Faceless Mannequins Display Clothes In Afghanistan
Kabul: In Afghanistan’s capital, shop windows display gorgeous ball gowns and three-piece wedding suits, with each mannequin’s face covered.
According to a garment seller in Kabul, the morality police have requested that retailers conceal the faces of mannequins and model images.
“It makes the display a little ugly,” said the 22-year-old, “but it does not affect sales.”
When the Taliban reclaimed control in August 2021, they implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, including a ban on portraying human faces.
“The environment must be Islamic,” said the vendor in Kabul, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation.
Women’s evening dresses are available in a variety of bright colors, with some styles leaving shoulders exposed or with plunging necklines, and practically all are embellished with sequins.
The dresses are intended to be worn solely in private, during gender-segregated weddings or engagement parties.
The heads of the mannequins wearing each outfit are shrouded in plastic, foil, or black sacks.
“Later, they may order that the arms are also covered in plastic,” the salesman said.
Other shops sell traditional Afghan wedding outfits with lengthy skirts and elaborate embroidery.
The Taliban regime has ordered women to entirely cover up in public.
Women performing errands in Kabul’s retail sector were observed wearing abaya robes and surgical masks.
We make do.
After a ban on displaying human faces was imposed in January 2022, religious police in Herat decapitated mannequins by cutting and snapping off their heads.
The law is currently being enforced countrywide by teams from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. They visit Kabul’s stores several times a week, dressed in long white jackets.
The heads of mannequins at a multistory Kabul shopping center are now mostly covered in garbage bags or foil.
“In some areas, the ‘Vice and Virtue’ visit on certain days, so the shopkeepers cover and then uncover the faces of the mannequins,” said Popalzai, a trader who goes by a pseudonym.
“But here, there are three to six people that come two or three times per week. They check from a distance, and they are much milder than before,” said the merchant, who witnessed the Taliban government’s first reign from 1996 to 2001.
Male mannequins dressed in Western clothing, like trousers or three-piece suits, are all hooded at the entrance to his store, which is prohibited by Taliban authorities. One of them wears sunglasses.
Customers and dealers appeared unconcerned by the strange, headless individuals.
“There are more serious problems,” observed another merchant, referring to the difficult economic conditions and limits on women’s education and employment.
“This is not very important for Afghan people,” he told me.
“We make do with it.”
