Salar Bil's Diaspora article

Ten fingers attached on the palm of the hand which can create objects that have artistic value. In fact, it has been the artist's hands throughout history that has created the work of art. Also in the field of fashion, the designer's hand first draws a design on paper and then the same hand sits behind the tailor and sews the fabric by touching it.
Charles Frederick Worth described fashion in literature in the nineteenth century, and thus fashion can be called style. On the other hand, fashion has been in crisis since the 1980s, till it was announced its death in the 2000s, when the stylist became more prominent figure in fashion industry than ever. In fact, the stylist chooses clothes with their own hands and creates a new concept.
In the "Golhaa" (=Flowers RADIO PROGRAM), I mentioned the concept of cosmopolitanism, which appeared on the second side of the television program "Flowers" and introduced a style of Iranian femininity that had a global aspect. This is a global aspect of the diaspora. That is, part of the cultural productions is made abroad. Of course, as Ehsan Yarshater believes, culture is the homeland and not the soil. Therefore, in the following, I will discuss the formed discourses about the Iranian diaspora and fashion.
In fact, in my new collection I have tried to include fragments from my previous collections to show the context of my work, as well as focusing more on the concept of style. Also, considering the policies of marginalization and exclusion, as well as the policies of Iranian diaspora culture, I would like to discuss the concept of diaspora and its role in creating a not-so-pleasant scene of popular culture in fashion. The diaspora actually means leaving the homeland and migrating elsewhere. But in our current culture, the diaspora forms a major part of cultural scene. As Hamid Keshmirshekan in the history of contemporary Iranian art has dedicated a section to Iranian artists abroad and thus has clarified the impact of Diaspora culture in the formation of the Iranian art scene. One of the diaspora artists is Shirin Neshat, who also had a great impact on the formation of video art and installation in the Iranian art scene. But in fashion the situation is a little different. The Iranian diaspora in fashion has little effect on the way people dressed up, and if it does, it is not very noticeable. On the other hand, there are platforms that spread the so-called popular culture, but instead of promoting the high popular culture, they destroyed it and introduced a new form of the Iranian diaspora in the fashion scene. And not all brand partnerships are one-offs, some being ongoing, such as Yohji Yamamoto's line Y-3 for Adidas. A related development in designer collaborations is the high-high projects between luxury brands or designers. An example is Karl Lagerfeld x Louis Vuitton (2014) that was part of the limited edition series of accessories that celebrated the iconic LV-monogram in honor of the house's 160th anniversary. Though this is not the first time Louis Vuitton has invited other designers to reinterpret their monogram, the example is still interesting in relation to how this type of collaboration seems to challenge the argument that high-low collaborations are a success because they attract new consumer segments to both brands (Fury 2014). Because both Louis Vuitton and Karl Lagerfeld as creative director of Chanel represent luxury fashion, they therefore have similar target groups. However, the collaboration still communicates a positive message of mutual creative honoring which reflects the positive outcome of the high-low capsule collections.
For a long time the conventional concepts of diaspora were embodied by the overall Jewish and Armenian historical experiences of displacement. Diaspora has also been associated with physically dispersed groups of people sharing a common religious and cultural heritage, whose members desire to return to their homeland and maintain cultural distinctiveness and ethnic boundaries in their country of settlement. Although its etymology is linked to dispersal, the older definitions of diaspora are based on the Jewish and the Armenian dispersal from a "center" to at least two "peripheries" (Safran 1991; Cohen 1997). It is in these peripheries that a collective memory about an idealized homeland and the illusion of return to it is constructed and maintained. The myth of return to one's homeland in turn nourishes a sense of being a community in exile among diaspora members. For Safran (1991), in addition to dispersion and myth of return to the idealized homeland, diasporic groups believe that they will never be fully accepted by their new host societies and will remain "partly alienated and insulated" from them. This troubled relationship with the wider society is rooted in their belief that they should remain committed to the maintenance or restoration of the homeland and maintain a strong ongoing ethnocommunal tie with the homeland. Cohen (1997) agrees with Safran's criteria but adds that diasporic communities also maintain a sense of empathy and solidarity with co- ethnic members in other host countries. Cohen also identifies different kinds of diasporas, including victim, labor, imperial, and trade diasporas, and believes that diasporic groups may develop a distinctive and creative life with tolerance for pluralism in host countries. Since the 1990s, as with so many concepts parallel to the increase in transnationalism studies, this ancient concept has been contested in terms of its definition and meaning, and the number of meanings attached to it continue to proliferate across disciplines (Tsolidis 2014; Vertovec 2009; Dufoix 2003). One of the major criticisms of the classical definitions of diaspora is that it is based for the most part on the historic experience of Jews and other religious minorities. Unlike most scholars who tend to recognize Jews as the archetypal diaspora in the traditional literature for interpreting diaspora as a concept, Reis (2004) locates the Jewish experience as part of a Classical Period that is primarily associated with ancient diaspora and ancient Greece. In addition to the Classical Period, she identifies the Modern Period (servant and colonial) and the Contemporary or Late-modern Period, both of which are consequences of a postcolonial, globalized world characterized by "fragmentation and dislocation."The projected leveling of the fashion hierarchy and the reduction of time lag between inception and demise have created conditions for a scattered flow in the adoption process that moves in several directions at once. This tendency has been enhanced by the general democratic development in which anyone can potentially be a designer, fashion editor, and style icon (Thomas 2007; Agins 1999; Lipovetsky 1994). The effects of this have been understood as an acceleration of fashion (Loschek 2009), stylistic pluralism (Laver 2012), and creative democracy (Polhemus 1994). Fashioning identity requires ambivalence management within shifting social, aesthetic, and symbolic regulations. While it still holds true more than a century later that "change itself does not change" (Simmel 1957: 545), the fashion flows have become more complex. Another criticism of the classical notions of diaspora is that they contribute to exclusion and marginalization of immigrants, minorities, and ethnic communities by failing to take into account the current global processes, political environments, and citizenship challenges that encompass all diasporic groups. To overcome these limitations-unlike the classical definitions of diaspora that was limited to religious minorities that were dispersed throughout the world with ties to an idealized mythical homeland- Carment and Bercuson (2008) offer a much broader definition that includes ethnic migrants; first-, second-, and even third-generation immigrants; expatriates; students; guest workers; and refugees. All are members of a diaspora. For Carment and Bercuson (2008), any group who can live in two places and play a simultaneous role in two communities is considered as diaspora. They also argue that "today's diaspora" differ from the previous generation of "ethnic migrants" because late-twentieth-century telecommunications advances and cheap travel allow for "a new type of hyper-connectivity between diasporas and their home communities." James Clifford (1994) makes the same argument and believes that the diaspora concept is widely appropriated for a variety of social, political, and technological forces such as decolonization, increased migration, and advances in global communication; multilocal attachment, belonging, residence, and border-crossing is prompted. In a later work Clifford goes one step further and adds: "In the late twentieth century, all or most communities have diasporic dimensions (moments, tactics, practices, articulations). Some are more diasporic than others" (1994: 310). The newer usage of diaspora, such as the one provided by Carment and Bercuson (2008) and Clifford (1994), overlaps with transnationalism. In their views, living in diaspora and home community simultaneously through modern telecommunications systems turns diasporic communities concurrently into transnational communities, blurs the distinctions between various kinds of cross-border movements, emphasizes transnational mobility as opposed to return to homeland, and focuses on cultural innovation and coexistence of integration into the host society and cultural distinctiveness. Whereas "diaspora" has often been used to describe religious or national groups living outside their homelands, "transnationalism" is often used to denote persistent ties and networks formed by migrants, groups, and organizations across countries (Faist 2010). Scholars of transnational perspective contend that immigrants and their descendants remain strongly influenced by their continuing ties to their home societies. The more difficult conditions for distinction have promoted unscrupulous visual hijacking and mannered protests in fashion for the sole purpose of scrambling the signals of social belonging. Obscuring the sartorial symbols enhances the element of resistance in fashion, stimulating the dynamic where some are early to accept novelties in fashion while others need a longer gestation period. Fashioning identity is personal, intimately linked as it is to our bodies, social bonds, and cultural ties. We tell stories with the way we choose to look, mixing fact and fiction for the desired social effect. Fashion narratives are key vehicles in transmitting these shifting messages of identity. Engaging in identity politics through fashion has become more democratized across gender, class status, ethnic, and age gaps, bound closer through digital media and fast fashion. If we consider fashion to be a powerful potion, the concentration is individually chosen depending on life situation and personal preference. Fashioning identity, regardless of the degree of engagement, operates with a symbolic content that is the same regardless of the concentration. This is linked to the social standards of looking the part in contemporary fashion that allow for schizophrenic shifts between fashionable personas-punks one day, ballerina the next-without it being either more or less than playful self-curation. Whereas "diaspora" has often been used to describe religious or national groups living outside their homelands, "transnationalism" is often used to denote persistent ties and networks formed by migrants, groups, and organizations across countries (Faist 2010). Scholars of transnational perspective contend that immigrants and their descendants remain strongly influenced by their continuing ties to their home societies. Rooted in a global perspective, the central element of this conceptual framework is that immigrants establish and maintain cultural, social, economic, and political ties in both the home and host societies. Through these ties, immigrants link their country of origin and their country of settlement (Basch, Schiller, and Blanc-Szanton 1992). Given their simultaneous participation in multiple transnational settings or social fields, transmigrants continuously convert the economic and social status gained in one society into political, social, and economic gains in another. Moreover, they can contribute both positively and negatively to global political and economic transformations, fortify or impede global religious movements, fuel social movements, and influence the internal functions of states (Levitt and Schiller 2004). The ongoing transnational communications and ties between home and host countries described by scholars of transnational perspective suggest that dispersal of groups to other countries indicates neither a decisive break with the homeland nor a permanent uprooting of the diasporic groups. As such, to have a deeper understanding about modern diasporic communities, it is crucial to understand the powerful global forces that are shaping transnational social, economic, cultural, and political practices of diasporic groups and the formal and informal means through which diasporic groups create and maintain home-host ties. As indicated by Brettell (2006), transnationalism and diaspora are two key concepts in global theories of migration that are conceptually connected and used interchangeably. The connection as described by Levitt (2001b) is such that transnational communities function as building blocks of diasporas. Diasporas, according to Levitt (2001b), are formed out of transnational communities, and transnational communities are formed by individuals who have been displaced voluntarily or involuntarily by a variety of economic, political, and social forces and are scattered throughout the world. Overall, the newer notions of diaspora are more inclusive than the classical definitions and view diaspora as dispersal of any group for any reason, including trade, entrepreneurial, and employment opportunities whose members maintain continuous cross-border linkages to both home and host countries. These notions also suggest that diaspora and transnationality are two sides of the same coin and capture different dimensions of the same global processes. Whereas transnationalism captures the dynamic process through which immigrants draw upon their multiple identities grounded in their home and host societies to create and maintain multiple linkages between different societies, diaspora is "a category or practice, project, claim and stance" (Brubaker 2005: 13) that reflects the ambivalent social space and expresses subjective imaginaries of home culture (whether real or mythical) that are rooted in a potential conflict between migrating or staying in the homeland or, as Clifford suggests, "between roots and routes" (1997: 251). Regardless of its broad meaning, conditions, causes, trajectories, and experiences, diaspora is a social form involving a "triadic relationship" between (1) a collectively self-identified ethnic group that is globally scattered, (2) the host states and territories where such groups are settled, and (3) the home states and territorial contexts from where their ancestors originate (Ver to vec 2009). Moreover, all diaspora-whether contemporary or classical-have been voluntary or imposed; maintained their ethnic identities as a basis for ethnic solidarity; established intricate ethnic and national organizations for support in their host countries; been involved in simultaneous economic activities in their host countries and cultural and political exchanges with their homeland and other diasporic countries of their national origin; and established ethnonational diasporic organization to combat blatant hostility and discrimination in their host countries (Sheffer 2003). The experience of Iranian immigrants is a compelling story that reveals the strong triadic connections between a globally dispersed population, the home country, and the receiving host nation(s). More specifically, the Iranian experience shows the impact of global political forces and diplomatic tensions between home and host societies as well as the historical changes and structural transformation in both on integration, ethnic identity formation, and cultural (re)construction of the diasporic groups and the ways they respond to host discrimination and prejudice. The case of Iranian immigrants stands out in this regard and deserves scholarly attention for two reasons. First, the Iranian diaspora was a consequence of the indelible traumatic Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979 and a total postrevolutionary cultural transformation that forced thousands of professionals, industrialists, students, political activists, journalists, artists, members of religious minorities, and disenchanted and alienated intellectuals to live in exile indeterminately. Second, Iranian's ethnic identity (re)formation in diaspora, and the level of integration into their new host societies, have been deeply shaped by a combination of the Iranian Revolution and the ensuing political tensions between Iran and major Western powers as well as the persistent prejudice, discrimination, and media stereotypes, particularly in Europe and North America, of Muslims and Iranians as religious zealots and terrorists. As Portes and Borocz (1989) remind us, political conditions under which an immigrant population leaves its country of origin and individual class of origin impact integration of immigrants. In addition to political conditions in home society, Portes and Borocz (1989) add, the context of reception- negative, neutral, or favorable-affects attitudes of immigrants toward the host society and their own patterns of settlement, adaptation, and integration. By "reception," Portes and Borocz (1989) mean the attitude of the host government, employers, the surrounding native population, and the characteristics of the preexisting ethnic community. Since the 1978 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent American hostage crisis in Iran in 1979, Iranian immigrants in the West have been continually stigmatized, marginalized, demonized, and politicized due to global Iranophobia, Islamophobia, and Iran's framing as a pariah state, as part of an "axis of evil," and as a "terrorist state" by the United States and its allies. Mohsen Mostafavi Mobasher believed that this "politicization" means a worldwide construction of a political discourse and narrative that categorically applies certain harmful and destructive political and religious images and behaviors to members of a diasporic group based on the political actions of its home state. Framing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, and bitter political relations between Iran and the West since 1979, not only provided a negative official and hostile pubic context of reception that demarcated Iranian immigrants' limit to inclusion and integration but also discredited and distorted their social identity, subjected them to various subtle and overt forms of prejudice, discrimination, and social injustice, and pushed them to the margins in their new host societies.
The negative views of Europeans and Americans reported in the public opinion research results suggest the inhospitable and harsh sociopolitical context under which the Iranian diaspora has been forming since the Iranian Revolution. These unfavorable images of Iran have had consequences for Iranian immigrants in diaspora.
Moreover, the political tensions between Iran and the West, and the widespread negative anti-Iran views in the West, fueled fears of Iranian immigrants as persons of suspect nationalities; nurtured and justified discrimination and prejudice against Iranian immigrants; and legitimized institutionalization of some of the toughest immigration and refugee policies against Iranian nationals and tourists who desired to see their family members residing the West.
By imposing ongoing various sanctions on the Iranian government, Western countries unintentionally have been squeezing and penalizing Iranian immigrants by denying them the same legal, economic, and educational opportunities enjoyed by other dual nationals. For example, immediately after 9/11, the US government targeted persons of suspect nationalities and ordered males between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five from twentyfive Middle Eastern countries who entered the United States by September 10, 2002, to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, comply with the new federal alien registration program, and submit to being fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated by federal agents or face deportation. The process was called the National Security Entry Exit Registration System. As Mobasher writes, Western states were not the only agents in framing the Iranian government as a pariah state in the global community. Supporters of the former regime of the Shah and other political opponents and disenchanted Iranians from various political and ideological backgrounds in diaspora conceived and constructed a horrific image of the Islamic government and a compelling traumatic master narrative of the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath. Mediated through the Iranian exile media, especially Iranian television networks in Southern California, Iranian dissidents played a major role in narrating the Iranian Revolution as a horrendous event and in portraying the Iranian regime as an enemy government mainly because of Islamization of the entire Iranian society and culture since the revolution and mistreatment of religious minorities and critics of the government. In their struggle against the Islamic government and postrevolutionary Islamization of Iran, some Iranian dissidents in diaspora have manufactured, revitalized, and promoted a non-Islamic Persian culture and national identity. Others vehemently attack Islam and Islamic beliefs and practices and openly denounce the Islamic faith and convert to other religions. Moreover, to cope with the stigma attached to Islam, Muslim, Iran, and Iranians, many Iranians in diaspora masked their national and religious identity, altered their Iranian names or adopted second (Western) versions of their names, and called themselves "Persians."Construction and promotion of the non-Islamic Persian ethno-national identity by opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran and critics of Islam have marginalized practicing Iranian Muslims and pushed them to the periphery of the Iranian communities in diaspora. Furthermore, it has intensified the political and ideological conflict and debates over national identity among various Iranian interest groups and created a major setback in the formation of solidarity among Iranians in exile. These political conflicts and ideological rivalries between various factions have divided the Iranian diaspora and fostered intra-ethnic hostility and wariness, particularly between opponents and supporters of the government and between secular and practicing Muslim Iranians. This intra-ethnic division was manifested when there were international talks about lifting some of the sanctions against Iran during Barack Obama's administration and after Donald Trump's presidential victory in November 2016. Whereas some opponents of the Iranian regime asked Obama and Trump to impose more sanctions and endorsed a regime change in Iran, other Iranians espoused lifting of the sanctions and advocated normalized relations with Iran and the Iranian government. In summary, the interplay of politics, media, and the revitalization of the ancient pre-Islamic Persian ethnic/national identity, as well as the link between the political forces in Iran and the West and the deliberate construction of an anti-Islamic and antiregime narrative both in the West and Iranian media in exile in reaction to domestic and foreign policies of the Iranian government, point to the complexity of diasporic experience of Iranians in general, their integration, and their challenges in ethnic identity (re)formation and cultural (re)construction in particular. This complexity is both manifested and resolved in different forms by Iranian immigrants in different countries. Similarly, the coping mechanisms and the scope of the resolution are shaped by an interplay between the sociopolitical context in the host country as well as the demographic makeup and ethnic community resources where Iranians have settled. Therefore, this form of diaspora culture has also led to a form of fashion that can be referred to as Iranian diaspora fashion. In fact, part of the Iranian diaspora's fashion efforts is focused on street style, regardless of the fact that the Iranian diaspora pattern does not fully correspond to the pattern inside Iran, and it is these contradictions that have sent a huge wave of forced migration. Finally, dispersion in the sense of diaspora, as I said before, is the main theme of my latest collection, which is both the starting point in my career and the end point of a decade of my work in the field of Iranian fashion. Iranian fashion suffers from many problems. Apart from theoretical weaknesses, Iranian fashion suffers from an absolute bankruptcy. Iranian fashion, both domestically and in the diaspora, is limited to readymade clothes, and we see that most of the master designers have also fallen into the mass production line. So, I think that fashion is dead and we are face with fragments that, when assembled, can give us a new look. The staggering aspect of Iranian fashion consumerism is an obstacle on the way of Haute Couture fashion, and why forcing many to emigrate.

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Researcher and researcher in the fashion industry

This release was published on openPR.