Bay Area natives are sharing their family’s story of fleeing the current Iranian regime and reclaiming self-expression.
Kristin Vartan doesn’t just see fabric and stitching when she looks at her mother’s dress from the 1980s. She sees a young girl’s escape from political upheaval. She sees her grandfather’s urgent decision to flee. And she sees the freedom her family risked everything to secure.
A proud Iranian American and fashion enthusiast, Vartan says her mother’s dress is more than a piece of clothing; it is a symbol of liberty and self-expression.
“When my mom came to America in the 1980s, she and her family escaped, really the regime, and the revolution, and the Iran-Iraq war,” Vartan said. “And the whole reason why my grandfather wanted to bring his family to America is because my mom’s first encounter with the morality police.”
After Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the newly established morality police enforced strict dress codes and targeted women who did not adhere to conservative standards set by the regime. Vartan said her mother was confronted for not wearing clothing deemed appropriate.
Her grandfather, who had served in the former government, believed it was no longer safe for the family to remain in Iran. They fled to the United States in search of security and opportunity.
Vartan and her brother, filmmaker Sean Ansari Vartan, are of Assyrian heritage. They often reflect on their mother’s early years in the United States and a dress designed by their grandmother for their mother’s prom — a dress Kristin Vartan still wears today.
“I wear that today, to kind of honor her and her freedom now, and kind of honor that multigenerational bond that I have with my family,” she said. “When I wear that, I feel like I’m taking flight, it was like my mom took flight for the first time when she finally was able to express herself.”
Inspired by their parents’ courage, Vartan and her brother have embarked on a creative journey of their own, centered on self-expression. Together, they co-founded a company called Style Speaks.
“What we do with our work is, we want to showcase the way people move about in the world, and the way they express themselves,” Sean Ansari Vartan said.
As protests against Iran’s government continue around the world, Vartan said she experiences both grief and hope, grief for what many continue to endure in Iran, and hope in the ability to speak out freely.
“I feel that connection,” she said. “I feel like I am restoring the expression, in a way, that was taken from her.”
For Vartan, freedom is not only remembered. It is worn.