Designer credits French burkini ban for sales boom

Nisaa FM:-  The woman who invented the burkini has reaped a tenfold jump in sales since France banned her swimwear, and says her coveralls have opened a whole new sporting life for Muslim women.

Thousands of women in Europe – many non-Muslims – now buy her swimsuit to cover up at the beach, while many Muslims use the burkini to work out more freely.

No matter the buyer, designer Aheda Zanetti said her business had boomed with the controversy, which saw police parading French beaches to root out burkini-clad offenders.

“Whoever it was in France [that banned the burkini] has done so much good for my business and for women who thought they could never buy a swimsuit like this” said the Lebanese-born designer, who has lived in Australia for more than 40 years.

Zanetti said her invention had encouraged many more Muslim women to take part in sports as it gave them an unprecedented confidence to work out with modesty, in keeping with Islam.

“It was all about women’s rights, it was all about choices,” Zanetti told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

The burkini – a linguistic mix of bikini and burqa – is in fact neither, but is simply a loose-fitting swimsuit that leaves only a woman’s face, hands and feet exposed.

Dozens of French towns banned it in August last year, saying the burkini defied French laws on secularism.

A court overruled that ban, saying the garment posed no threat to public order.

Zanetti, a former hairdresser, designed the swimsuit in 2004 so that Muslim women who choose to wear a head covering could still participate in water activities and other sports.

Now plenty of non-Muslim women want one, too. An estimate of 40 % of orders are from non- Muslims be it cancer survivors, body-conscious mothers or women who want more sun protection for their skin.

Sales have jumped from an average 200 a month to 2,000 since the ban, with most orders coming from Europe, she said.

Source: www.reuters.com