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Posted on 06/05/2005 12:15:15 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Simin slips into the local beauty salon once a month. Her hair is blow dried and styled and her face made up — and then she hides it all under her headscarf, and heads back out into the real world.
Iranian women may be obliged to wear the chador — literally meaning tent — or otherwise a long coat and headscarf whenever they head outdoors, but that has not dampened their appetite to pamper themselves.
"I do it because it makes me feel good," says Simin, a housewife and mother of two in her mid-30s.
"It is in a woman’s nature, she wants to look beautiful," explained hair stylist Farideh Yasami, busy applying streaks of red and blonde dye into another client’s hair that will also never see the light of day.
Her busy salon is tucked away on a Tehran side street. Clients are buzzed in through a door that also carries the sign "No gentlemen permitted".
"Many of my clients are religious women who wear the chador," Yasami explains. "They all want the trendiest haircuts and colourings."
For the past 26 years, Iran’s ruling clerics have been at pains to keep women under wraps and away from the risk of "Westoxication".
But that does not mean women are not expected to please their husbands at home, or otherwise desire to keep up with Western fashions as a feel-good release of frustration and a way of resisting authorities.
According to trader Ardavan Babai, sales of cosmetics and Western fashions are one of Iran’s biggest retail opportunities, with the Iranian market continuing to lure big-name lipstick, powder and paint manufacturers from Europe.
"Cosmetics are a part of every woman’s shopping basket. Even the teenagers know how to apply discreet but flawless make-up," he told AFP.
"Our suppliers have even modified their publicity to conform to the Islamic code," he said, pointing to a perfume advert devoid of the usual seminaked model.
Elsewhere in Tehran, trendy fashion and lingerie stores are also appearing, despite occasional raids by Islamist militiamen — who still try in vain to stop headscarves from slipping back and coats from getting too colourful.
"It is a very profitable business," explained store owner Mohammad Emami, who switched from selling kitchenware to off-the-peg fashions three years ago and hasn’t looked back. "The only concern is moral clampdowns."
"I feel limited by the coat and scarf," complained Mahsa Raoofi, a 21-year-old student who spends most of her small income from a parttime job on fashion.
"But I can dress as I want in parties and I hate to look frumpy," she said, trying on a pair of slinky pink slip-ons.
Fitness clubs have also mushroomed across the wealthier parts of Tehran, and another bizarre boom from behind the veil is that of cosmetic surgery.
Doctor Abdollah Abbasi, one of Iran’s busiest plastic surgeons, says he has performed some 14,000 operations in the past nine years — ranging from minor facelifts to nose jobs, breast enlargements and liposuction.
"Nose jobs still top the list. But the number of women who want to get rid of their fat bellies or wish to have a different cup size is increasing," Abbasi said, adding that some women turn up at his office asking to be transformed into US pop stars Jennifer Lopez or Britney Spears.
"I have had religious patients who feel uncomfortable being examined by a male doctor but still opt for the surgery," he said. "They also want to be beautiful."
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Yes - but does it enrage the Arab Street? That's the question we must always keep in mind, every day and every night - is what we, or anyone across the globe, are doing enraging the Arab Street?
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