The women are beautiful, their clothes gorgeous. And if you had to choose another adjective, you might opt for fashionable; elegant; individual; modest. Most of all, Australian.
As we approach the end of Australian Fashion Week, another contemporary fashion show begins today. This time at the Powerhouse Museum, charting an underground success flourishing rapidly but largely unnoticed in Sydney's western suburbs.
The clothes exhibited in Faith, fashion, fusion: Muslim women's style in Australia come from a handful of Sydney designers. Yet the market they are targeting is global.
The women are beautiful, their clothes gorgeous. And if you had to choose another adjective, you might opt for fashionable; elegant; individual; modest. Most of all, Australian.
As we approach the end of Australian Fashion Week, another contemporary fashion show begins today. This time at the Powerhouse Museum, charting an underground success flourishing rapidly but largely unnoticed in Sydney's western suburbs.
The clothes exhibited in Faith, fashion, fusion: Muslim women's style in Australia come from a handful of Sydney designers. Yet the market they are targeting is global.
Can the Muslim headscarf be synonymous with glamour?
Turkey's first fashion magazine for conservative Islamic women looks set to win the challenge.
In less than a year since it was launched last June, the monthly Ala -- meaning "beauty" -- has become a mainstream glossy.
With a circulation of 20,000, it is only slightly behind the Turkish versions of Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Elle magazines.
Ala's pages are splashed with models reflecting a conservative Islamic style, all wearing headscarves and long dresses, with their arms and necks covered.
Ala's editor, 24-year-old Hulya Aslan, has first-hand experience with Turkey's headscarf troubles. Because she insisted on wearing one, she had to give up a university education, instead finding work at a bank.
"Now there is normalisation, an improvement. Now our veiled comrades can enter university and have more professional opportunities," she told AFP. "For the last five or six years we can say we have turned the corner."
Ala, created by two advertisers, offers the usual fare of health tips, travel pages and celebrity interviews, supplemented by a strong dose of loud and clear Islamic activism
ISTANBUL, Turkey - Can the Muslim headscarf be synonymous with glamour? Turkey's first fashion magazine for conservative Islamic women looks set to prove that it can.
In less than a year since it was launched last June, the monthly Ala -- meaning "beauty" -- has become a mainstream glossy.
With a circulation of 20,000, it is only slightly behind the Turkish versions of Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Elle magazines.
Ala's pages are splashed with models reflecting a conservative Islamic style, all wearing headscarves and long dresses, with their arms and necks covered.
Ala's editor, 24-year-old Hulya Aslan, has first-hand experience with Turkey's headscarf troubles. Because she insisted on wearing one, she had to give up a university education, instead finding work at a bank.
"Now there is normalization, an improvement. Now our veiled comrades can enter university and have more professional opportunities," she told AFP. "For the last five or six years we can say we have turned the corner."
Ala, created by two advertisers, offers the usual fare of health tips, travel pages and celebrity interviews, supplemented by a strong dose of loud and clear Islamic activism.
"Veiled Is Beautiful" proclaims one advertisement, driving home the point with the words: "My way, my choice, my life, my truth, my right."
But such slogans sound more like a reference to the struggles of the past, when secularism monopolized the social scene and the Islamic headscarf, often viewed as a political symbol, met hostile reactions.
The struggle continues despite the 2002 poll victory of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots and many of whose members have spouses who wear headscarves, including Erdogan's wife Emine.
Although the strict application of secularism has been loosened under AKP rule, headscarves are still off-limits for civil servants. It is now allowed in some universities, while many others ban them.
In Turkey, 60 percent of women wear some type of hair covering -- sometimes also hiding their necks and ears -- according to a 2006 survey conducted by the Istanbul-based Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation.
The fashion world now sees a growing demand from conservative Turkish women who are keen to assert themselves.
"There are now much prettier things than before," said Merve Buyuk, a 22-year-old trainee at Ala. "Designers have now understood that we exist. They've started making clothes that are not necessarily black or brown. ... I'm pretty happy with this change."
Ala is hoping to influence conservative women's fashion and cash in on it with advertising revenue.
"With this magazine, we are changing trends. We say that women in headscarves can follow trends. There are more and more products on the market they can access," Aslan said.
Communication scientist Nilgun Tutal of Istanbul's Galatasaray University said Ala attests to the rise of middle- and upper-class Muslims who are adapting to the consumer society, thanks to almost 10 years of AKP rule and Turkey's sustained economic growth.
"At one time, Islam, to distinguish itself from the West, took a position hostile to consumer society. But today, these people, to express their success, can only do that through consumer society," Tutal said.
The bride, carrying a bouquet of white roses, made her entrance through a wrought-iron gate and walked down the aisle to an altar covered in pink wildflowers.
McGrew looked splendid in a strapless white gown with gold embroidering and a large bow and short train in the back.
Her six bridesmaids wore simple champagne-colored strapless dresses.
Manning and his six groomsmen wore khaki suits with open collar white button-down shirts and white roses in their lapels. The groomsmen went tieless, but Manning wore a blue-and-white-striped tie.
Moments before the ceremony, Peyton, a quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, slung his arm around his brother and whispered words of encouragement in his ear.
Guests were ferried to the beach in golf carts and were served white wine, Veuve Cliquot champagne and sparkling water by white tuxedoed waiters as they filed into white folding chairs decorated with gold ribbons.
A trio - a guitarist, violinist and cellist - played the wedding march.
"Welcome to one of the most beautful weddings I have ever presided over," the minister said, opening the ceremony.
The quarterback and his gal smiled and giggled throughout the 16 minute ceremony.
As the minister talked about joining the couple's hands in marriage, he looked down at the Giant's mitts. "These hands," he quipped, "are quite large."
After the ceremony, guests enjoyed cocktails beachside with appetizers and a full bar laid out on tables adorned with pink tablecloths and roses.
As the wedding party posed for pictures at the altar, McGrew fussed with Manning's hair and kised him on the lips.
Some guests estimated the wedding cost Manning around $500,000, a modest sum compared to most celebrity weddings.
Hours before the ceremony, Manning worked out pre-wedding jitters, hitting the gym by 10 a.m., running furiously on the treadmill, lifting weights and doing push-ups for an hour and and a half.
During the rest of the day, the Super Bowl MVP and his bride stood by the old adage that the groom not see the bride the day of the wedding.
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