(NYT)
The woman credited with creating the burkini
said the controversy over efforts to ban the full-body bathing suit
worn by some Muslim women has helped bolster demand for her invention,
which she said was not meant to be a political statement.
Aheda
Zanetti, the Lebanese-Australian inventor of the swimsuit, said
officials in more than a dozen French beach towns seeking to prevent
women from covering up have misconstrued the purpose of the bathing
suit.
“They’ve
misunderstood the burkini swimsuit,” Ms. Zanetti, 49, said in a
telephone interview from Sydney. “Because the burkini swimsuit is
freedom and happiness and lifestyle changes — you can’t take that away
from a Muslim, or any other woman, that chooses to wear it.”
Ms. Zanetti said she designed the garment in 2004 for women who wanted to show less skin while bathing or exercising.
“I
wanted to introduce a full range of clothing to suit a Muslim woman —
or any woman — that wanted a bit of modesty and wanted to participate in
any sporting activities,” said Ms. Zanetti, who is a Muslim and wears
her own swimwear products. “It was also my aim for them not to be judged
for who they are, or where they’re from, and who people think they’re
representing.”
A
fashion designer and former hairdresser, Ms. Zanetti coined the name
“burkini,” a blend of the words burqa and bikini, but said that the
swimsuit was not intended to exclude non-Muslims and was not meant to be
a political statement.
The French “burkini” bans, and the news reports about the ensuing debate, have been good for business, she said, with online sales rising about 200 percent in recent days. Most demand is coming from Australia,
Europe and Canada, she said, and some new customers include skin-cancer
patients who are looking for ways to shield their skin from the sun.
Ms. Zanetti said that her company, Ahiida,
has sold 700,000 swimsuits since 2008. The company sells its products
in stores in Australia, Europe, the Middle East, the United States and
Southeast Asia.
Ms.
Zanetti, who moved to Australia from Lebanon as a 2-year-old, said that
she did not feel comfortable wearing traditional swimsuits as a young
girl. She and her friends would sometimes swim in full clothing, she
said, but they did not linger in the water because they were
embarrassed.
Years later, she said, her teenage niece wanted to play netball, a game
similar to basketball that is played mostly by women, but was prohibited
by her local Sydney league from playing while wearing a hijab. Ms.
Zanetti said her sister wrote a letter of complaint to league officials,
who reversed their decision.
Even so, Ms. Zanetti said that her niece’s hijab was “completely unsuitable” for athletics.
Ms.
Zanetti said she designed the “burkini,” which covers everything except
the face, hands and feet, so that women like her niece could cover and
still participate comfortably in sport. She also created the hijood —
headwear attached to the “burkini,” to look like the hood of a
sweatshirt.
Ms.
Zanetti said that her four children, who once “rolled their eyes” over
her swimwear innovations, have recently become more interested as they
follow the news from France.
She
said that her children have noticed “that I have a strong voice on
behalf of women, for freedom of choice, ” she said. “I can feel how
proud they are, more than they’ve ever been.”