Noura, a 30-year-old Iranian woman raised in a religious household, wore a head-to-toe black veil known as a chador from a young age. Not any more.
At a fashion event in northern Tehran late last year she wore a long-sleeved white shirt under a toe-length navy vest with her hair fully covered by a white, pink and blue scarf: not an outfit traditionally associated with conservative Iranian women. But Noura was there in search of the latest trends to blend her faith with her interest in fashion.
“The chador is not the only option,” she said. “We still wear the hijab, but we do it with a sense of style and fashion.”
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been required to wear chadors or loose-fitting overgarments known as manteaus as part of a compulsory dress code. But norms have changed dramatically since 2022 when mass protests against the treatment of women rattled the regime, with a growing number of young urban-dwellers rejecting headscarves altogether.
Aside from those opting for outright defiance, however, are conservative women like Noura who — far from the frontline of political protest — have taken to wearing colourful hijabs, cropped coats, jackets and loose shirts in a sign of how women are pushing for more freedom even within the regime’s patriarchal strictures.
This demand for more designs and vibrant colours for conservative Iranian women’s wardrobes has given rise to a growing industry of designers and models, particularly in large cities like Tehran. Hijab bloggers also shape trends on social media, with some designing outfits and make-up styles for religious occasions.
Mahsa Mahmoudian, 33, a fashion designer and model in the capital, said that production of “old-style manteaus” had declined steeply. “Many conservative women are instead looking for cropped coats and long skirts,” she said, adding that there was growing demand for “colourful fabrics with intricate rhinestone designs and sparkly accessories”.
Iranian authorities, concerned about political stability amid economic distress, have so far welcomed the move towards more stylish Islamic dress, including issuing permission for fashion shows. They have also sought to expand other personal freedoms on offer, such as by lifting a ban on WhatsApp and Google Play last month.
Demand for greater autonomy helped lead to the election in July of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who came to power on a promise to remove hijab patrols from the streets and end violent detention of women.
“Iranian society has entered a new era wherein the rules governing social life are evolving,” Fariba Nazari, a sociologist based in Tehran, said. “People, irrespective of gender, social class and religious beliefs, are adapting themselves to this new era.”
The turning point, Iranians say, was the demonstrations that erupted in 2022 after Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained for allegedly violating hijab rules, died in custody — an event that prompted even many conservative women to express their anger.
But, even as the regime has tentatively accommodated some limited liberalisation, hardliners have nonetheless sought to crack down on women who defy the hijab outright.
Almost every week, leaders of Friday prayers across the country pledge a zero-tolerance approach, while the state-run Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said in November it was launching a “clinic” to offer “psychological and counselling services” to women declining to wear the hijab.
Sogand, 28, had her car seized by police in Tehran last summer because she flouted hijab rules while driving. She was also stopped from having her licence plate number changed at a government office because her hair was uncovered, and since then has carried a scarf in her handbag “just in case”. To her, shunning the hijab is “not about protesting” but “exercising my personal choice”.
MPs and the powerful Guardian Council last year passed the Hijab and Chastity Law, which threatens cash fines and jail terms for those who violate the dress code. Pezeshkian said in December, however, that his administration was not prepared to implement the new law and warned it could “undermine national solidarity”.
Even those hijab-wearing women who have sought more fashion options have met with disapproval from some conservatives. Farzaneh Kaseb Ahadi, a religious studies teacher in Tehran, said these trends ran against the “chastity and simplicity” behind the hijab.
“Wearing heavy make-up or putting on clothes that reveal body shape, in the name of hijab style, is misleading,” she said, accusing some designers of “doing it for financial gains”.
The hijab was a totemic issue in Iran even before the Islamic revolution. In 1936, the monarch Reza Shah introduced a shortlived ban on women wearing veils as he sought to introduce western-style modernisation.
The country continued to encourage western fashion under the four-decade reign of his son Mohammad Reza Shah but left women free to wear the hijab if they wished. The 1979 revolution reversed that with its mandatory Islamic dress code.
Ahadi, the religious studies teacher, said the hijab was “Islam’s social rule” to regulate public conduct. “Today, those who are opposed to hijab constitute a small minority,” she said.
Nazari, the sociologist, believed that the societal changes were irrevocable, however. “If the assumption is that society will go back to before the 2022 [protests] . . . I don’t think that is going to happen,” she said.
To hijab-wearing Noura, respecting women’s dress choices was important — even if she had no desire to stop wearing headscarves herself. “We need to be mindful of the evolving social norms,” she said. “Many women not covering their hair is the new normal. My family is even grateful that I am still keeping my hijab.”
