Muslim Women Driving a Modest Fashion Revolution

By Elisa Meyer --
11 Mar 2017 --

Young Muslim women are creating a whole new trend in fashion by combining modern fashion with their religious traditions

Muslim women, who have traditionally been sidelined in the fashion industry, are now taking the fashion world by storm. After a successful fashion ramp walk featuring hijabis in New York, and a hijabi being featured on an ad for CoverGirl, designers like Burberry and DKNY are now bringing out a special collection of dresses that are the product of a unique combination of Islamic codes of dressing modestly with contemporary fashion. The new line of clothes is known as the Ramadan collections.

Muslim Women Driving a Modest Fashion Revolution[/tweetthis]

The creation of the Ramadan line of collections shows there is a rise in a trend called “modest fashion.” Earlier, fashion meant wearing clothes that are tight-fitting and revealing. However, for some time now, designers are coming up with collections that are loose, flowing, with high necklines and little skin showing. The inspiration behind these pieces could have come from the burkha, which is a loose flowing garment. Whatever the reason may be, the fact is the younger generation of Muslim girls are overjoyed they can now enter the world of fashion[/tweetit] without transgressing the religious laws of modesty.

Perhaps the most influential catalysts in this shifting trend are the emergence of a new generation of YouTubers and Instagrammers young Muslim women who discovered ways in which they could combine contemporary fashion with religious tradition and flaunted it through their accounts to reach out to other young Muslim girls like them. Their growing popularity caught the attention of big designers, who got inspired by this whole new concept of fashion. One such Instagrammer, 27-year-old Dina Torkia, says wearing a hijab is similar to donning hair. Just as hair can be flaunted in different styles, so also Muslim women must think of new ways to wear their hijabs.

These women woke up the fashion world to a $44 billion industry https://t.co/qDTrPX5lQj pic.twitter.com/QmXk5PQMvF
— Bloomberg (business) M…
— Monica Lewis (@BSAMONICA) March 2, 2017

Boutiques such as Uniqlo already sells a line of Muslim-friendly designer clothes by designer Hana Tajima. In fact, the London Fashion Week even featured a line on modest fashion, thereby establishing that this new trend is actually gaining momentum.

Editor of WGSN, the trend-forecasting service, Robbie Sinclair, is of the opinion that the trend of modest fashion will very soon become popular with all brands. For Torkia, modest fashion is not about Muslims but about every woman who wants to be fashionable and modest at the same time.