Dina Torkia’s Modestly: Beauty work, autobiographical habitus and the modest fashion influencer

Abstract

The article examines the Islamic fashion vlogger Dina Torkia’s book Modestly in terms of the ways in which it combines beauty and fashion advice and tutorials relating to modest fashion, hijab styling and cosmetics application. Through a critical discourse analysis of the book’s narrative and its many beauty- and fashion-based images, the article stresses how, having gained renown as a social media-based influencer and vlogger, Torkia’s book represents a remediated approach to communication practices of beauty and style advice. Hence, in a printed book form, Modestly consistently combines instruction with autobiographical content. In this regard, the article explores the differing ways that Modestly articulates expressions of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus in the context of modest Islamic fashion. This is explored in terms of the nature of the beauty and fashion instruction that is the main focus of the book, but also in how the autobiographical aspects of the text articulate Torkia’s self-reflections on cultural and sartorial habitus in relation to a Muslim lifestyle, modest dress and beauty conventions and changing perceptions and articulations of cultural hybridity and intersectional identity.

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