Who’s afraid of the fashion police?

Once upon a time — perhaps you can still remember — thong cleavage was controversial. Not as controversial as the niqab, but still.

A Martian might be forgiven for interpreting our current obsession with full body veils as a symptom of collective “thong fatigue.” But seriously, why is modesty pathologized and why is it treated with such condescending suspicion?

It’s unlikely that veils will be outlawed in the UK, but the concept of a ban hangs over our minds like an ominous, invisible curtain. (At one Egyptian university, the niqab-clad are forbidden from using campus dorms. In Turkey, the hijab is banned in schools and many workplaces.)

Whether your clothing is designed to reveal or obfuscate, you make a statement about fitting in or standing out, and sometimes it’s beyond your control. In the UK, right now, you’re more likely to stand out if you’re too covered up. When Zaiba Malik donned a niqab for a day, she encountered the crudeness of strangers — everything from hostile stares to bizarre requests from American tourists.

Mainstream, as opposed to radical, modesty is expressed in more subtle ways — wide-legged trousers, big sunglasses, and a turtle neck are my favorite portable hide-outs —- and mainstream modesty succeeds most when it appears to reveal a bit.

A woman wearing a pantsuit because she feels shy about showing her legs might not register as modest if her pants fit well (showing just enough shape but not too much.) The extent of her modesty remains her own secret. To “always leave them wanting more” is a safe way to express modesty. Being “in your face” about modesty is seen, increasingly, as a daring move — “as outrageous as wearing a bathing suit to the office,” according to Salama Ahmed Salama, a columnist at Al-Ahram.

Blatant modesty may be as distressing to some as blatant nudity is to others. We’re no longer accustomed to such “frank coverage.” Full frontal modesty strikes us as willful and perverse, a contradiction. Frankness, after all, is the province of exhibitionists; modesty, infringing on their terrain, seems to forget her place.

When veils are in the news — head scarves banned in French schools; Jack Straw carrying on; Yasmin Alibhai-Brown agreeing with him for once — I have mixed feelings.

My empathy for the voluntarily veiled comes from a surprising place, for the urge to cover up is intimately connected to my public identity as an “out” sex worker. Discussing prostitution on TV, in bookstores, at conferences, with people I’ve never met before, is sometimes a challenge. When my career pushed me into public view, I found myself drawn to longer sleeves, ladylike pants and other protective strategies. I love the work I do and thrive on public conversation but sometimes, contemplating a public appearance, I can see the appeal of enclosing myself in a body veil.

The history of covering up is complex, taking us all over the globe. In 19th-century Japan, wealthy merchants were still prevented by the ruling class from wearing padded silk, a prohibition in place for at least 200 years. But merchants weren’t so easily controlled, and a typical ploy was to wear a fabulous silk lining, hidden inside a sober wool kimono. In Paris, during the early 20th century, Colette was photographed in a man’s suit, complete with waistcoat and cravat. When we admire this iconic portrait today, it’s hard to believe that women were legally forbidden to wear men’s clothing in public. Colette’s circle of bohemian lesbians “would never venture into the street,” she wrote, “without donning a large plain cloak, like that of a mother superior, to conceal their masculine jackets” — and elude the police.

Is covering up a form of obedience or defiance? In some cases, it’s a combination of both. But it could also be a prerogative of privilege. In Assyrian law, the veiling of head and face was strictly for aristocratic ladies. According to Ethel King, “slaves and rustics… flaunting themselves in an invisibility to which they had no right” were courting punishment. At one time, French prostitutes were prohibited from wearing veils, while “respectable” women were encouraged to publicly remove the veil of any harlot violating the law.

So the forbidden veil isn’t such a modern concept after all. Nor is it inherently benign.

Policing what people wear seems to be one of the hardest habits for humanity to kick. A few years ago, I met the historian Martin Duberman, who told me about New York nightlife in the early 1960s: “You made sure to wear at least three pieces of clothing appropriate to your gender, otherwise you were subject to police harassment.” New York City cops used this as a pretext to raid and close down gay bars “all the time,” said Duberman.

Perhaps dress codes aren’t really about what you wear but who you are. In Paris, waistcoat-and-trousers were unacceptable garb — for a woman. In Europe, it’s uncontroversial to wear a headscarf if you look like a middle-aged Sloane Ranger, while a Muslim schoolgirl in a head-covering becomes a political symbol. A doctor who covers his face for medical reasons is just doing his job but a woman covering hers for religious reasons is — what exactly? Committing a thought crime? Because I will never be mistaken for a teenage boy, shop managers do not flinch when I enter in my hoodie. When it comes to dress codes, identity is the elephant in the room. It’s about who should wear what, under what circumstances — and who decides.

Traditional sumptuary laws were elitist, defined by the people on top — like those Japanese nobles, telling businessmen what fabrics they could wear. But revolutions that bring down the social order do not guarantee freedom of dress: the blue uniform worn throughout Communist China for too many years is but one example. The French Revolution offers another.

If you’re ready to be provoked, try Caroline Weber’s “Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution.” You’ll find that it’s much more than a political history of one woman’s wardrobe. One chapter, Revolutionary Redress, brings to life battles fought during 1789 — over colour. Savvy aristocrats, courting the revolutionaries, had their dresses trimmed in blue and red, colours of “the Nation.” (A new shade of red, sang de Foulon or “Foulon’s blood”, named after a murdered cabinet minister, became rather popular.) To be dressed in white, without red or blue, was politically dangerous — signalling ancien régime loyalties. Wearing black with yellow was a surefire way to push people’s buttons, because it meant you were supporting a foreign power. According to Thomas Carlyle, one man was almost hanged from a lamp post because he “refused to cast off his black cockade.” (The colour black was doubly suspect all by itself, for being one of the Hapsburg colours, and for being associated with royalty.)

If you think today’s Muslim veil is politicized, consider the fall bonnets of 1789: blue spades, golden swords, crosses, cockades, fake roses… plastered on muslin caps and gauze helmets to show that “all of us are now mere citizens,” in the words of one French fashion editor.

In our current climate, “Queen of Fashion” is required reading. It will make you look at the fashion controversies of 2006 in a new way.