Stallholders selling out of Afghanistan's new must-have hat

You are what you wear, especially in Afghanistan. You might not expect fashion statements to be that high on the agenda in a country racked by two decades of continuous war, but in Afghanistan, clothes can be a matter of life and death.

For men, a black turban and long beard mean that you are a Talib; a brown woollen pakoul cap, of the type favoured by the assassinated commander Ahmed Shah Masood, means you are with the Northern Alliance. To be found wearing the wrong outfit in the other's territory can be dangerous.

The Taliban enforced a strict dress code, and locked up those who flouted it in disused cargo containers. But although the Northern Alliance has no laws on what people can wear, former Taliban are hastily changing their wardrobe in keeping with Alliance fashion.

A hat-seller in Taloqan bazaar told us he had practically sold out of pakoul caps in the past few days before the city fell to the Northern Alliance. The Taliban once threatened to shoot anyone who wore the pakoul, the symbol of Masood. But, the hat-seller said, it was the Taliban's own soldiers who were queuing up in droves to buy his pakouls. The war in Afghanistan has not been won on the battlefield, but through mass defections by the Taliban – and that means it is important to show where your new loyalties lie.

Under the Taliban, Western clothes were strictly illegal – except for men's anoraks, which were incongruously worn over traditional Afghan dress. For women, the rules were simple. In public, they had to be completely covered up in the all-enveloping burqa, and shoes that made a noise when they walked were illegal.

Men had to wear the traditional perahan and tumban, a pyjama suit of long loose shirt and incredibly baggy trousers. Over this you had to wear a waistcoat, and it had to be striped. Turbans, or lungi, were compulsory, and had to be worn with a long loose end called the alaga hanging below the shoulder. Decrees were posted in public, signed by the Taliban's supreme leader himself, Mullah Mohammed Omar, saying that those who did not wear their turbans crooked would go to jail. Taliban soldiers wore the same clothes; they had no uniform except that their turbans were either black or white.

The patou, an unwieldy long blanket men wrap themselves in winter, and wear slung over the left shoulder when it is warm, was also compulsory. Beards had to be long enough to be clenched in a fist and protrude at the far end.

Under the Northern Alliance pakouls are definitely in. Beards are worn short, and a small minority go completely clean-shaven. You still see turbans on the streets, but never with a loose end hanging down Taliban-style, and you can have any colour, so long as it isn't Taliban black. Alliance supporters eschew the blanket-like patou in favour of kerchiefs somewhat like the Arab headscarf worn by Yasser Arafat, but in brighter colours and worn round the neck – which were favoured by the mujahedin in the war against the Russians.

Though the Alliance is a loose confederation of warlords, it is practically impossible to tell one warlord's men from another's by their clothes, except for the well-dressed army of General Rashid Dostum, who have their own Western-style military uniform.

But for women in most of the country, little has changed. It is a myth that the Taliban brought the misery of the burqa upon them, in the provinces social pressure meant they had to wear it long before the Taliban arrived. Outside cities such as Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, they remain forgotten and invisible beneath the veil.