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| A swimmer wearing a burkini, left. Fethi Belaid/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
The woman credited with creating the so-called burkini said
the controversy over efforts to ban the full-body bathing suit worn by some
Muslim women has helped bolster demand for her invention, which she said was
not meant to be a political statement.
Aheda Zanetti, the Lebanese-Australian inventor of the
swimsuit, said officials in more than a dozen French beach towns seeking to
prevent women from covering up have misconstrued the purpose of the bathing
suit.
“They’ve misunderstood the burkini swimsuit,” Ms. Zanetti,
49, said in a telephone interview from Sydney. “Because the burkini swimsuit is
freedom and happiness and lifestyle changes — you can’t take that away from a
Muslim, or any other woman, that chooses to wear it.”
Ms. Zanetti said she designed the garment in 2004 for women
who wanted to show less skin while bathing or exercising.
“I wanted to introduce a full range of clothing to suit a
Muslim woman — or any woman — that wanted a bit of modesty and wanted to
participate in any sporting activities,” said Ms. Zanetti, who is a Muslim and
wears her own swimwear products.
A fashion designer and former hairdresser, Ms. Zanetti
coined the name “burkini,” a blend of the words burqa and bikini, but said that
the swimsuit was not intended to exclude non-Muslims and was not meant to be a
political statement.
The French “burkini” bans have been good for business, she
said, with online sales rising about 200 percent in recent days. Most demand is
coming from Australia, Europe and Canada, she said, and some new customers
include skin-cancer patients who are looking for ways to shield their skin from
the sun.
Her company, Ahiida, has sold 700,000 swimsuits since 2008.
The company sells its products in stores in Australia, Europe, the Middle East,
the United States and Southeast Asia.
Ms. Zanetti, who moved to Australia from Lebanon as a
2-year-old, did not feel comfortable wearing traditional swimsuits as a young
girl. She and her friends used to swim in full clothing but they did not linger
in the water because they were embarrassed.
Years later her teenage niece wanted to play netball, a game
similar to basketball that is played mostly by women, but was prohibited by her
local Sydney league from playing while wearing a hijab. Ms. Zanetti said her
sister wrote a letter of complaint to league officials, who reversed their
decision.
Even so, Ms. Zanetti said that her niece’s hijab was
“completely unsuitable” for athletics.
Ms. Zanetti designed the “burkini,” which covers everything
except the face, hands and feet, so that women like her niece could cover and
still participate comfortably in sport.
Ms. Zanetti said that her four children, who once “rolled
their eyes” over her swimwear innovations, have recently become more interested
and have noticed “that I have a strong voice on behalf of women, for freedom of
choice, ” she said. “I can feel how proud they are, more than they’ve ever
been.”
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| Aheda Zanetti, left, inventor of the burkini. Credit Jason Reed/Reuters |
Edited from The New York Times
