Abstract
This article provides insight into the fashionable veiling trend in Amman, Jordan. Drawing on interviews I conducted in 2011 and 2012, I argue that the women in this study understand veiling to be a means for enhancing, rather than containing, the beauty of the body. Through my analysis, I closely examine the borderline space between the ideals of beautification and concealment and how women construct their fashionable veiling in it. By reading the women’s deployment of these ideals against their juristic connotations, I underscore the significance of the veiled Muslim femininity that they construct. The article also explores the “regimes of veiling” that regulate the practice in Amman and how they enable this particular articulation of veiling. I found the women’s reasoning for fashionable veiling to be more about gendered cultural codes than religious mandates.
