IRGC Targets Kim Kardashian and Hijab-Wearing Iranian Women on the Red Carpet

The recent arrest of a group of Iranian fashion designers and models, alongside the blocking of their online channels and websites, as well as the broadcast of coerced confessions from an Iranian model (Elham Arab) on state television, under an operation dubbed "Spider 2," reveals insights into the nature of governance in Iran and the relationship between society and the state. For the first time, Kim Kardashian's name was mentioned on the state television of the Islamic Republic. A spokesperson for the IRGC's Cyber Crime Investigation Center linked modeling in Iran to foreign influences, implicating the American model in this supposed conspiracy: "Ms. Kim Kardashian is a serious model in the clothing sector, and the CEO of Instagram tells her to localize this. Localizing models is on the agenda. There will certainly be serious financial support. We are facing a serious division of roles in this matter." This approach, due to the mention of Kim Kardashian and the attribution of her activities to the "global arrogance," attracted significant attention from many news outlets in the U.S. The Tehran prosecutor's inquiries directed at Ms. Arab also aimed to identify Western elements guiding such activities, although no basis for this was found in her televised confessions. In Iran, there exists a repressive machine that cannot function without daily projects and cannot let any aspect of people's lives escape its reach. The operators of this machine determine its operations based on the priorities of the Supreme Leader and view all issues in Iran, including people's lifestyles, through a security lens. When there are no newsworthy events in universities or factories, bloggers have ceased their work, political activists do not criticize appointed institutions, and critical teachers and journalists are imprisoned, they turn to another group. The latest of these groups includes models, fashion designers, makeup artists, and photographers. To make the crackdown on models one of the missions of this repressive machine, modeling must be attributed to Western governments and their conspiracy against Islamic lifestyle (or the lifestyle of the clergy and Islamists accompanying it). The IRGC's announcement in the "Spider 1" operation in 2014 made a difficult attempt to establish this connection: "Based on complete intelligence, this network [operating online with the mission of promoting corruption and undermining the Iranian-Islamic lifestyle and targeting the sacred institution of family nationwide] had exploited the internet and received covert and indirect support from Western governments, managing to engage a significant number of users on Facebook over two years under the guise of cultural-social issues through about 350 pages. This network was generally exploited by the anti-revolutionary media under foreign guidance." Countering the erosion of the Islamic lifestyle has been repeatedly referenced by the Supreme Leader and ruling clerics in their speeches. In the "Spider 2" operation, which targeted various social media pages in the fields of modeling, fashion houses, photography studios, and design, a total of 170 individuals were identified by this center. The justification for this operation, like that of Spider 1, was that individuals were targeting families and seeking to promote "organized vulgarity." Legal cases were formed against 29 individuals, of whom 8 were arrested, and others were summoned, with their "crime-related locations" sealed. The question of how modeling by a group of individuals to promote cosmetics and specific clothing and the publication of their photos threatens the family institution and the Islamic Republic remains unaddressed in the coerced confessions and IRGC announcements. In fact, beautiful clothing and cosmetics can help strengthen the relationships between spouses. Recently, several Telegram channels run by "loyal" women of the Islamic Republic have been using these same tools to try to reduce divorce rates in Iran. The report on this operation coincided with news about Iranian filmmakers participating in the Cannes Film Festival and Iranian women filmmakers walking the red carpet without any criticism domestically—merely due to wearing hijabs that would have led to warnings and arrests within the country. Domestic websites reporting on the Cannes Film Festival focused exclusively on the clothing of Iranian women present at the festival (without mentioning the names of the designers of these outfits); these websites are all managed under the supervision of regime officials. The only difference in sensitivity regarding hijab is that domestic news sites differ from foreign ones in these reports, but in the rest of the story (responses to public attention to fashion and makeup, references to the combination of colors and clothing designs, explanations of clothing design and production companies, or the occasion for wearing a specific outfit), they follow a single path. The focus was not only on the clothing, makeup, and jewelry of Iranian women present at Cannes but also included men. This indicates that the Iranian people's attitude toward fashion and display does not differ significantly from other societies, and without government restrictions, we could witness a fashion week, fashion magazines, and essentially an industry and market for fashion in Iran without its underground aspect. Despite all the restrictions on Iranian women both inside and outside the country (with various work prohibitions if they do not comply with restrictions abroad), they still exploit every opportunity to align themselves with contemporary global trends. A decade ago, it would have been impossible for the red carpet and the clothing and makeup of Iranian women present at Cannes to become the dominant news of the day in Iran within a few days. It seems that various institutions in Iran coexist without feeling conflict: one group (the IRGC, the Supreme Leader's office, and the judiciary) views fashion as a security threat and arrests fashion designers, while other institutions (media, filmmakers) engage in the work of these designers. Of course, at specific points, these institutions and the individuals working within them clash, which is why parts of the activities of the second type of institutions are underground. Apparently, military and security institutions prefer the underground nature of these activities to their transparency, as suppressing such activities does not eliminate them. Demand in no society disappears through repression. Repression only disrupts the supply process. Institutions and individuals defending such programs know they are distancing themselves from the lifestyle of the rulers but do not want to lose the opportunity to connect with the outside world. Therefore, instead of introducing these matters as a natural right (the choice of clothing and makeup), they resort to nationalistic or local justifications that anti-Westerners have also relied upon. The argument or justification of those who pay attention to clothing and makeup on international red carpets is that through this, they can showcase the artistic capacities of Iranians, but this requires the existence of a domestic market for these matters, which the repressive machine of the government and the clerics view as a threat. When religious and secular localist intellectuals in the 1970s tried to forget the individual rights of others with anti-Western justifications, they did not know that one day an authoritarian and totalitarian government would impose the same justifications of the rulers' lifestyle on them. In this condition of neglecting the consequences of localist beliefs (which quickly turned into populist slogans justifying the violation of individual rights), the line between threat and opportunity is erased, absolute power rises above all values, and the powerful become the value assessors of society.