Personal style in Iran has long been \u201ca proxy battle\u201d for ideological conflict \u2013 a point underscored by scholars who note that dress can \u201ccommunicate the wearer\u2019s participation in a lineage of Leftist political aesthetic\u201d . In other words, what Iranians wear has often signaled their political identity. Before 1979 the Shah\u2019s regime encouraged Western fashions (even banning the veil as a supposed sign of backwardness ), but the revolution inverted this: modest, utilitarian clothing became a badge of revolutionary zeal. Ali Shariati himself framed this in starkly anti-imperialist terms, arguing that \u201cAsian societies\u2026 wear traditional garments\u201d and had \u201cno demand\u2026 for high fashion\u2026 of Europe\u201d . For many on the left, rejecting Western-style dress was part of reclaiming an Iranian identity \u2013 a practical example of Al-e Ahmad\u2019s warning that adopting \u201cWestern models\u2026 led to the loss of Iranian cultural identity\u201d . In short, by 1979 clothing was a distinctly political language, one that Iranian leftists are reviving today as part of a global pattern of anti-hegemonic fashion .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The politicization of dress was perhaps most visible in women\u2019s protests. On International Women\u2019s Day 1979, over 100,000 women marched in Tehran unveiled and defiantly smiling\u3010131\u2020\u3011 . This mass demonstration against the new compulsory hijab shows how attire itself became a symbol of resistance. Before the revolution, unveiled dress was normalized; in fact the Shah had banned the hijab as \u201csuppressing women\u201d . When the new regime demanded the headscarf, abandoning or removing it became an act of political defiance. As one analyst notes, \u201cdonning the hijab became a tool of revolutionary advocacy\u2026 representing opposition to the Shah\u201d . Revolutionary women\u2019s clothing thus inverted the state narrative: wearing a traditional Islamic shawl was encouraged by the Islamists as anti-imperialist, whereas prior Westernized attire was \u201cportrayed as morally corrupt\u201d . In short, the veil and its absence were weaponized as ideological symbols during that era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Men\u2019s fashion underwent a parallel transformation. Street scenes from 1979 often show young men in olive-green or khaki \u201cpeople\u2019s army\u201d jackets brandishing rifles. One famous image (above) captures a band of revolutionaries in exactly this garb: simple combat jackets and raised fists. Observers like V.S. Naipaul described these militants wearing \u201cquilted khaki jackets and pullovers\u201d as if in a \u201cChe Guevara costume,\u201d still eager to manifest the union they believed had won them victory. The Atlantic likewise noted how the new Revolutionary Guard imitated Che\u2019s style, with its \u201cChe Guevara outfits\u201d and posters of Third World guerrillas . This militant attire \u2014 in contrast to the previous regime\u2019s suits and ties \u2014 broadcast a leftist\/Islamist creed: an embrace of egalitarian, anti-imperialist solidarity. In fact Islamic leaders themselves encouraged such modes. After the Shah fell, Islamists urged men to grow beards, discard Western suits, and wear \u201cheavy linen robe[s] in muted colors\u201d as a mark of authentic resistance . By wearing khaki jackets and military-style clothing, Iranian revolutionaries of various stripes (both secular left and Islamist) signaled membership in a global revolutionary style that prized uniformity and modesty over Western consumerism .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This fusion of politics and fashion was deeply theorized by Iran\u2019s own intellectuals. In the 1960s and \u201970s, Ali Shariati argued that traditional dress was part of a larger anti-colonial strategy: the very act of not importing \u201chigh fashion\u201d was a rejection of foreign domination . Similarly, Jalal Al-e Ahmad\u2019s pamphlet Occidentosis identified Western clothing as one of the \u201ctoxins\u201d of imperialist culture. He warned that the imitation of Western models in education and art \u201cled to the loss of Iranian cultural identity\u201d . In the revolutionary moment, these ideas were lived out in fabric: khaki jackets and keffiyehs expressed Shariati\u2019s call to \u201creturn not to a distant past, but a past present in daily life\u201d , while rejection of Western-style dress enacted Al-e Ahmad\u2019s critique of gharbsadegi. In this view, Iranian fashion of 1979 became overtly ideological: each jacket, scarf, or veil was a statement of anti-imperial identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writers like Gholamhosein Saedi captured the attitude and its discontents in metaphor. Saedi later lamented that after the revolution a \u201cwonderfully beautiful carpet\u201d of ideals had been lifted only to reveal \u201cworms and filth\u201d beneath. His stark image (a preserved Persian carpet hiding decay) suggests that the very clothing and rituals of the revolution \u2013 no matter how poignant \u2013 were masking deeper turmoil. For Iranian leftist thinkers, even revolutionary style could become a double-edged sword: at once a symbol of hope and a reminder of contradictions. Clothing, then, carried not only pride but also irony and disillusionment in the revolutionary struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran\u2019s 1979 fashion shifts fit into a broader tapestry of international leftist iconography. The influence of global anti-colonial styles was explicit. Argentine Marxist Che Guevara\u2019s image \u2013 beret and fatigues \u2013 had already circulated in Iran. Revolutionaries openly emulated his look, viewing themselves as heirs to 20th-century guerilla struggles . Meanwhile the Palestinian keffiyeh became a visible leftist sign. Iranian protest posters fused the keffiyeh\u2019s pattern with slogans like \u201cDeath to imperialism, death to Zionism\u201d , consciously linking Iran\u2019s revolution to the Palestinian and Third World struggle. (Indeed, as one recent account notes, the black-white keffiyeh has become \u201cubiquitous and globally recognised\u201d as a symbol of resistance .) These parallels show that Iranian leftist style did not emerge in isolation: it consciously echoed Latin American and Pan-Arab revolutionary fashion. In each case \u2013 Cuba\u2019s olive uniforms, Algeria\u2019s keffiyehs, Vietnam\u2019s kaki \u2013 the left adopted a visual code of the people\u2019s war, and Iranian activists took their place within that lineage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Modern analysts of subculture emphasize exactly this communicative power of dress. As cultural theorist Lydia Mokdessi has observed, in the 21st century people\u2019s style choices often \u201creflect prevailing\u2026 attitudes of\u2026 political resistance\u201d and signal a commitment to leftist ideals . Iranian leftists of today are doing just that: they have revived the khaki jacket, Palestinian scarf, and plain mantu not as mere nostalgia but as explicit political messaging. Street images and online posts from recent protests frequently show young men and women wearing olive or brown jackets, keffiyehs, or other 1970s-style gear. In some circles even head-scarves or mantos are worn in deliberately plain fashion (and sometimes with anti-regime slogans) to signal both modesty and resistance. These fashion choices link back to Ali Shariati\u2019s vision of an \u201cauthentic\u201d Iranian modernity and Gharbzadegi\u2019s call to shun Western consumerism . They also mirror global trends: for example, diaspora marches in 2022\u201325 often featured demonstrators in keffiyehs or red stars, consciously echoing international solidarity movements. In short, today\u2019s leftists reuse 1979 symbols to assert continuity with the revolutionary era and with transnational anti-imperialist currents .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why this revival now? Partly it is strategic: clothing remains a nonverbal shorthand for identity when speech is restricted. A khaki jacket or a scarf adorned with Rahbar slogans instantly communicates dissidence. It recalls the rhetoric of social justice from Shariati or Saedi, even if those names aren\u2019t explicitly invoked. And it offers a way to redefine 1979\u2019s legacy. The Islamic Republic emphasizes the clerical narrative of the revolution; by contrast, leftists reframe the apparel of that era in secular, socialist terms \u2013 downplaying religion while highlighting workers\u2019 struggle and anti-Westernism. This redefinition makes sense in a global context where former religious symbols can be re-purposed (for example, Fanon argued that for colonial peoples clothing was a field of struggle, since \u201cto destroy a society\u2019s structure\u2026 one must first conquer the women\u2026behind the veil\u201d ; Iranian activists today might argue the reverse: that reclaiming clothing rejects the colonizer\u2019s game).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end, Iranian leftist fashion today simply mirrors a universal lesson: dress is ideology. Antonio Gramsci argued that culture and \u201ccommon sense\u201d are battlegrounds for power, and clothing is a quintessential part of culture. As Frantz Fanon implied, garments like the veil or the jacket can be sites of liberation or domination. By repurposing the khaki, keffiyeh, and mantu of 1979, Iranian leftists enact their ongoing \u201cwar of position\u201d through sartorial means. These revived outfits explicitly declare class solidarity, anti-colonial struggle, and a challenge to both the clerical regime and global capitalism. In this way, the style of 1979 remains a living language of resistance \u2013 every belt and scarf a word in the ideological discourse of Iranian leftism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Personal style in Iran has long been \u201ca proxy battle\u201d for ideological conflict \u2013 a point underscored by scholars who note that dress can \u201ccommunicate the wearer\u2019s participation in a lineage of Leftist political aesthetic\u201d . In other words, what Iranians wear has often signaled their political identity. Before 1979 the Shah\u2019s regime encouraged Western … <\/p>\n