In yesterday's post we looked at the Met Gala guests using their gowns and attires to make various statements, support a cause or spread a message. But you don't necessarily need a red carpet to use the power of fashion.
Afghan women around the world, for example, have turned to social media and have started posting pictures of themselves in traditional clothes with the hashtag #DoNotTouchMyClothes. In this way they want to highlight the current condition of women since the Taliban regained control of the country last month following the withdrawal of US and international troops in August.
Ruling between 1996 and 2001 the Taliban subjected women to violence and forced marriages, hiding them under burqas and making them invisible. Since they came back the situation seems to have gone back to what it was: the country has now got an all-male interim government that also reinstated the ministry for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice.
From now on women will not be allowed to hold high-ranking government positions, while schools and universities became gender-segregated and female students, lecturers and employees must wear hijabs following the Taliban's interpretation of Sharia law.
In August the Taliban claimed there was going to be an amnesty for government and NGO workers, but so far there have been cases of women who were government employees or who worked in the Afghan police who were targeted and killed.
In the last few weeks there have been protests led by women across the country and, in response to them, last week the Taliban orchestrated a demonstration at Kabul University, with around 300 women waving Taliban flags and banners supporting the Islamist government. All the women were covered head-to-toe in black robes and had their faces and hands covered. The images showing the event are uncanny as they show rows of black ghosts sitting in a university lecture hall.
The answer to that demo is now arriving via social media with Afghan women living and working abroad sharing photos of them in traditional Afghan dresses covered in intricate embroideries and motifs, to protest the Taliban's black hijab.
A few days ago Dr Bahar Jalali, an Afghan historian and gender studies expert and a former faculty member of the American University of Afghanistan retweeted an image of a woman all clad in black in Kabul, explaining, "No woman has ever dressed like this in the history of Afghanistan. This is utterly foreign and alien to Afghan culture. I posted my pic in the traditional Afghan dress to inform, educate, and dispel the misinformation that is being propagated by Taliban."
After Dr Jalali posted a picture of herself in Afghan dress, more Afghan women across the globe followed her example.
Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi, head of the Afghan service at DW News, tweeted a picture of herself in traditional Afghan dress and headdress, adding in her comment, "Me wearing traditional Afghan attire in Kabul. This is Afghan culture and this is how Afghan women dress."
