Women’s Apparel in Cinema after the Islamic Revolution

The covering of women in Iran is simultaneously a cultural, religious and ideological issue. Therefore its representation is dependent on the values and norms of these dimensions. This article looks at the representation of women’s clothing and the changes that have occured therein. The authors, using discussions on popular culture, have tried to explain cinema’s impact on the forms of representation of women’s clothing. According to the findings that come from content analysis of 103 films during 3 periods after the Revolution, the covering of women has changed so that the total coverage of body and head has diminished in importance. The domination of chador from the Iran-Iraq war period has decreased in favor of other types of dress. The authors reveal that cinema has gradually moved from a hegemonic representation of women’s dress (chador) as a formal ideology towards the representation of counterhegemonic dress (presenting a negative image of chador) in the third phase of films analyzed.