The Unbearable Chic-ness of Jihad
Not so long ago, the only place in Tehran that I might spy a pair of Dolce and Gabbana heels would have been in a smuggled copy of Vogue. These days, I need only walk through my neighborhood. High above a busy intersection where hard-liners hang “Death to America” banners looms a huge D&G billboard featuring a pair of pointy alligator-skin heels and a rather exquisite espresso-colored handbag. The Italian label is not the first to entice my neighbors with the promise of designer brand status: Last winter, an Escada billboard appeared over the local square, advertising “casual luxury look” accessories. As if none of this were enough, two weeks ago Iran’s first full-scale Western boutique opened for business nearby. The first day, as they hung up the Benetton sign and filled the windows with satin flip-flops and beach totes, I stood outside gawking, wondering what the Afghan day laborers waiting on the corner thought of the giant posters of blonde women in effusive motion. Overnight, the women in the poster had the tops of their heads chopped off (no veil), but their frozen smiles still beckon shoppers inside to buy $40 fuschia mini-skirts for girls under six.
Royal Namesakes
Having written previously in TIME about baby names banned under the Islamic Republic, I now feel obliged to share my recent discovery that a handful of names were also banned in Shah-era Iran. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi forbade certain common Farsi names such as Amir (prince) or Homayoun (imperial), whose literal meanings made them, in his eyes, the exclusive domain of the royal family. Given the popularity of such names among ordinary Iranians, this is hardly less absurd than the Islamic government banning names of pre-Islamic, Persian origin. Whether the
impulse to ban names arises from royal delusions of grandeur or an ideological campaign against Iran’s pre-Islamic past, what does seem clear is that successive Iranian governments have exercised their identity anxieties by decreeing what people can and cannot name their children.
“Halal” Music Makes a Comeback
Last summer, when Ostad Mohammad-Reza Lotfi — Iran’s most accomplished classical musician and tar master — returned from exile in the West to found a music school, hordes of eager young musicians stood in interminable lines under the Tehran sun, instrument cases tucked under their arms, waiting to take the entrance exam. The opportunity to study with the legendary composer drew star-struck young people from all across the country. Enough women showed up for an all women’s orchestra.
Located on a dilapidated block near Pich-e Shemroon, a central neighborhood that retains the dusty charm of old Tehran, the school occupies the quarters where Lotfi taught before being shut-down by authorities after the 1979 revolution. He returned once in the mid-1990s to re-open the school, but the government promptly cracked down and Lotfi returned to Europe. So, why now, under the tenure of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is Lotfi’s school of music is being tolerated?