Swim Top And Pants, Burkini swim top and pants

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as part of Contemporary Muslim Fashions.

Aheda Zanetti was early to the market for full-coverage swimwear, launching in 2004. She coined the term “burkini”—a combination of burqa and bikini—which quickly garnered the world’s positive and negative attention. When asked to respond to the 2016 efforts to ban the burkini in parts of France, Zanetti expressed shock that something that encourages sport and health is so controversial. She questioned, “This has given women freedom, and they want to take that freedom away?”

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Contemporary Muslim Fashions.