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The rise of the transnational veiling-fashion industry in Turkey has taken place within the context of neoliberal economic restructuring, the subjection of the veil to new regulations, and the resurgence of Islamic identities worldwide. Even after almost two decades since its first catwalk appearance, the idea of 'veiling-fashion' continues to be controversial, drawing criticism from secular and devout Muslim segments of society alike. Analysing veiling-fashion as it plays out across economic, political and cultural fields is to enter into a new understanding of the role of Islam in the global arena today. Veiling-fashion crystallises a series of issues about Islamic identity, the transnational linkages of both producers and consumers, and the shifting boundaries between Islamic ethics and the imperatives of neoliberal capitalism. In this paper, our overarching argument is that controversies and practices surrounding veiling-fashion show how Islamic actors are adapting and transforming neoliberal capitalism at the same time as they navigate a complex geopolitical terrain in which Islam -and the iconic Muslim, headscarf-wearing woman -has been cast as a threatening 'Other'. Thus the rise of veiling-fashion as a transnational phenomenon positions women and women's bodies at the centre of political debates and struggles surrounding what it means to be 'modern' and Muslim today. Based on interviews with producers, consumers and salesclerks, and our analysis of newspaper articles, catalogues and web sites, this article traces out how the transnational production, sale and consumption of veiling-fashion works to order spaces of geopolitics, geo-economics and subject formation.

In this article we examine recent heated debates about the acceptability of the veil in public institutions in Turkey and France. France's adoption of a law that banned all conspicuous religious and political symbols from public schools was a focal point in these debates. A restraining attitude towards veiling is even more extensive in Turkey. In this article we focus on the historical and contemporary connections between these two secular republics, as well as the ideological context of global neoliberalism and the policies of suprastate and transnational organizations to analyse how the discourses and practices of secularism have been employed with respect to the question of wearing veils in public institutions. We argue that the concept of secularism, of which the veil debate is one component, has been important for state formation and economic development in both Turkey and France, and that in the contemporary period it is also employed with respect to the image of a particular kind of unattached and unbiased neoliberal subject. France and Turkey provide revealing cases of the ways in which contemporary secularism as a technology of governance reflects both historical patterns and new trends in the neoliberal era.

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What makes a commodity ‘Islamic’? By focusing on the question of ‘Islamic‐ness’ as it traverses both material and symbolic production, this paper aims to contribute to recent research in geography on the lives of commodities. Our study demonstrates the instability of Islamic‐ness in the veiling‐fashion industry in Turkey and draws out the implications of this finding for our understanding of the socio‐spatial work of the commodity. The veiling‐fashion (or tesettür) sector has become a conspicuous part of the Turkish apparel industry in the past 30 years. Firms producing veiling‐fashion engage in the design, production, marketing and sale of distinctive commodities stylised to signify Islamic‐ness. We begin by situating veiling‐fashion within the broader contours of the Turkish apparel industry, economic restructuring and the rise of an Islamic habitus in Turkey. Based on our 2008 survey of 174 veiling‐fashion firms in Turkey and our case studies of three such firms, we seek to understand how and to what extent the commodity is inscribed as an Islamic commodity in the course of its life, from financing to marketing. We use survey data to explore the role of Islamic banking practices, Islamic trading practices and Islamic workplace ethics in the itinerary of veiling‐fashion. Drawing on our case studies of three veiling‐fashion firms (Tekbir, Boutique Dayı and Armine), we show how these companies represent their ambivalent relationships to Islamic‐ness, both as a set of values and as a particular milieu in Turkey. Through this analysis, we find that the Islamic‐ness of the commodity cannot in fact be located or fixed; it is instead best understood as a mode of insertion into socio‐spatial networks. Veiling‐fashion as a commodity thus enters into and becomes constitutive of the wider material and symbolic networks that enact Islamic‐ness in Turkey today.