling fashion as a phenomenon, the religious, political, economical and socio-cultural tensions that Muslim consumers experience and negotiate in consideration of modern lifestyles while constructing their contemporary identities were questioned and examined deeply with the help of a qualitative analysis based on Hans-George Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics The results reveal that the veiled women's clothing practices changes due to the fact that veiling turns into a commodity of consumption and fashion by loosing its religious meanings and aims.