Hussein Chalayan, spring-summer 1998

For the close of his spring/summer 1998 collection, Hussein Chalayan offered a glimpse behind the veil of Muslim modesty. During the finale, six models entered and assembled onstage. The first wore a face mask and nothing else. Each successive model wore an increasingly longer version of the niqab, obscuring more and more of her nude body. “It was about defining your space structurally and graphically. It wasn’t really supposed to be offensive,” said the designer, a secular Turk born in Cyprus. “This was about the cultural loss of self.”
via nymag