The politics of style: ideology, fashion, and popular culture in Iran from 1965 to 1979
Keywords: pop culture
westernism
magazines
history
westoxication
beauty culture
television
popular culture
revolution
gharbzadegi
iran
fashion
periodicals
pahlavi
style

This thesis examines the intersection of ideology, popular culture, and style in Iran from 1965 to 1979. This period saw a drastic shift in Iranian beauty standards, with prevalent aesthetic standards inching closer to Euro-American markers of beauty as opposed to indigenous beauty standards already entrenched within the culture. This aesthetic shift also happened to be closely bound to the ideology purveyed by the White Revolution, which sought to modernize Iran by way of westernization. Though not as pronounced as the dress reforms decreed by Reza Shah Pahlavi, the modernizing efforts undertaken by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi also happened to constitute its own distinctive approach to dress reform. No longer contingent on top-down policy, styles compliant with Euro-American beauty markers were not necessarily decreed at this time, so much as they were encouraged and standardized by media that were heavily regulated by the Pahlavi state. These media often echoed the Pahlavi credo to “transform the culture whole,” and as such, endeavored, in their own distinctive ways, to promote Euro-American beauty culture as the modern Iranian standard.
As this thesis shall investigate by ways of its examination of highly circulated magazines like Zan-e Ruz, Tamasha, and Javanan as well as National Iranian Television, this period saw the state utilize its official and semi-official media in encouraging the modernization of Iranians in dress and conduct. Both popular magazines and Iran’s nationalized television network were taken up by the state as means through which to modernize the contemporary Iranian, instructing them on the appropriate dress and behavior befitting “the Great Civilization.” Ethnic dress and religious dress were likewise discouraged in favor of sartorial items more appropriate to the state’s vision of a modern Iran. The concomitant proliferation of an urban consumer culture also happened to bolster the standardization of Euro-American styles during this period, soon giving way to the popularization of plastic surgery and body management regiments among the urban classes, which, in turn, further widened the gap between the westernized urban classes and segments recalcitrant toward such methods of modernization.
With the socio-economic gap widening evermore, these conspicuous changes managed to alienate a significantly large portion of the population ill at ease with the state’s modernizing efforts. As informed by the oppositional discourses of critics and dissidents like Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Ali Shariati, and Ayatollah Khomeini, the Pahlavi state’s modernizing efforts were soon met with more vociferous opposition. These oppositional discourses further pointed to the aesthetic shifts of the era, dubbing them as illustrations of gharbzadegi (weststruckness), and likening these acts of westernization to an ailment or disease having befallen Iran. In line with this, by investigating both the top-down modernization efforts of the state as well as the bottom-up reactions to this endeavor, this thesis will ultimately provide an extensive examination of the politics of style pervasive in 1960s and 1970s Iran.