Burqa Haute Couture? Givenchy says “Oui!”

The legendary French fashion house Givenchy has posted its response to Nicolas Sarkozy’s comments that the Burqa should be banned in France on its runways in Paris (photos below).

The whole France Burqa craze started when Sarkozy said in comments to the French Parliament, “We cannot accept, in our country, women imprisoned behind a mesh, cut off from society, deprived of all identity. That is not the French republic’s idea of women’s dignity.”

Fair enough Mr. President, but then I must ask you, which government commitee is responsible for determining women’s dignity? In the new France would Alizée (loved here at Qizilbash for being so je ne sais quoi) still be allowed to perform? Or would that be an insult to the “republic’s idea of women’s dignity?”

To be fair, a lot of people throughout the world, Muslims included, don’t particularly fancy the Burqa, or the Abaya (which is more commonly seen in France.) But what many protest is the idea that it is an impossibility for a woman to want to wear one. It smacks of the Orientalist idea of the submissive Eastern woman without a thought of her own.

France is a great place because a woman or a man, can walk down the street completely covered or half-naked. Why change that by picking on one religion? If Sarko is successful how long until Sikhs can’t walk down the street in turbans, and Hasidic Jews have to shave off their beards and cut their hair?

more photos can be found here