Islamic Fashion: Subversion or Reinvention of Religious Values?

Abstract

Abstract The embedding of Islam in capital markets has given way to the emergence of an urban Muslim culture in the West resulting from an alliance of consumerism and religious practice sometimes dubbed as “Cool Islam” or “Pop-Islam”. This movement refers to young Muslims abiding by religious practices while adopting the codes of youth and pop culture. Islamic Fashion is one example of this movement. Using frameworks from value theory and drawing on empirical data from the Islamic Fashion sphere, this article explores the intricacies between the consumerist values of products associated to Cool Islam and the traditional values it subverts and reinvents, suggesting, beyond the critique of consumerism as corrupting spirituality, that it may lead in fact to the revitalization of faith for Muslims living in the West while paving the way for plural exegesis of religious scriptures for Islam as a cult.