'Terrorist Chic' and Beyond

Umar Rashid, a 29-year-old painter and musician, was standing outside the Grand Star nightclub in Chinatown one night after the start of the Iraq war when he came face to face with the potential perils of militant chic.

A "soldier-looking dude" glared at Rashid for a moment and then said angrily, "People died wearing that in Iraq." The guy was referring to Rashid's kaffiyeh, the versatile Arab head scarf, often with a checkered pattern. Rashid brushed off the comment because he had heard it before. People in the U.S., it seems, get testy around the kaffiyeh. It recalls Yasser Arafat and Islamic fundamentalists. For some, it suggests militancy and menace.

It also goes great with a vintage sports coat.

"I just like the look of it, the style of it, the pattern," said Rashid, who is neither Arab nor Muslim and has been wearing kaffiyehs--sometimes around his neck, sometimes around his entire head--since childhood. "It's a multipurpose, beautiful scarf."

Invariably, it's also a political statement. "We feel the need . . . to look like warriors," Rashid explained, "because we physically can't be warriors."

The donning of kaffiyehs is not exactly new. Left-leaning urbanites and activists all over, not to mention countless millions in the Arab world for whom these scarves are as commonplace as baseball caps, have been wearing them for decades.

But since last year, the kaffiyeh has begun showing up more and more on the streets, appearing suddenly in hip neighborhoods in New York, throughout Europe and here in Hollywood, Silver Lake and Echo Park. Even hipsters in Israel are wearing it. "Want to make your parents angry and want to be provocative?" said Jerusalem Web designer David Abitbol, co-founder of the blog jewlicious.com. "Wear a kaffiyeh."

For many, the kaffiyeh is just one piece of their ensemble. Often, it is paired with draping scarves, military prints and heavy boots. In this way, the kaffiyeh is part of a look greater than its parts. It has been dubbed "militant chic" and "terrorist chic." But that's not enough.

Something far wider and weirder is going on. Let's call it "fear fashion."

On the runways of the world's fashion capitals, designers are cloaking their models' faces to evoke mystery, anonymity and intrigue. This phenomenon is playing out on the streets, too, with kaffiyehs, hooded sweatshirts and, for women, flowing veils.