By Yasmin Khatun Dewan
Thursday November 26, 2020
Aden, one of the first models to wear a hijab, says she is being forced to compromise beliefs
Halima Aden at the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar party in California. Photograph: David Crotty/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
The model Halima Aden has said she is quitting runway shows because working in fashion has forced her to compromise her religious beliefs.Aden, who was hailed as a trailblazer for being one of the first models to wear a hijab and walk for major fashion labels including Kanye West’s Yeezy, posted a series of images on social media that illustrated the times she had lost touch with who she is (from missing prayer times to being draped with pairs of jeans for a head covering).
“I can only blame myself for caring more about opportunity than what was actually at stake,” she wrote on Instagram Stories.The model shared a post of herself in a campaign for Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, writing: “(Rihanna) let me wear the hijab I brought to set. This is the girl I’m returning to, the real Halima.”
In another post, Aden spoke about the feeling that comes from being “a minority within a minority”, adding: “What I do blame the industry for is the lack of Muslim women stylists.” She said this had led to very little understanding of the hijab within the fashion industry.
Last year, she told the Observer that her hijab was a non-negotiable in her contract with the modelling agency IMG. “It’s not because I don’t think people are going to listen – it’s more so they know what to expect,” she said. In other social media posts, Aden wrote about feeling the weight of being the most high-profile modest fashion model.
“Fellow Muslim sisters would send me DMs and even publicly tag me at the start of my career to say ‘stop dressing like an old woman’… which made me feel like I was doing something wrong … I remember wanting to be the ‘hot hijabi’ as if that didn’t just defeat the whole purpose,” she wrote. “A hot mess is what it was truthfully.”
Aden shot to fame in 2016 following her turn in the Miss USA beauty pageant, when she caught the eye of the fashion editor Carine Roitfeld. She soon signed to the global modelling agency IMG and made her runway debut at New York fashion week where she walked for Kanye West’s Yeezy and Maxmara.
Eighteen months ago, Halima set conversations about modesty and fashion alight with both critics and supporters when she became the first headscarf-wearing model to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.