The Burqini
The Burqini is a modesty swimsuit, created by Australian muslim designer Aheda Zanetti in 2004. Created to get Muslim women to participate in sport. Inspired after watching her young niece try and play school netball in her hijab, which is described as the act of covering, usually in the form of headscarves worn by Muslim women. Most commonly they cover the head and neck but leaves the face clear. Due to the excessive amount of fabric, it does not seem like a desirable garment to wear whilst doing excessive exercise during sport. Finding no real modesty garments made for sport, Zanetti decided It was time for one to be created. She first looked at removing a lot of the excess fabric from the veil, but still having the head and neck covered (Zanetti, 2018).
The photo above was an advertisement for the Burqini featured on their official website. Showing four women leisurely running on the beach from the water, promoting health and fitness. All the women are smiling, symbolising happiness and covered looking comfortable wearing Burqini’s. The image showcases different colours and designs, allowing variation. The Burqini is a two piece, like a bikini but smaller than a burka. It includes a cap or head covering, protecting the hair, long loose sleeves and trousers. And the top has a graphic design on the chest either displaying floral patterns, ahiida logo or waves, added to conceal and protect the garment from sticking, helping to make the wearer feel less exposed.
Since the release of the Burqini in 2004, the brand has sold 700,000 worldwide (Volsing and Volsing, 2018). Immediately showing how valuable the need for a garment like it was on the market. Following its success many mainstream brands also began selling mass produced Burkinis, like Marks and Spenser, this is showing an encouraging change for Muslim culture within Europe. Global brands like Nike have recently come out with sportswear for Muslim women. The Nike Pro Hijab was created in 2017, a functional, lightweight hijab and an affordable price. Nike has hegemony in advertising, meaning their global presence is imminent and valuable in the eyes of a consumer, making the hijab desirable and mainstream. Nike has been able to reshape consumption behaviour, and popularise a product due to their global reach, however some might question why it hasn’t happened sooner. The burqini was created 13 years before Nike decided to cater for a larger audience within the muslim community.
The first time the burqini was considered a political artefact, was when it was featured in an Australian introduced program, surf life saving, Its aim was to integrate muslim teenagers into surf life, especially after tension grew within the community during the Cronulla riots. A young muslim girl participated and to uphold her religious choice she wore a burkini (Zanetti, 2018). This epitomises the BurkinI, as it was designed to integrate muslim identity along with Australian identity
Again the Burkini became a topic of conversation in late 2016 after a year of extremist terror attacks targeted France. People have questioned since, if France is condoning Islamaphobia. Talk began when France decided to ban the hijab in schools, although along with other religious garb. Then the ban of wearing a burqa in public spaces, meaning it is illegal to have your face coveredin public spaces, it also includes hoods, balaclavas and helmets however it is criticised for targeting Muslim women, who are unable to uphold their religious beliefs due to law (Leane, 2011). This raises questions around moral panic within France. If we look at how the government and citizens of France reacted after the attacks on their major cities, it seems people feel restless towards muslim women expressing their cultural differences through the way they dress (Abdullahi, 2018). This is obvious in the summer of 2016 because around 30 French costal towns in which the mayors banned woman wearing the Burkini at public pools, or on beaches. This sparked international news and a media storm, because French authorities were demanding women to get off the beach and fined 150 euros, if they refused (Leane, 2011). One instance was captured in Nice of an older women stripping in front of male authorities and the rest of the public on the beach. The burqini’s design adheres to the islamic code of dress, and is certified and authorised by the community. Aheda Zanetti designed the burqini “to change the islamic symbol of the veil…I wanted to make sure we blended in with the Australian lifestyle”. The subsequent reason the Burkini was created, to empower women, bring confidence to a minority group who didn’t have the proper means to participate in the society. It seems as though the French government believe in, inclusion as assimilation, believing that minorities are excluding themselves from wider society if they do not wear certain forms of dress as they are deemed as obstacles to social inclusion (Tebble, 2006). In this case the Burkini is seen as an obstacle due to having a resemblance to the burka, the visual connotations are still evoked. The ban of the burka was a way of ensuring women had the physical capacity to integrate into society. But Zanetti designed the burqini was meant to be a way for muslim women to take part in society whilst upholding their religious obligations. However due to the Burqini still being based on that of the burka, French government still saw it as excluding themselves, and instead challenging French values. Most mayors are still instilling the ban although the highest administrative court has deemed the ban a violation of their civil liberties. When the government backed the mayors decision to ban the burkini, the prime minister referred to the burkini as a form of “enslavement”. However Aheda Zanetti who created the garment believes the swimsuit “gives women freedom, not take it away” unlike what France is doing to its female muslim citizens (Zanetti, 2018).
The Iceland Christmas campaign advert (destruction of the rainforests)
The Iceland Christmas campaign advert was banned, said to have breached political advertising rules, and was deemed to be too political to be broadcasted on television. The broadcast code for advertising practice (BCAP) said an ad is prohibited when it is “directed towards a political end” (Butler and Sweney, 2018). Iceland who teamed up with green peace by using a previously made animated short film called “rang-tan” used for campaigning against dirty palm oil, as their primary Christmas campaign. The advert wasn’t approved due to the film being made by green peace which is classed as political organisation and body “who object is wholly or mainly political in nature”. The animated short film features palm oil products and the destruction of the rainforests which are the habitats for Orangutan’s, these monkeys are now considered critically endangered losing 100,000 in the last 10 years, due to loss of habitat in countries like Malaysia, who are a global producer of palm oil. Iceland is the first major UK supermarket to pledge by 2019 the removal of all palm oil in all Iceland-branded products (Butler and Sweney, 2018). The short film is narrated by British actress Emma Thompson, who is known for her environmental concern “If we want to save orangutans from extinction we need to save their home” (David et al., 2018).
The film is about a young orangutan in a girls bedroom, you can see the baby orangutan is looking angry and concerned after finding palm oil in the girls shampoo, she is holding it confused. The next still shows the young girl in the foreground pointing the orangutang to the door, her room is a state, after the oragutan destroyed her clean bedroom. An obvious metaphor for the way humans treat the rainforests, their habitats, the only difference is the young girl can tidy her room again. The orangutan is hanging from the bed, her face half concealed, looking scared and upset. The use of bright colours in the first two stills are blues, pinks and yellows, they make the atmposhere vibrant and welcoming. The contrast of colours between the next two stills turns dark, black and white, whilst singling out the orange haired orangutan. Along with the increasing sound of loud machinery and banging. The depiction of the rainforest becomes scary. The last still singles out the dark mouth like crane, basked in light and the small baby orangutan concealed in dark shadows looking up at the crane. The video ends with gut wrenching statistic that 25 orang-utans die everyday.
After Iceland failed to get the advert on tv, they turned to social media where the ad has been viewed more than 65 million times, making it the highest viewed Christmas campaign of all time. Since the launch of the social media takeover Iceland have gone from a 5.9 rating to a 21.6 rating for consideration among consumers, the highest rating on YouGov and BrandIndex, it even placed ahead of Waitrose in consideration (Hickman, 2018). These two brands could be considered polarising, Waitrose supermarket seems targeted at middle class families, offering an abundance or fresh organic locally sourced ingredients at a high price, in-comparison to Iceland known for the tagline ‘only mums go to Iceland’. It is known as a frozen food supermarket, selling cheap frozen dishes to families in large quantities. It could appear to be an unexpected advert used by Iceland, after their announcement to stop using palm oil, then the ban of there tv ad. Perhaps questionable to how they have taken to social media, and captured the views of millions, and could be argued that they are using prevalent politics of the times, like environmentalism and climate change, in order to get personal gain. Putting forward a concerned and political image to get attention from customers they might not of had before. Using emotive language like the word ‘Ban’ used in many of their tweets “You won’t see our Christmas advert on TV this year, because it was banned. But we want to share Rang-tan’s story with you…Will you help us share the story?”, regarding the advert and many written pieces covering the story. From the perspective of Clearcast the body that was responsible for vetting adverts before they are broadcasted on British television, said that they rejected the tv advert for it was a breach in politics for adverts, made in 2003 communications act (Butler and Sweney, 2018). The difference in language between ‘banned’ and ‘rejected’ is quite insightful of how to capture an audience and use social media and viral videos to ones advantage. An example of how using social media can fall to ones advantage is the 2008 Obama campaign, by using social media to put forth his political manifesto and ideals, he was able to reach a brand new age bracket of voters. Enabling the reach to target a younger generation and first time voters, he was able to get the young persons students vote. I have drawn a line between the Obama campaign and the Iceland Christmas campaign as they have shifted their opinions over to social media, targeting a younger audience, who are more politically aware and using their new political status to get a new revenue of consumers “by bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organise locally, fight smear campaigns” All through the use of social media. Before the launch of no palm oil, Iceland had the tv add slot before I’m a celebrity get me out of here, a popular tv show, targeted at the younger generation. It is interesting to see how even before they began gaining attention from their political campaign they tried to target the younger generation highlighting there cheap, fast quick meals, that would appeal to students, once they put forth a political agenda, they have been flooded with consumers. To point out how when a political issue is brought up in a mainstream setting, people will be quick to agree or disagree. Jumping on the bandwagon of what is trendy and new within popular mainstream culture. Nowadays being politically aware connotes intelligence, understanding and concern. It is much more popular to care about political issues.
Even though Iceland may be using politics for personal gain, they have still created awareness for a pressing political issue regarding deforestation and the critical endangered orangutan. Abusing the use of social media also gets the word out and through globalisation there are forms of interconnectivity that help determine models of social interaction (Downey, 2014). Due to the 65 million views, Greenpeace has got a petition trying to stop the production of dirty palm oil, this has now had over 1 million signatures.
Conclusion
To conclude this essay I have found that many things designed for normal life, can end up turning political to help the state of the world, like the burkini. It began to raise awareness for a product which should be normalised within society, the shock that France’s stance has taken, although sad, shows that not all of society agrees, but the fact that now 14 muslim women have won medals at 2016 olympics shows, you can safely say by starting the conversation it has now began to set itself, with even more sportswear being designed with modesty in mind. Muslim women are now able to dress that everyone deserves to have a product to empower and inspire. Now women can dress modestly and do sport, without the struggles of fighting to wear certain clothing, Although there is still injustice in society, its designs like the burkini bringing these injustices to light and presenting them to the world, changing peoples perceptions and changing the lives of many. We also saw how design used in social media in its quest to raise awareness can be a force to be reckoned with, now that we can communicate all over the globe, it has become so much easier to find the knowledge you want, plus with the help of ‘hype’ and viral videos your design, with holding certain political views can be seen, good or bad. I learned that I can use politics to get certain ideas across I want to be seen, especially with the help of social media.