Turkey lies where Asia, Africa and Europe are closest to each Turkey lies where Asia, Africa and Europe are closest to each other and it straddles the point where Europe and Asia meet. other and it straddles the point where Europe and Asia meet. Conversion to Islam was gradual and varied from one group Conversion to Islam was gradual and varied from one group to another, but by the 10th century Islam dominated. The to another, but by the 10th century Islam dominated. The hugely powerful, influential and sprawling Ottoman Empire, hugely powerful, influential and sprawling Ottoman Empire,

c.1300 - 1922, originated in north-western Anatolia. The c.1300 - 1922, originated in north-western Anatolia. The state of Turkey was created in 1923 from the Turkish state of Turkey was created in 1923 from the Turkish

remnants of the Ottoman Empire. It has a population of remnants of the Ottoman Empire. It has a population of about 67 million, 80% Turkish and 20% Kurdish and other about 67 million, 80% Turkish and 20% Kurdish and other minorities. 98% of the population is Muslim, mainly Sunni.minorities. 98% of the population is Muslim, mainly Sunni.

Note to images: where not attributed, the early historical images have been taken from Women of Istanbul in Ottoman Times, a wonderful book

“dedicated to all the women of the world”, compiled by Pars Tuğlaci, Istanbul, 1984.

There are thousands of historic images of Turkish women. Turkish and western artists have long been fascinated by the rich variety of Turkish

dress of both sexes.

In women’s dress, the contrasts of home and street dress are shown again and again as are the variations of urban and rural costume and that of women

from the many ethnic backgrounds who lived in Turkey, especially in Istanbul.

Dress History

Ibn Battuta, in the 14th century, wrote about the Sultan’s lady:“On the Khatin’s head is a bughtaq which resembles a small ‘crown’ decorated with jewels and surmounted by peacock feathers – and she wears robes of silk encrusted with jewels, like the mantles worn by the Greeks. On the head of the lady vizier and the lady chamberlain is a silk veil embroidered with gold and jewels at the edges, and on the head of each of the girls is a kula; which is like an aqruf; with a ciraht of gold encrusted with jewels round the upper end – and peacock feathers above this, and each one wears a robe of silk gilt, which is called nakh.”

Travels of Ibn Battuta 1325-1354

1818thth Century Century

The costume books show the richness of fabrics and the fashion variations on a theme of home wear worn by the better-off.

But outside, all women wear the voluminous feraje or carshaf and a headcover.

Home dress Street dressStreet dress

Second Half of the Second Half of the 1818thth Century Century

Home dress Street dress

Early 19Early 19thth Century Century

Home and Street dress

“Misunderstanding of the concept of concealment led the Turks to consider the charshaf (long robe worn out in the streets) as the religious dress of Muslim women, and thus it has been interpreted as a product of fanaticism. …According to Dr Levinson in Histoire de la Vie Sexuelle the charshaf and the harem are very ancient concepts dating back to the earliest periods of history, and are both the result of male jealousy, having no connection with Islamic principles at all.”

Women of Istanbul in Ottoman Times, Pars Tuğlaci, 1984

Russian slave

Arab Turkish Armenian Jewish

GreekJewish

Artist’s depictions of various types of dress

““They wear a towel (cloth or woollen underscarf) They wear a towel (cloth or woollen underscarf) round the neck and head, so that one can only see round the neck and head, so that one can only see their eyes and mouth, and these they cover with a their eyes and mouth, and these they cover with a

thin silk scarf a palm’s width each way, through thin silk scarf a palm’s width each way, through which they can see and not be seen by others. The which they can see and not be seen by others. The scarf is fastened with three pins to a suitable part of scarf is fastened with three pins to a suitable part of the head above the forehead, so that when they go the head above the forehead, so that when they go through the streets and meet other women, they through the streets and meet other women, they

raise the scarf that hangs over their faces and kiss raise the scarf that hangs over their faces and kiss one another.”one another.”

I Costumi et i modi particolari de la vita de Turchi, Bassano da Zara, 1545I Costumi et i modi particolari de la vita de Turchi, Bassano da Zara, 1545

Women and children going to the baths. 18th century.

“Turkish women first began covering themselves in public by wrapping themselves in a bedsheet when they went out of the house, and this practice continued for hundreds of years in the villages. Meanwhile in Istanbul and other large cities women wore the feraje and yashmak, or a yeldirme and headscarf.”

Tuğlaci, 1984Street dress.

19th century.

“From the earliest days of the Ottoman Empire, the state had taken upon itself to issue decrees

and edicts on even the minutiae of women’s dress. … The detailed nature of these

regulations, affecting the thickness of the material used in the yashmak (face veil worn in Turkey), the length of skirts, and the degree to which women should be covered in public by charchaf (cloak) and yashmak, indicate the importance the authorities attached to the physical appearance of women in public.”

“… during the Ottoman period this concern had been expressed in a conservative view of how

women should be seen, in subsequent decades it became a device through which the state could

signal its desire for change.”

Images of Women, Sarah Graham-Brown, 1988

Turkish Imperial Edict. 1725

Edmundo de Amicis, an Italian visitor in the Edmundo de Amicis, an Italian visitor in the 1880s, remarked: “After hearing so much about 1880s, remarked: “After hearing so much about the life of captivity led by Turkish women, it is the life of captivity led by Turkish women, it is most astonishing for any visitor to Istanbul to see most astonishing for any visitor to Istanbul to see women about in every place at every hour, just as women about in every place at every hour, just as in any European city.”in any European city.”

Turkish women gathered in front of a Turkish women gathered in front of a mosque in Istanbul, late 19th century.mosque in Istanbul, late 19th century.

Abdullah BiraderlerAbdullah Biraderler

Turkish women doing shopping for the bairam,

mid- 19th century.

Turkish women at a picnic.

Dress History – Early last century

Gradually in the nineteenth century European fashions influenced Istanbul

and slowly spread to other cities amongst the middle and upper

classes. Rural women, poor women and those of the many ethnic groups

continued to wear their traditional dress.

Upper-middle class family, early 20th century.

coll. Alev Lytle Croutier, Harem – The World behind the Veil, 1989

Upper-middle class women friends dancing in a private house

courtyard, early 20th century.Lytle Croutier

Harem lady visited by a

bundle woman and a gypsy fortune

teller, early 20th century.

Lytle Croutier

A Turkish lady in outdoor costume.

Living Races of Mankind, 1900

A woman wearing a ferage and dark veil.

Lytle Croutier

A Turkish woman wearing a ferage and a yashmak 1890s.

Some modes adopted were not appreciated by the authorities.

Then, as now, some women adopted styles of dress for political reasons:

“Another interesting phenomenon is the use of Islamic dress code (carsaf) by women activists during the Independence War between 1918-1923,

although this was not at all the fashion for the socio-economic classes to which these women belonged. Ilyasglu concludes that this reflected an

effort by women activists to bridge the gap with the “women on the street”. Moreover, by wearing the carsaf, women activists felt that they

were able to establish equality with women of other classes and anonymity for the goal of fighting for independence.”

The Women’s Movement in Turkey – The influence of political discourses, Pinar Ilkkaracan, Iran Bulletin, I995

Esteemed ladies; this mistaken impression gained by our enemies is based on this outward appearance, in particular on the garb of our women and the fact that

they are veiled…These forms of dress are not a requirement of our religion but in opposition to it. The concealment

which our faith recommends is in keeping with both the exigencies of daily life and modesty. If women dressed in accordance with canonical law and the

requirements of religion, they would neither conceal themselves nor reveal themselves to such an

extent…. Religious dress should not constitute a hindrance to women, but should be simple enough to allow them to participate alongside men in social, working and academic life. This plain style is not contrary to the

ethics of our social system.

From Atatürk’s address to women in Konya,

March 21, 1925

However, by the early 1920s the official tide had

turned and Kemal Atatürk was

exhorting women to abandon the

veil.

“Where women had taken it upon themselves to change their style of dress, it might be taken as

an assertion of freedom, a defiance of convention, or a flouting of family authority. But where the wearing of a western-style dress and hat had been sanctioned by community or state,

it could just as well imply conformity and was certainly not a reliable guide to a women’s

freedom of choice or action.”Graham-Brown, 1988

Istanbul, 1919.M Tuğrul Acar

“All through the 19th century Ottoman society had been under the spell of modernizing reforms,” [Özdalga] but it was not until after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and after the

1914-18 World War that change accelerated.

The Republic of 1923 and the Constitution of 1924 enshrined Kemal Atatürk’s vision of modernised, secular Turkey. The

legal reforms of 1925/6 made “sweeping alterations in women’s legal status, freedom of movement and prospects

for education and employment” [Graham-Brown]

…all reflected in the following three photographs.

Women in Political Women in Political StruggleStruggle

Three of the first women

parliamen-tarians in Turkey, 1937.

Graham-Brown, 1988

Süreyya Ağaoğlu, first

woman lawyer, Ankara, 1930s.

Graham-Brown, 1988

Mixed class of biology students in the Ghazi

Institute.

M. O. Henchez, Women of All Lands, ed. Rosita Forbes, 1939

The “Sapka Kanunu” of 1925 banned the fez and imposed the use of a Western (modern) type of felt hat, with dire

punishments for non-compliance. The law initiated by Atatürk was levelled at men’s, not women’s, dress.

“The veil was not forbidden, though, because it was felt that it

would lead to an uprising by the vast majority of Muslims who were of a patriarchal persuasion.”

Geschiedenis Van Turkije ed Bakker, Vervloet, Gailly, 1997

“Turkey is the only country in the Middle East – perhaps in the whole Muslim world – where secularism became the official ideology of the state. … The most controversial issue on which official secularism has been challenged in recent times is the headscarf. All through the 1980s, that problem was the issue around which secularism clashed with Islamism.”

The Veiling Issue in Modern Turkey, Elizabeth Özdalga, 1998

Modern TurkeyModern Turkey

A new generation questioning the legacy of the country’s founding father, Atatürk.

Özdalga, 1998

“Contrary to a widely held belief, there have never been any laws prohibiting the use of the veil in universities or elsewhere in modern Turkey. …[however]… even if there have not been any laws, there have certainly been various kinds of regulations relating to clothing.”

Özdalga, 1998

Newspaper headlines 1999-2002.

“In Turkey, the secular regime considers the head scarf a symbol of extremist elements that want to overthrow the government. Accordingly, women who wear any type of head-covering are banned

from public office, government jobs and academia, including graduate school. Turkish

women who believe the head-covering is a religious obligation are unfairly forced to give up public life or opportunities for higher education

and career advancement.”

An Identity Reduced to a Burka, Laila al-Marayati and Semeen Issa, 2002

Islamist women “proclaim their need to cover their heads with reference to their civil right to practice religion without the hindrance of the state. Paradoxically, in doing so they propagate a belief system where civil rights as such have no relevance.”

On Gender and Citizenship in Turkey – MER 1996 No.198, Yesim Arat

Visiting Topkapi Palace, IstanbulLuc Olivier, 1999

Friends going shopping in Istanbulwww.angelfire.com

Again we see Saudi influences in dress. Atatürk would be as critical as he was over Western fashion.

Those women who dress in extreme styles, and those

who imitate the garb of European women, should

remember that every nation has its own traditions, ethics

and characteristics. No nation should be an imitation of any other, because such a nation cannot be the same as

that which it imitates, nor retain its own national

character. Such an attempt is bound to result in disappointment.

Kamal Atatürk, 1925

Newspaper headlines 1999-2002.

Everyday clothesEveryday clothes

“Historically, periods have varied in the extent to which people have signalled or obscured their religious identities. Usually it is not necessary to mark explicitly the religion of

the majority unless a frenzy of piety imbues religious symbols for a time with special meaning.”

Reveal and Conceal, Andrea B Rugh, 1986

The Village of Nar The Village of Nar – Central Turkey– Central Turkey

The Women of Nar, The Women of Nar, Joyce Roper, 1974Joyce Roper, 1974

Village Wedding 1971 – the women celebrating in a

private house

Kazim and Gulazar

Grand-mother

Grand-daughter

“Traditionally, in most villages, women did not wear veils; the entire village was considered an extended family. Even nowadays, while women work unveiled with men in the fields, as soon as they see a stranger from another village, they pull down their scarves to hide their faces.”

Harem – The World Behind the Veil, Alev Lytle Croutier, 1989

Photograph taken by a

British male tourist.

Photograph taken for the World Bank by a male

Turk.Yosef Hadar, 1984

Farming women of South Farming women of South Eastern Turkey, Eastern Turkey, near the Syrian bordernear the Syrian border

Elderly woman and her friend.South-central Turkey, 1985

Shopkeeper in Istanbul.Sean Sprague, 1996

Market at Edirne.Caroline Simpson, 1992

‘‘Traditional’ dress to ethnic chicTraditional’ dress to ethnic chic

As in many countries “traditional” regional dress is now As in many countries “traditional” regional dress is now most commonly seen by the general public at Cultural most commonly seen by the general public at Cultural Festivals and used as inspiration for modern fashion Festivals and used as inspiration for modern fashion

shows:shows:

Young women in traditional costume.UNESCO, 1980s

Turkish Fashion Show at Turkish Cultural Festival,

Cairo, 2002.Hisham Habib and Atef Naguib,

Cleo Magazine, 2002