Fashion rules

INDEX ON CENSORSHIP

Contributors include Lily Cole, Daphne Selfe, Linda Grant, Bibi Russell, Katy Werlin, Jang Jin-sung, Maggie Alderson and Eliza Vitri Handayani

The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at fashion and how people both express freedom through what they wear. But it also looks at how women in particular have their freedom of expression curtailed by rigid dress codes – whether they are women in Saudi Arabia who have to wear abayas by law or women in the UK and Canada whose employers insist they wear high heels shoes.

Models Lily Cole and Daphne Selfe discuss why changes in society are reflected in the clothes we (are allowed) to wear. Maggie Alderson, former editor of Elle describes how she was arrested for being a punk rocker in the 1970s, while Eliza Vitri Handayani talks about how punks in Indonesia today are still persecuted for what they wear and how they look. Nigerian model and journalist Wana Udobang riffs on fashion in Nigeria and how she was snubbed by bouncers and waiters at a wedding for wearing the wrong clothes.

Index on Censorship for more