Women Dress

Perhaps the most visible mark of Iran’s Islamic leanings is the conservative dress. Although normal Western-style clothing is acceptable in private homes, when in public women are required to cover their body and hair. Since the revolution of 1979 all women in Iran, including foreigners, have been required by law to wear loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. They must also cover their hair. This form of dressing is known as Hejab, a term that refers in general to ‘modest’ dress, and is also used to refer specifically to the hair-covering. Signs in public places show officially acceptable versions of hejab: the chador, an all-encompassing, black garment; or a manteau and a rusari (scarf) covering the hair, neck and décolletage. Girls must start to wear hejab when they reach puberty. As a foreigner, a female traveler is officially expected to cover her hair. Usually more tolerance tends to be shown towards foreigners over the detail of the dress code than is the case for Iranian women. However, this does not include leaving one’s hair fully uncovered. “Acceptable” outfits may include a, loose dress or shirt worn over loose skirt or pants and a scarf in the summer, and a woolen coat and scarf in the winter (calf-length is acceptable if worn over pants). All colors and modest designs are acceptable. It’s not unusual to see young women in the larger cities wearing figure-hugging manteaus (often tightly belted trench-coats), skinny jeans, high zx heels and colorful rusaris that have been arranged to offer plentiful glimpses. But in the smaller cities, towns and villages this rarely happens – the chador is common and those who don’t wear it are clad in an ensemble of shapeless coat, black pants, sensible shoes and a maqna’e (nun-like head scarf, or wimple). Color schemes are uniformly dull.