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The Men and Women of Today


Loulou d'Aki is a Swedish photographer who visited Afghanistan during the Summer of 2017 and photographed the ever-changing fashion of today's men and women. It appears to be physically impossible to predict what people were to wear despite a culture clash between young and old going on behind the scenes. The men and boys of Kabul will wear both modern clothing and their traditional tunbaan (this is discussed in a previous blog titled "Tradition is Tradition"). This divide is so unpredictable that it is divided even amongst siblings. Ali, 14, and Setar, 16, stand side by side with Ali wearing very western clothing while Setar wears the tunbaan. However, what is not seen is that what appears to be brothers are in fact both girls. Their mother decided to dress them as boys in order to give them more opportunities in Afghanistan since she had yet to give birth to a son. The power a gendered piece of clothing gives is immeasurable in a society that restricts the possibilities for its women. The practice is known as "bacha posh." This introduces an entire new aspect to the fashion scene. Instead of the divisions being primarily on traditional and new it is now on the differences in men's and women's clothing. Something as little as appearing as a boy changes the kids' entire lives.

Despite bacha posh becoming ever-more popular amongst families in Afghanistan, the clothing of women has grown so much more than the blue burqas of the Taliban.  d'Aki talked with some women, interviewing Fatima Sanzadeh, owner of Afghanistan's first women's lifestyle magazine. She says she wears a combination of conservative clothing but also the western clothing being fought over. d'Aki admits she was surprised, saying, "Before I met her, I was expecting something a bit different, but I think there's also a limit to what you can do as a woman [in Afghanistan]." She later spoke with Nazo, 22, and Saida, 20, who are the sisters of Ali and Setar. In the picture, the sisters are wearing their work uniforms on a TV show, makeup, and dyed and styled hair. They still wear a hijab, staying true to their religion, but instead of the headscarf being used oppressively as the West has deemed it, it is religious freedom through fashion. According to d'Aki they looked strangely modern. She even called them daring. This goes to highlight how Islamic dress has a place and right amongst modern fashion in not just the Middle East but the West as well. To the average American, clothing and how one presents themselves is an absent-minded thought. In Afghanistan, what the individual wears, man, woman, traditional, modern, reveals the hidden undertones within society that cannot be told through an interview.
I highly recommend scrolling through the original article which contains far more pictures than were capable of being shared here in this blog post. You can find it here.


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