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Dress Codes as Cultural Signifiers
Prior to his return to Iran from exile in early 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini had given his word that secular life would continue, and religious laws would not be imposed on Iranians. Within a year of the 1979 Revolution however, local and contemporary interpretations of Islamic law replaced a number of civil laws specifically regarding women. Thus emerged a new reality of life labelled as Islamic Hejab. Concerning women, this meant the mandatory and full covering of the hair and body in the public space. Although this is considered a minor issue by many who face greater socio-economic and socio-political hardships, and not an issue at all by those who favour it because of their own beliefs, a great number of Iranian women, and indeed men, find such laws an imposition on personal, collective, and civil liberties.
The most favoured interpretations of this dress code by the Islamic hardliners in the regime including women, is the black chador or wrap which is worn over a well secured headscarf, coat and trousers, and very occasionally accompanied by gloves. Versions of this are observed by many governmental employees simply to sustain employment. Within the last decade, however, other interpretations are frequently adopted and imposed by women according to age, class, education, income, familial expectations, religiosity, and residential location. Indeed, distinctions are created and observed in a variety of ways. Although such complex expressions primarily belong to urban spaces, there exist parallel attitudes and similarities in rural areas. In order to acquaint the reader with just a flavour of such distinctions and interpretations in dress codes, I present observational notes from my research diary at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art whilst waiting to be seen by its Director.
March 2003
The personal assistant to the director and her administrator have several desks, telephones, computers, book shelves, display cabinets etc. in a large L-shaped room/hallway. The overall look and feel of this area might be described as Bauhaus in style, with black leather and chrome coated steel low furniture. There are several rooms and conference areas connected to this central space which house senior management and receive important guests. The two ladies wear their often dark coloured headscarves, black, brown, navy etc., centrally placed and well secured under the chin with a pin. They do not show any hair above their foreheads, and have absolutely no make-up on. They wear simple, long, ankle length roopoosh or coats, often with matching trousers. These are mostly mass-produced in heavier mixed fabrics which might be slightly starchy. These two ladies are ‘front of the house’ in the senior management area, and their status requires that they adhere to the expected dress codes.
The PA in particular seems to have great authority, evident in the polite and clear, but firm, manner of her speech. There is a sense of urgency in her actions, and her several phones ring constantly. She obviously manages the Director’s diary and receives his guests prior to their appointments. She is fluent in English and highly analytical on art and socio-political issues. She tells me she was trained at art school studying dance at the time of the revolution. I do not believe she has got used to these dress codes.
In one of the side rooms there is a young lady who occasionally comes out with a fax or an emailed message; she seems to know some foreign languages too. She is in a long black roopoosh which is highly styled, and waisted; the cut is well considered and interesting. One knows immediately that this lady’s roopoosh is discreetly fashioned and not at all ordinary. The young lady’s hair, under a wrapped rather than ‘clipped under the chin’ black headscarf, is curly and big. It pushes out in ringlets here and there. Her stylish dark blue jeans almost cover her soft flat shoes and one feels a sense of delicate and well-pampered youthful presence as she steps through the space.
The tea lady is also in a black headscarf, trousers and well worn, slightly crumpled cotton roopoosh, but this is more like a working uniform. The creases in the tea lady’s roopoosh are very different to the creases in the soft linen coat of the previous lady. The tea lady's headscarf is worn with a casual air, and it does not seem to matter how she wears it. It is highly likely that the tea lady comes to work wearing a chador over her modest looking roopoosh. She probably removes her chador during the working hours wearing it again when returning to her neighbourhood. The tea lady seems observant, if not curious, and enquires after one's business when nobody looking. She carries her tea tray with such deftness and pride you would think she was Cleopatra attending to Anthony with life saving refreshments. She is generous and offers one a second glass of freshly brewed scented tea. Obviously, these latter two ladies are not ‘front of the house’ people, and consequently can afford to appear less austere in their appearance and expression.
A Miss Mahdavi comes in from the National Heritage Centre, or Markazeh Miraaseh Farhanggi, located in the next block. She has a couple of invitations to the private view of a major show of the work of two significant Iranian painters, Mr. Arabshahi, and Mr. Zendeh-Rudi, who pioneered the modernist school in Iran in the 1960s. This lady is dressed very similarly to the administrators, but is not as careful in her voice, language, and conduct. She casually addresses me and asks me if I have an invitation to the show, because she can easily give me one!
Some time passes and a lady walks through and heads for the Director's office to ask for more technicians. She is talking into the mouth piece of her cell phone. She is in a light cinnamon coloured linen trouser suit fitted at the waist, the jacket falls to about ten centimetres or five inches above the knee. Her headscarf, perhaps in a loosely woven soft linen/silk mix, is a radiant apricot cream in colour. It lightly rests over her head with most of her hair and neck visible; each end of the headscarf crossing very loosely well below her chin falling over her shoulders to the back. Her neck is delicate and shows off her gold chain. Her eyes and face are fully but carefully and subtly made up, applied as if on a delicate painting, the colours almost match her clothes. She is the curator working with the two modernist painters one of whom lives in Paris. She is also an art tutor at Honar University and a practicing painter/installation artist. The colours of her clothes, the way in which she has chosen and wears her headscarf showing her carefully styled hair, and the length of her jacket indicate distinctions, and her more independent status.
About the same time an older lady walks in. She talks and laughs freely and is greeted by everyone warmly. She is a well know Iranian Armenian art critic. She could be walking on the left bank in Paris. She wears a bright multi-coloured silk headscarf balancing her manicure. A cream jacket over casual trousers are finished with nylons in fine shoes. Several male members of the senior management team, some of them artists from the 1970s in ponytails, rush out to greet her and they all disappear to the big conference room to discuss the opening of the show, much laughter and pleasantries are exchanged.
Outside the work place, and amongst middle class high-income women in uptown Tehran and other big cities dress codes become more fluid and individualistic. Makeup and accessories complement short and waisted jacket/coats, and display the conspicuous sartorial stance characteristic of any rich society with or without the headscarf.
Visiting shrines in Mashad, October 25th 2002
I rise at 6 this morning and look out of the window; I cannot see the sunrise although I know it is there deep under the clouds. Like so many things in life, it is a question of knowing through experience. Sensing. So, the sun is there, I know it is, I just cannot see it this morning. I can see much else. The golden dome and minaret of the shrine in the distance, not shining this morning because of the early morning pale mist. The blue of the other domes punctuate space, dotted around. I watch the multitudes of arches, almost without people at this hour. I am watching this, 9th century site (late 2nd A.H.) the tomb of the 8th Shiite Imam Reza and the most important religious venue in Iran from my (VIP!) suite on the 6th floor of ‘the best hotel’ in downtown Mashad in the province of Khorasan, some 1000 km in NW Iran.
Everyone is asleep. I have my filter coffee, watch some more and decide to go for a walk in the courtyards of the shrine, I want to enjoy their architecture. I so love these courtyards especially when they are not crowded. I weave through the streets which are being swept.
The 15th century Ivan and Courtyard complex at Goharshad Mosque are a beautiful extension at Imam Reza Shrine. The complex geometric tile work in this monument holds the highest number of colour combination in Iran apparently, over fifty I am told. I sit at the worn marble fountain base for some minutes, it is a very large octagonal form with acute arched angles. There are several sprinklers. The sound and movement of water are heavenly in the fresh of early morning, everything is so crisp. There are four upright four sided drinking fountains around the octagonal marble base, their arches match. I put my hand in, water is so curious to touch, cool and weightless. I walk towards the inner sanctuary, just one or two men about, I observe a student and master in discussion. They are seated on the red carpet, a man of about 25 and a boy of 15-16 or so. They seem to be referring to a handwritten text on the lap of the former. I sense a kind of love between them, they are almost one, and a sense of reasoning in their discussion. They are perfectly ordinary, no particular religious clothing, no scull cap, but I do wonder about the content of their discussion. Perhaps it is best I do not know, we cannot expect to know everything, because we won’t.
There is an important library and a religious school on Goharshad compound. Some steps away there is a document on the wall about the history of this place. Something like “This monument was executed on the orders of her ladyship Gowhar Agha the wife of Shahrukh, son and successor of Amir Timur in 821 A.H. L.” There is a table on one side with many small prayer tablets in unfired golden clay, some are very well worn and shine with age. An elderly small framed clergy next to me points one out and says that it is from the sacred clay of Karbala in central Iraq. I am surprised that he speaks to me, being a cleric, and I treat myself to a conversation with him. We talk very naturally and I enquire after the two rings on his fingers. He tells me that one must be careful when wearing such rings in order not to be disrespectful to the names of saints engraved in the stones. I say that I like his very long prayer beads, he tells me that there are 99 single beads each inlaid with the names of Allah in silver. I feel happy about this exchange, and look towards the East wing, I decide to visit the library. I ask an attendant who is reciting the Quran where the library is, he points me to its direction and says it won’t be open, because it is not 8 o’clock yet. I ask him where I might be able to get some literature on this particular monument/mausoleum/mosque. He volunteers an attendant in the distance to take me there. This attendant is very quick and rushes me through some very beautiful architecture, vast room into vast room with tall arched windows in coloured glass. I note the clusters of five interconnecting vast rooms, I remember this to be a characteristic of Persian architecture. We arrive at a door with a plaque: ‘International Relations Hall’. My companion sends me in and leaves. This is a huge hall, inside a middle aged man in a light coloured suit greets me. I explain to him that I would like some written information on the design of Imam Reza compound and its mosques and monuments. He says “May I ask for what purpose?” I explain that I need to see the plans and might need to quote some facts and figures about the geometry of these designs for my thesis. He points me to a row of chairs and I sit down. I note there is a large TV screen with prayers in Arabic and English subtitles. I fill in a request form, and my host fetches me a number of brochures and says that I may also take any two books from the stands at the far end of the hall, as I am entitled to them as a visitor. We go there together and I choose one on ‘Islamic Morality For The Youth’ and one on ‘The Life Of Her Holiness Fatima the daughter of the Prophet Mohammad’. These shall go to towards my literature review, I think to myself. Then, my host, very gently, says “I wonder if you could be kind to us and look at the ‘English’ of a couple of documents we have prepared and tell us if they read well”. I am surprised and I say that I should certainly like to help if I can, and will have a look. We walk to a large desk at yet another side of this Hall and he points me to a chair. He then fetches two sheets of paper on which he has written a certificate for embracing Islam as a faith, and a certificate of marriage. The wording is almost perfect and I negotiate with him some new clauses. This takes around 30 minutes and finally between us, we organize two simple documents with spaces for names, nationalities, passport numbers, dates and signatures etc. We also put paragraphs indicating that these papers have ‘no other legal value’ and that they are ‘for registration purposes only’.
We communicate very well. He asks me in which country I am pursuing my studies. He tells me that he has lived in the US himself. He then goes to a room behind his desk and brings me a translation of the Quran and a handful of postcards and says that he is grateful to me for my assistance. He says that a couple from Italy and Switzerland converted to Islam and married at the mosque only yesterday, and that they are coming back today to collect their documents. He also tells me that it was a very moving occasion to witness, and that is why he had initially wished to put a statement in the certificates noting the profoundly emotional state of the Italian and the Swiss during the procedures. But he now agreed with me that it was not necessary to mention their tears, deeply touching though it all was.
It occurs to me that this side of Islam could be talked about a little more, where are the BBC cameras now, the ordinariness of the decent existences of millions is overshadowed by political games.
I say my goodbyes to my now ‘colleague’ and rush to my hotel, they must be wondering where I am, and what I am up to. When I arrive at my smart hotel I am told by my companions that they have been worried about me, and that they have already breakfasted. I have been away for three hours.
I have used my English Quran on several occasions.
Remembering my first experience in drawing
My earliest childhood memories of particular significance and relevant to the concepts of rituals and self-expression are of my maternal grandmother when I was about four years old. She was the oldest person I have ever known and she always looked quite ancient. She was tall and slender, with warm brown eyes, totally unadorned, her hair in a braid twisted into a bun at the back of her head and she was almost always in a black buttoned-up structured velvet jacket and think black stokings secure with an elastic band either under or over her the knee. In her skirt pockets she carried dried white mulberries, tall green raisons, dried peaches and apricots, and roasted hemp and wheat seeds. She treated us to a handful without fuss. She enjoyed smoking a water-pipe on occasion and we were told that in her youth she carried a silver cigarette case in her bosom. I loved the scent of her tobacco and the ‘bubble’ sound she created when smoking the water-pipe, and although she did not embrace us, ever, when I remember her I feel the warmth and the sense of intimacy which brightened her face. A pious widow, she seemed to pray a lot and although she did not live with us she visited frequently but always rushed away on account of urgent matters. She lived somewhere quite unlike my mother’s secular household where religious attitudes were regarded as suspect but were tolerated with disinterest and as an aspect of life.
My grandmother taught Quranic recitation and Islamic practice and theory for women, I believe she had a good income from this because she travelled abroad on pilgrimages and brought back colourful toys from far away places. Her voice, diction and judgement in articulating the consonants and vowels to the desired beat, but more importantly ‘accurate length and breadth’ were what people marvelled at. Quranic texts were to be recited in a projected clear voice and excellent diction as far as my grandmother was concerned, because she could then hear it even if two or three rooms away, and dutifully respond with her corrected version if necessary. She also told stories of Houris and Parries the female creatures of the heavens who lived in the distant clouds and always in the heaths of the ‘Seventh Heaven’. I do not recall her ever holding a pen and writing anything however, perhaps writing skills were subdued by tradition for women of her generation, she was born in the late 19th century.
What I do remember my grandmother holding, on one occasion when I was not yet at school, is a piece of charcoal in one hand and an egg in the other. She was drawing. With some concentration she steadily and patiently organized the white surface of the egg into equal segments from one pole to another with strong black vertical lines. There is pleasure in this memory as I can still see it in my mind, the charcoal giving out a slight puff of tiny black dots around her drawing. She would gently blow away these black specks in order to keep her eggshell surface clean. She would then place her charcoal in the centre of the stripy form taking it around to locate and draw its equator. Once she had established her spheres, she would then draw fine circles within each segment from top to bottom, almost touching the sides of the segments. These increased in size as they approached the equator of the egg and decreased again when nearing its poles. This made a pattern of relationships. Finally she would divide each circle into equal portions by intersecting the diameters at right angles. I have since wondered the meaning of this ritualistic performance, maybe pre-Islamic! Did each circle and the cross section within it mean to symbolize an entity? To disperse bad spirits and to break the cycle of an illness, my grandmother would throw a fine white cloth over the egg whilst still holding it between her thumb and forefinger in one hand, she would then call out the names of every member of family, friends and relatives, pressing down on the centre of each circle at the cross-section with a tiny silver coin. To my astonishment, at some point and with the name of a particular person the egg would shatter, and like a drop of weighty liquid hit the hard surface of a container beneath! The job was done, but without ever demonizing anyone because their name had shattered the egg.
This account holds three intelligible concepts for me. The first is the geometric compositions adopted to orderly organize the surface of the egg into specific spaces, the second and particularly exciting is the significance of the circle and the square as marks recognized in ancient arts of the region. The incorporation of oral language, calling out names, with formal compositions and the significance of adopting particular signs and symbols remain a mystery to me. Thirdly, the veiling and abstraction of an idea, the use of the cloth over the egg, the way it was used as if to create or conceal a parallel and imagined magical world or idea fascinates me. Imagination is key in art, and the idea of the visible and the invisible is metaphoric here. Whilst I shall never know my grandmother’s precise thoughts, I am intuitively prompted to look for and relate these ideas to greater concepts in Iranian art history and the development of its iconography. I would also like to think that there exists relationships between the visuality of my grandmother’s ritualistic drawing creating puffs and dots of charcoal rising from the egg surface and my personal preference for using chalks and pastels to draw with. I would be well advised to take up Roger Fry’s belief that the study of art history needs the co-operation of a number of sciences and should be ‘inextricably interwoven with Anthropology, the History of Religion and with Classics’ (cited in Gombrich 1965, p. ix). The latter in this particular case would be Persian antiquity rather than the Greek and Roman cultures.
Tehran, May 19th 2002 - Friday, a day off
This morning everyone is out either playing bridge or on a religious pilgrimage, the two seem to intersect quite easily in this family of mine. I want to do something on my own. I would have really liked to go to the National Gallery on a day like this, or the Tate Modern, I have that longing for seeing art; it is pushing my thoughts in the corner of my mind. It is a public holiday and the museums in Tehran are closed. I set out I don’t know for where. I do this at times and something reveals itself, and develops.
As I am walking I am reminded of the Tajrish Bazar, I shall walk it I say to myself, and look at its architecture, and its covered ‘round’ square. As I walk it I notice the nut shop with the very best varieties of pistachios, maybe six types, arranged in huge sacks. Sacks and sacks of hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts and dried peaches and plums, I like this visual display. Although a public holiday many little shops are open. The bread shop is open, as is almost always, and the huge round ‘sheets’ of bread are sold as they come out of the oven, I really must buy some before I go away. The olive shop too, there is that particular scent around this shop’s doorway. An old fashioned and dense smell of un-refined food, just like bits of Italy! I look up and see hundreds of flags hanging, making for a see-through ceiling. I walk to the end of the Bazar and notice the little shops that sell religious reliquary, I pass them, by a few steps. I stop in front of the short staircase that goes down to the shrine. I watch everything but particularly the clusters of people for some time, maybe twenty minutes. Formally it is very interesting, men, and women who look like cones and cylinders, women because they are wearing the chador, and men because they look well fed. Their leisurely pace makes them appear floating, especially because I am higher up than they are, at the top of the stairs. I want to go in, perhaps it’s the architecture, it is so beautiful, but realize that I have no socks on and feel uncomfortable about going down, submitting my shoes and walking the shrine in bare feet. Is it allowed anyway? I continue to watch. It is nearly prayer time and I really want to go in. I decide to look around for a sock shop. I eventually find a vendor and buy a pair of black cotton socks, they should cover my feet and ankles up to my trousers nicely. I put them on in some corner behind a strawberry seller’s stand. I don’t think anything or anybody can stop me now, I am going to the shrine, I am determined. I climb down the stairs, borrow the chador head cover that is supplied for free, there are tens of them in a pile some flowery in fine voile cotton and some black with bold patterns. I put one over my head, walk across the court to the shoe keeper, submit my shoes and enter the shrine. This entrance is for women. There are tens of women in prayer. I wish I could film their movement. There are all ages and almost all classes and types. I wonder why they are there, I wonder about my place in all this. I only wanted to look at the architecture, I feel dissatisfied that the central shrine which should be a large full cube is halved to segregate men and women in order they move comfortably. It bothers me that only half of the silver chamber is available to me to touch and look through. I want to walk around the whole cube, half is not satisfying enough, well it is just half. I pay attention to the detail of the silver work. You can see through the negative spaces created by a filigree of geometric/interlocking forms. The Beautiful and cool metal gives warm emotion, it is scented with the rosewater the attendants bestow it. The geometric knot system gives hollows, as if tiny windows to another world, spaces within spaces, marked with a fine band of emerald green cloth in knots in remembrance. There is a glass cube inside that houses money in notes and coins… alms. I enjoy watching the arms and hands that try/struggle to reach, to touch these silver filigree walls, this shrine; I do the same. It is no longer an automatic move for me, I distance myself from anything ritualistic these days. What is this ritualistic automatic movement anyway? Why are these hands in hope of reaching, reaching for the silver wall of the shrine?
Or is it to grip something symbolic, and hold it firm as if to make it promise something vital. This silver geometry is felt in remembrance? Remembering a belief system from within? I see its strong aesthetic power. I think of this in slow motion, I imagine this in slow motion…. It is so beautiful moving back and forth. It should be filmed, I think. Not the bodies or the faces, just the hands and the arms reaching for something; something from deep within. The occasional sound of prayer intervenes.
I move on leaving this half chamber. No I do not like the ‘half’ thing. I think of women in Iran, are they halved? Maybe publicly. No one should be halved. I arrive at the hall that surrounds the middle shrine, the silver cube. I stand here for ages. Tens of women are in prayer in front of me, standing, bending. I imagine their mouths moving, they have their backs to me. Their black and the white chadors over their heads, they are ‘whole’ forms. They cannot be halved. I look at the ceiling. It is large, and I watch its expanse covered with very fine tiny reflecting geometric pieces of mirror set patiently one next to another making the most spectacular repeat pattern. Crystal chandeliers hang down and the mirror work reflect the light in thousands of shifting/shimmering pieces: colour and light pour everywhere, the colours of the fine bright carpets beneath, the colours from the large glass in the arched windows, lots of yellows, lots of different whites, blues and reds… Colour and light… Colour and light. The ceiling moves with reflected light and the movement of life beneath. It is like a movie of just colours. I am mesmerized. There is another patch of moving colour further on. This large patch does not have any warm colours, it is just light and then the tiny pieces of mirror that appear dark, there is a shift of brilliant light and shade, what has just been bright becomes dark…they move… I feel dizzy… This is a performance of light, geometric light… No it is me, I change the reflection as I move my eyes. It is me in the ceiling, each tiny mirror reflects me. It is an image. It is a performance. It is the light that performs…..
I stand there for some time and touch the mirror wall behind me. They are in relief, very subtle relief. Some pieces are only like a brush stroke. A search for similar experiences move around my mind. I am not in control of this, such needs for associations are automatic…I think of paintings… architecture… precision… a structured and luminous surface. I touch the mirrored wall and I think of jewels in paintings. I excavate some images from my memory. I remember a pear painted by Euan Uglow, with glowing tiny facets. I think of that postcard I have of the pearls in a painting by Georges de La Tour. I feel a need of knowing who perceived this mirror geometry. Who were these craftsmen who created these walls and ceilings and what drove them. What did they imagine they were creating, was it just light they were reaching for? I am stunned by this choreography, the dancing ceiling, chains of reflections, moving women without faces. I watch the whispering forms, tiny mirrors of light and shadow and the tiny sounds of prayer…all hankering after the abstract… I collect my gaze and reluctantly take my leave. Slowly, I walk through the lines of praying bodies, now seated…now standing… lips that whisper, eyes that flicker, word patterns…. I recognize these words only because I know them, they are abstract and hushed sounds: Ssss, Hhh, Aaaa. I am happy with this abstraction.
Outside there are people having picnics of bread and cheese, on a family outing. So simple and modest, so matter of fact. This space belongs to them, and they are claiming it. I am offered some dates by an older man. I take one and murmur a prayer, my words have become abstract sounds too. I have an intention to say something positive, something that can only have a place in my imagination as if a reliquary of another world, an abstraction. But all I digest from my own prayer is a word rhythm, a pattern of sounds…Abstract sounds…communication through abstraction… We are all doing it!
The architecture of the shrine is powerful, I take a last look and imagine it without the crowds, such symmetry… such balance… I exit from the main gate onto the street handing in my borrowed chador. Outside I light some candles arranged in a box by a woman vendor. I create another version of light and movement and become a moving dot in the crowds in the Bazar.
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