Islamic fashion in Malaysia: the commodification of religious values on Instagram

ABSTRACT

Islamic fashion has expanded considerably in the last five years and it has gained favour from people due to different branding communication strategies. One of the major strategies is commodifying Islamic teachings to make and sell female attire that appeals to Muslim women. To understand this phenomenon, this article examines five Malaysian Muslim women’s fashion brands on Instagram, analysing the language and pictures used to represent Muslim women and communicate Islamic values. Using frameworks in Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), this article investigates how local Muslim women’s fashion brands represent Muslim women and how they use language and pictures to transmit Islamic messages related to Islamic fashion on Instagram. The analysis reveals that Muslim women’s fashion brands on Instagram have successfully commodified Islamic principles by communicating them through fashion by portraying Malaysian Muslim women as modern, sophisticated and fashion-savvy individuals. These findings also indicate that local fashion brands have successfully commodified Islamic principles by communicating them through fashion, increasing societal awareness of Islamic practices in Malaysia.

KEYWORDS:

• Commodification
• Instagram
• Muslim women’s fashion
• Muslim women’s identity
• Malaysia

SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION CODES:

• linguistics
• communication
• discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Che Nooryohana Zulkifli

Che Nooryohana Zulkifli’s interests revolve around the study of discourse that focuses on identity construction and religious commodification, particularly on social media platforms.

Kumaran Rajandran

Kumaran Rajandran is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He teaches BA and MA courses and supervises MA and PhD research in Linguistics. His research involves the multimodal study of various discourses, exploring the articulation of identity and ideology in contemporary societies.