Hejab(s)

In Iran, Islamic law imposes a strict dress code on women, which they must adopt in public spaces. They must first wear the manto, a loose jacket that goes down to at least the knees and which must not reveal any shape; and of course there is the hejab, the Islamic veil.

There are several types of hejabs. The chador is a long black robe covering the entire body, hiding the hair and only reveals the face. The maghna-e is a hood used for institutional places: at school, at university, and in the workplace. And then there are the roosari (triangle of fabric tied around the chin) and shal (simple scarf passed over the hair) which grant women much more freedom in the choice of patterns, colors, and in the wearing. This type of hejab allows for true personal expression, and in the street this translates into great diversity ; through colors that resonate, through particular patterns, very bright tones, hair that is more or less visible, through a play between the veiled and the unveiled. Many women therefore wear the hejab in a unique way, in their own way.

But this freedom sometimes reaches its limits. Thus it is not uncommon to see some women correctly put their shal back on, at full speed, when they see the vans of the gasht-e ershad (the Islamic police) in the distance. These vans often park in busy places in Tehran, looking for women wearing "bad" hejabs to take them away and "lecture" them.

I wanted to take pictures of these free women, who, while respecting the codes imposed by Islamic law, appropriate them to better express their singularity, their personality and assume their femininity in broad daylight. Courageous, proud, independent, they agree to pose in front of the lens of a man, of a foreigner.