AusLeisure

A ban on women wearing burqini swimsuits at a number of French beaches has thrust Sydney-based fashion designer Aheda Zanetti into the international media spotlight.

With France’s secular traditions having seen Muslim women banned from wearing the burqa (a full-body covering that also covers the face) since 2010, recent jihadi-inspired terrorist incidents in France have seen a backlash against elements of Islamic culture.

As a result, several French municipalities have banned women wearing Zanetti’s burqini - a swimsuit design for women that covers the whole body except the face, hands and the feet - from public beaches.

The ban in the Cote D'Azur town of Cote Villeneuve-Loubet was described by local authorities as "necessary, appropriate and proportionate" to prevent public disorder, describing burqinis as "liable to offend the religious convictions or non-convictions of other users of the beach," and "be felt as a defiance or a provocation exacerbating tensions felt by" the community.

Various factors have turned contributed to current French attitudes including the presence of Western Europe’s largest Muslim community, French participation in conflicts from the Middle East to Mali, the tensions deriving from France’s troubled colonial past (notably in Algeria), and, perhaps most of all, the Republic’s firm doctrine of laïcité, or secularism, designed to subsume all ethnic, racial, religious and other differences into French citizenship.

Designed to preserve the modesty of Muslim women, while being light enough to enable swimming, when Zanetti designed the burqini almost a decade ago it was to replace the practice of Muslim women bathing fully clothed at public beaches and pools.

Zanetti’s burqini, also referred to as a ‘burkini’, was designed to enable Muslim women to fulfill both their religious obligations and swimming needs.

Since its creation, Zanetti’s burqinis, made in Villawood in Western Sydney, have been sold around the world with over 700,000 swimsuits sold – of which around 45% are sold to non-Muslims.

Resembling a wetsuit, and also reducing dangers of sunburn, burqinis have also been used by female Muslim surf livesavers. 

Zanetti sees that her burqini is seen as a symbol of integration, telling media over recent days “this is about choice.

"The burqini stands for freedom, flexibility and confidence, it does not stand for misery, torture and terror ... (women wearing) a burqini feel it is a part of integration."

For Zanetti, news of recent bans in France has increased sales, leading her to change courier companies to enable faster delivery to Europe.

She adds “every time anyone says something bad about the burkini, I get enquires and sales out of it."

Click here to view Ahiida Pty Ltd's entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory. 

Lower image: Mecca Laa Laa wears a burqini while on surf lifesaving patrol at North Cronulla Beach in February 2007.

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