 Modesty to me has so many layers to it. As a Muslim woman, of course, the natural thing you would think about is the way that I'm dressed in more of a modest fashion, but as a Muslim woman, modesty is a value and it's a virtue that is incredibly important across both genders, both men and women, and so it's this inward humility and outward humility. It's an unassuming nature, but it's also a confidence that you carry as well, and knowing who you are and being proud of that identity, it certainly has a lot to do with the hijab itself, although it is a misconception that we wear hijab out of modesty. It's actually in order to be identified as Muslim women. For me, as a Lebanese woman, there are 14 different religions in my country, and all of them embody a form or another of modest fashion. It's not necessarily just tied to Islam. The idea that modest fashion has suddenly reached a mainstream awareness in the Western media, it's interesting, it's liberating for sure, but in other ways it's also very oppressive because it becomes this sudden definition of one single religion. Modest fashion to me is much more about the way that someone feels when they're wearing certain items, so it's not necessarily a prescriptive thing for me. It's much more about how someone else interprets their own version of what modesty is. When I design, I don't specifically design for Muslim women, it's much more, I try to find this sort of thread of connection that goes between all women, and I mean even between genders as well, like there's something innate in all of us that wants to feel beautiful as they go about their days. There is no look to being a Muslim. There are Muslims who you don't even know are Muslim, right, to the ones that are visibly very much so Muslim, and dressed as traditionally, and there's everything in between, and so what I bring to the table is, hey, there's other Muslims who are kind of alternative that also want to be accepted and not othered. I'm gonna always rock my turban in a jab, but for the rest of it it's up for interpretation to me. I would like to hope that the practice of modesty is intrinsically linked to ethical practices. Given that modesty, as it's also defined as an Islamic principle, for my own interpretation at least, is very much less about like the actual tangible clothes that we wear, but a more holistic understanding of what it means to be modest and what it means to live in under Islamic principles, which in my understanding is something that understands the value of humans and understands the value of women, and so being able to express modesty is more than just fashion, but it is I think a holistic way of life and the relationship that you have with the world and the people in it. Modest street fashion volume one is a collection of photographs, and it takes a microscopic look at the genre of modest street fashion, and how did some guy from Detroit, Michigan get involved in such an endeavor. I began photographing with just a few influencers in my hometown, not necessarily for modest street fashion, but individuals who are already involving themselves in modest street fashion, and I'd find that people were commenting, hey, come to Singapore, hey, come to Azerbaijan, hey, come to Kuwait, hey, come to Indonesia, and I was looking at a lot of these comments and posts, and I said, wow, man, this is really taken off all around the world, and people really enjoy this genre, and they're really interested in having their own self-expression be seen. I never wanted people to feel that they could not approach me because of my faith. I always wanted to be approachable, and I felt that if I'm beautifully styled and beautifully dressed, then they are going to definitely strike up a conversation with me, so my faith has really been my inspiration, and it allows me to separate and tear down some of the negative barriers that exist when people see women that are Muslim women, because there's a lot of Islamphobia that exists in our world. Back home in Detroit, where I'm from, I led a youth group when I was in law school, and these were high school aged girls that we that met once a week at a local masjid or mosque, and one thing I noticed in leading this group of girls was that the numbers in which they were wearing hijab was the exact opposite of myself and my peer group, so there was something in me that wanted to understand why that was. Why was it that girls were not wearing hijab at numbers that our age group was just a few years prior? And to me it was really clear. There were two big things. Number one, just the very practical difficulty that we had acquiring high quality, beautiful hijabs that fit in with our American aesthetic. That piece I knew was first and foremost a real thing that we needed to tackle, very practically speaking, providing high quality hijabs that made you feel confident and beautiful. And the second piece was around providing role models that these girls could look up to, that they could say, wow, here's a girl who's successful and really making something of herself in America in hijab. And not despite wearing hijab, but because she's wearing hijab. My last year in the fashion design program at Pratt, I had a small collection that I was designing and there was this gown in the front. It looks kind of like a column dress and then it had like a cascading frills coming down. So I had this dress I put it on. I went to Eid and I just remember showing up and people like, oh, that is so beautiful. They're like, that is so gorgeous. And I just felt at that moment like I arrived. I felt like it was that vision of a woman that I want, that I had of myself from when I was 14, that I could really look amazing and elegant. And it just made me feel amazing to have actually accomplished that and to have all of that great feedback from people in my community. So right now we're seeing more people who look like me taking up space on the cover of Vogue on this and that. And it's exciting to see people who look like you represented in a way that is positive for once. And it is refreshing. And so if I was growing up in Oklahoma and I saw, you know, Halia Maadin on the cover of Vogue, that would have been like such a beautiful feeling for me. But at the same time, I do think that it's really problematic that we're also allowing our identities to be flattened and erased. So I think that a modest fashion becoming mainstream is a good thing mostly because now you have Muslim women or people who even dress modestly now feel included in fashion, right? When I model as like a fat black Muslim woman and you see my picture on an ad, now you feel included. You feel represented, right? For too long, we've been doing the same old thing over and over again. I think it's time for us to make a change even if it's something subtle like a mannequin, right? It seems like it's not a big deal. When you see it, you're like, oh my God, like I feel seen. You know what I mean? I think there needs to be a rebellion and kind of like how we think and how we view people's bodies and how we view their culture and their spirituality. And that's what I do what I do. Costs with trouble. We need to be able to create a new narrative around fashion. Fashion represents beauty. It represents women. It crosses again all economic, social and religious barriers. So when we see fashion, we should see diversity. When we see fashion, we should see inclusion. I am challenging the fashion world and just the industry in general to step up and to make that commitment and to be more of a part of diversity and inclusion. My experience on Project Runaway was rather interesting. They were a bit antagonizing about the fact that I only design modest fashion. They were like, what if so and so wanted a mini skirt? You know, would you do it? You know, and I was like, no, I wanted she can get that from somebody else. And I was uncompromising about my design aesthetic, not even just my design aesthetic. But then there's also having like principles about what it is that you're trying to promote out in the world. Garment workers in the fashion industry are completely invisible. And so because of their invisibility, it's been a challenge to discuss sustainability within the fashion space, to discuss labor rights, women's rights and to discuss it in a way that's inclusive and that is global. Putting a hijab on a mile doesn't necessarily mean that you support Muslims and a hijab is not synonymous with Islam. And so if we're able to be able to challenge these conversations and understand that fast fashion does not support Muslims because Muslim garment workers are being exploited to make all of this clothes, this is a conversation that I hope that we can have and I don't want representation to ever take place of liberation. For me, a lot of my work is centered on labor and what does it mean that we can actually uplift and value the labor that goes into producing our clothes just like we value artists for the work that they make. So blueton production is sort of a systemic challenge to the fast fashion production because we're imagining what a world could look like in which our clothes are produced sound and safe and it makes you feel good about what you're wearing. I do what I do because I love it. I'm passionate about it. And it is my opportunity to share with women in general around the world the beauty that we have when we're modestly dressed. Fashion is an ambassador to world peace. That's my motto. I'm going to say it again. Fashion is an ambassador to world peace. I find New York, shout out to New York, to have one of the most exciting street style scenes because there is such diversity and that allows for an influx of innovation and inspiration of ideas to be in one locality. Additionally, I think this is something that is common amongst most people in the world but just a desire to have self-expression. We're not all fitting into some cookie cutter mode. We all have our own individuality, our own aspirations, desires and goals and life. I feel like there is a push towards less aesthetic clothing if that makes sense, more about the wearer and less about how they look. I think that modest fashion may evolve or change but I hope the part that sticks around is the idea that clothing doesn't necessarily need to be about how you look but more about how you feel. And I think that even though there are trends that will come and go, when there is some sort of connection, when people really feel a connection towards the clothes, that's the thing that's going to stick around. Modest fashion should be democratized. It should be something like a movement that's respected equally to any other fashion movements. For instance, women who wear modest fashion can find the products they need in order to expand their life, to run and swim and dance and do everything they want to do. Anything that's done in good faith for the emancipation of the women who embody modest fashion, I think is a positive thing. Modest fashion has really been around and getting attention since 2016. So now what we're seeing is we're seeing women being drawn to the beauty of modest fashion and they understand that modest fashion is not necessarily faith-based fashion. Now when you look at modest fashion, you have so much beauty in the design aesthetic that's coming from modest designers that it has forced people to take a look at modest fashion from a different angle. When I go into these spaces to do what I do best, which is be myself, sometimes you come across individuals who are like too much, you know. But in the other sense, I get women who are queer, trans people. I get old white women from Ohio who are like, yes, fat, black and Muslim. Yes, I get this from all these different people, this love. Because on a human level, I'm a human and they're human and they feel me on a level. They might not know my struggle of being fat or my struggle about being black or Muslim. But on a human level, they understand what it is to challenge identities and so that's where we connect and that's where the love comes from me being a fat, black and Muslim feminist. I think there's a misconception that modesty is equal to a sense of maybe inward not knowing exactly who you are or not rising to the occasion or not truly being confident in who you are and I think that's a real misconception, especially amongst Muslim women. Us dressing modestly doesn't mean that we're meek or we're weak. Quite the contrary, it involves a lot of strength to be able to go outside in the world every day in hijab and telling the entire world exactly who you are, which is a Muslim woman.