ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on women who embraced Islam in France and Quebec. It shows how, for these women, negotiating Islamic dress codes help to embody Islamic gender discipline while developing innovative, creative and personalized fashion styles. In Quebec, as in France, the number of converts to Islam is on the rise, as indicated by the current influx of non-Muslim Westerners to mosques, the increased enrolment in Arabic language courses, and the commercial success of the English version of the Qur'an. In Quebec for instance, one respondent who has always been very athletic reported she continued to play volleyball after embracing Islam, though while wearing her veil and long pants and not hanging around with male members of the team. Converts' production of Muslim fashion is aimed at ensuring continuity between their interpretation of Muslim dress codes and their inherited Western-style by creating new and innovative local styles that they, however, depict as authentically Islamic.
