Tony Abbott claims DFAT’s Muslim ‘modest fashion’ exhibition ignores ‘mainstream Australian values’

SHOULD taxpayers cough up for a ‘modest fashion’ exhibition aimed at Muslim women? Tony Abbott doesn’t think so.

FORMER PM Tony Abbott has accused a government agency of selling out “mainstream Australian values” with a taxpayer-funded Muslim “modest fashion” exhibition.

Mr Abbott said he was “dismayed” and “flabbergasted” the Department of Foreign ­Affairs and Trade (DFAT) had sponsored an exhibition of Australian-made “modest fashion” aimed at Muslim women in Malaysia.

DFAT took the exhibition to the majority-Muslim country in a bid to promote Australian diversity and to get in on the booming “modest fashion” market.

The term “modest fashion” refers to the trend of wearing less skin-revealing clothes and is not limited to hijabs or items typically associated with the Islamic faith.

The controversial exhibition featured burkini swimsuit inventor Aheda Zanetti, Australian fashion designer Ilham A Ismail and academic Susan Carland and has been described as a foray into “fashion diplomacy”.

But according to The Australian, Mr Abbott said the sponsorship ignored “mainstream values”.

“I am just quite frankly flabbergasted that an official Australian government agency should be pandering to what is, to put it at its kindest, an incredibly old-­fashioned view of modesty,” he said.

“To the extent that DFAT is getting into this space, it should be comforting people’s right to defy stifling ­orthodoxy, not to be ­coerced by it.

“We want Australians to be free and open, we want them to show their face and if they want to show a bit of their arms and their legs and wear a bikini, well, we ­celebrate that, we don’t apologise for it.”

But Ms Ismail, whose designs appeared in the world’s first “modest-wear fashion shows” in Italy and Dubai last year, said the exhibition was a great opportunity for Australian designers to tap into the lucrative, growing modest fashion industry.

“Australia is the most ­multicultural country in the world and if we’re not promoting different parts of our society here, where would we?” she told The Australian.

“This is a product that is made in Australia, providing jobs for Australians, and showcasing our products to other countries such as Malaysia,” Ms Zanetti said.

“There are 1.5 billion Muslims around the world and more than half of them are women. We haven’t tapped into it enough.”

DFAT has predicted Islamic modest fashion to grow by more than seven per cent by 2021.

A department spokeswoman said fashion diplomacy was an important way to put Australian designers in touch with global markets.

“Fashion diplomacy is about promoting Australian designers, manufacturers and textile producers around the world,” the spokeswoman said.

The Faith, Fashion, Fusion: Muslim Women’s Style in Australia exhibition was developed by the NSW government’s Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in 2012 and it launched in Malaysia in November 2017.

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Originally published as Tony Abbott claims DFAT’s Muslim ‘modest fashion’ exhibition ignores ‘mainstream Australian values’