Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
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Net-a-porter UK

Monday 14 January 2008

Why is my teenage daughter dressing like Yasser Arafat . . .

. . . Jonathan Goldberg of London NW3 (that's Hampstead) asks Hadley Freeman in in the Guardian today. I have dealt with this question before in the Thoughtful Dresser, but Hadley puts her finger on it:

Now, before I sweepingly dismiss your daughter's dabblings in Yasser chic, there is a chance that she is merely showing her unflagging support for Palestinian nationalism, this being a particularly canny cause for a north-west London girl with the surname of "Goldberg" to light upon should she want to annoy her father. [my italics] But assuming that your daughter is more fashion-conscious than cheekily provocative, then she is doing this because she would like to be fashionable.

As we know, keffiyeh chic has reached catwalks. The Balenciaga keffiyeh at £750, sold out before it reached the shops.

Surely with tens of thousands of teeneg girls wearing Top Shop copies, an end to the Middle East crisis must be just around the corner?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wear mine over my Che T shirt. Does that make me doubly revolutionary or just twice as stupid?

Kuri said...

Wow, I've been seeing people wearing keffiyehs for years now. Balenciaga's behind the times here.

alison said...

I know Linda's being ironic, and I'm generally a supporter of Palestinian nationalism, but I find this trend deeply disturbing. People don't realise that the colour of the keffiyeh and the manner in which it's worn denote a Palestinian faction. A red and white scarf might look fabulous, but to those in the know it marks the wearer out as Hamas. Comfortable with that?