Hezbollah Garment Maker Keeps Eye on Western Style : Fashion: Short skirts and other types of Western garb share space with Islamic chadors at shop south of Beirut.

It is funded by Iran and run by Muslim zealots, but the garment factory in Beirut is busy making Western-style mid-calve skirts and tight trousers.

Slogans of “Death to America” and pictures of the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini adorn its walls and women workers are asked to conform to Islamic dress by keeping their hair, arms and legs covered.

It is in this factory, run by Hezbollah (Party of God) in Beirut’s southern suburbs, that much of the city’s Western-style and Islamic clothes are made and sold.

Products are also exported to Arab and European countries.

Sweeping black silk chadors and long cotton dresses in muted colors hang alongside short skirts with double-breasted gold-buttoned white jackets.

“There is a great demand for modern-style clothes. We ran out of them and had to bring down our old stock of plain dresses to make our shop look full,” said Zahra Shaib, dressed in black from head to toe.

“We supply the local market and also export via traders to (Persian) Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, France, West Germany, Spain,” said Shaib, who runs the 3-year-old factory, which has more than 50 employees.

The factory does business with all Lebanese regardless of faith or sect and offers its clothes at low prices.

Its shop exports men’s trousers and shirts and sells scarves, tunics, underwear and prayer rugs.

“The idea for this factory is the result of Lebanon’s civil war,” Shaib said. “Had it not been for charitable and humanitarian projects, the Lebanese people would have either become beggars, died or fled.

“Profits from our factory, which are at least $45,000 a year, are used to expand the workshop which will provide more jobs for the oppressed. They will also go to orphans and martyrs’ families.”

In the workshop next door to the display room, young women--all in long dresses, their hair concealed by dark scarves--worked furiously, cutting patterns and sewing.

“We put a lot of effort into our long clothes to make them look fashionable,” said Shaib, holding up a pleated beige dress with a shawl collar and buttons down the front and another with a sailor collar, a scalloped front and piping around the cuffs.

She said they had a designer who made up the patterns and styles. “We also make use of fashion magazines and modify them,” she added.

“You have to move with the times. My daughter would not agree to dress like me,” said Shaib, who has three boys and three girls ages 12 to 25.

“There are many like my daughter. That is why we keep our models in line with current (Western) fashion trends and at the same time maintain our Islamic dress,” she said.

In Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, women shrouded in black chadors rub shoulders with others wearing short skirts and dresses or tight pants.

“Whoever said we were fanatics and terrorists are mistaken,” said a Hezbollah member. “Look around you. There are all types of women in various clothes walking around our area. Has anyone forced them into decent Islamic attire?”