Hijab in British Fashion: Designers, Personal Style and Community

Hijab in British fashion can be explored through the clothes people make, the images they create and the decisions they describe in their own words. A headscarf might sit within a restrained everyday outfit, an expressive colour combination or a carefully developed designer collection. Understanding the outfit means giving attention to the person and the setting as well as the scarf.

This guide follows selected creative stories from different British settings. It looks at independent labels, personal style online, portrait projects and fashion presentations, including the work involved before a collection or photograph reaches an audience. The examples offer several ways into the subject: what a wearer needed, what a designer wanted to make, and what collaborators hoped to express together.

For a reader interested in clothes, that context adds to the pleasure of looking. Shape, colour and decoration are decisions someone has made. Asking about those decisions can reveal an experiment, a practical difficulty or a personal reference that the finished image alone leaves unexplained.

Faith, personal style and the wider conversation

Anthropologist Emma Tarlo offers a useful starting point in her Open University interview about veiling. Describing British fieldwork that began around 2004, she discusses women encountering family expectations, religious ideas, friends, fashion and commercial imagery together. Their clothing decisions emerge from these overlapping influences.

Her examples include women who use the headscarf as a starting point for colour coordination, alongside others who take a more restrained approach to dress. She also describes disagreements within families and Muslim communities. Her research does not support the idea that adopting fashionable clothing necessarily means moving away from faith, or that women share one definition of an appropriate outfit.

Tarlo also recalls discussions about accumulating large collections of scarves while questioning consumerism. That tension is particularly relevant to a style guide: enjoying clothes and questioning how much to acquire can coexist. Her interview gives us a way to approach British hijab fashion through choices and negotiations, without turning a diverse set of lives into a single story of liberation, conflict or commercial success.

Dina Torkia: explaining the whole outfit

In Alice Audley’s archived interview with Dina Torkia, the creator known as Dina Tokio describes wanting to show what being a young British Muslim woman meant to her. Fashion, humour and faith were all part of that account. The conversation discusses the fashion landscape of 2017; it should be read as a record of that period.

Torkia talks about a wardrobe incorporating high-street clothing and experimenting with headscarf styles. She also describes criticism from people who considered her approach incompatible with hijab. Her response places dress within a broader understanding of modesty that includes conduct and the way someone carries herself.

This is her explanation of her own practice, rather than a ruling for other women. It is valuable precisely because it preserves that personal voice. A photograph of an outfit cannot tell us everything about the wearer’s religious understanding, and a style change does not explain itself. Listening to the account alongside the image allows more room for the intentions and experiences that a quick judgement can miss.

Learning to change the clothes as well as the scarf

In her August 2018 essay for British Vogue, Torkia gave that experimentation a domestic history. Growing up in Cardiff, she had chosen to wear a headscarf at eleven. Finding the clothes she wanted as a teenager proved harder. She recalled combining bodycon dresses with long sleeves and poorly fitting jeans underneath, trying to obtain coverage from garments that had not been designed together.

In her late teens she bought a sewing machine, cut shapes around her body and learnt as she worked. The result was not instant expertise: she could look back critically at the outfits while remembering how satisfying it had felt to make something herself.

Later, photographs taken with her partner helped her develop an online style practice. She described experimenting with scarf arrangements and accessories, then finding inspiration in Sheikha Moza’s turbans and flowing dresses with high necklines. The progression matters as a history of making choices. A successful-looking image can follow awkward combinations, improvised sewing and gradual changes of taste. Her account gives those less polished stages a place within British fashion, alongside the finished look.

Independent designers and the question of useful clothes

Barjis Chohan: moving between textiles, interiors and clothing

Barjis Chohan’s 2011 Female First interview traces an interest in design through school screen printing and making her sister’s wedding dress. At that point, the company she had established in 2000 specialised in interiors and handmade rugs. Her work crossed more than one design discipline.

She described an abaya collection then in development, built around classic cuts, texture and embroidery. These plans show the particular elements she wanted to explore: the shape of a piece and the treatment of its surface.

Alongside her own designs, she had established Barjis Creativz to help other British designers reach overseas markets, drawing on relationships developed through her interiors work.

Chohan also recalled an internship in Vivienne Westwood’s team, carefully distinguishing that experience from working directly with Westwood herself. Keeping that distinction preserves the actual training story. The account introduces a British designer through the work she describes doing and learning, rather than treating a famous name as a substitute for understanding her clothes. Her interest in surfaces also connects clothing with the wider creative practice she was developing.

Nazmin Alim: designing around a workwear problem

A different starting point appears in Sylvia Hui’s May 2017 Associated Press report. Nazmin Alim, founder of the London label Aab, explained that she had previously bought fabric and used a tailor to obtain smart work clothing that met her modesty preferences. A long skirt could still have an unwanted slit; a top might lack the sleeves she wanted.

The report describes her collection being offered in Debenhams that month, including jumpsuits, knee-length hoodies, abayas and headscarves. This is a dated retail episode, not information about present availability. Its interest lies in the range of clothing forms gathered within one modest-fashion offer.

Alim’s account starts with a specific wearer problem and moves towards a design response. It also makes room for ordinary working life within the history of fashion: an outfit needs to make sense to the person wearing it through the day. The result need not belong to one fixed visual category. A designer can address a shared coverage preference through several kinds of garment, each with a different character.

A place within public design discussion

The Design Museum’s programme for 27 January 2015 advertised a conversation between Chohan and fashion scholar Reina Lewis, guest-curated by historian Amber Butchart. Its proposed subjects included fashion and faith, women’s education and careers, and modest dressing across Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The proposed agenda brought a wider emphasis: Muslim dress was being considered through the work of a designer and the opportunities of an industry, as well as through public debate about religion.

For anyone exploring this history, such programmes widen the kinds of material worth consulting. A designer interview can explain an individual practice, while a museum event can reveal the questions being brought into cultural discussion. Neither needs to stand in for the everyday experience of all the people who wear the clothes.

Street style, screens and individual voices

Sara Shamsavari: building a portrait series

British-Iranian artist Sara Shamsavari described the development of her Veil series in Anna Marsden’s 2019 Migrant Voice interview. Beginning in 2010, the project grew through street portraits in London and other cities, including Paris, New York, Toronto and Dubai. Its first presentation was at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2013.

Shamsavari’s account places the portraits within her wider interest in people whose individuality can disappear behind assumptions about appearance. London was one part of a project that crossed several settings; the subjects were not presented as evidence that everyone in those places dressed or understood hijab alike.

She also recalled a 2018 event in a private home where women’s stories and projected portraits were brought together with music and food. Each of five women’s stories inspired an improvised musical piece and a dish. The image became part of a fuller encounter. This gives a different route into fashion culture: looking beyond a garment as a trend and allowing a person’s story, creative expression and social surroundings into the frame. The project’s value here lies in the artist’s stated purpose and the format she developed.

Mariah Idrissi: having a say in the finished look

In Susannah Butter’s September 2015 interview, Londoner Mariah Idrissi discussed appearing in H&M’s Close the Loop campaign. The published look combined a pink coat, checked headscarf, sunglasses and flared trousers outside an east London fish and chip shop.

Idrissi explained that she had contributed to the clothing decisions. She rejected trousers that exposed more ankle than she wanted, and the checked scarf initially chosen was too short for her requirements. Two scarves were joined to create the coverage she sought. These practical details make her participation more legible than the campaign image alone.

Her interview-day outfit was different: a black scarf, long grey T-shirt, faded black jeans and trainers. The two looks show the distinction between a styled campaign appearance and one person’s ordinary clothing on a particular day. They also preserve her role in shaping the public image. The account gives a concrete example of a wearer communicating what she needs while contributing to a recognisably contemporary fashion composition.

Habiba Da Silva: colour as a creative subject

When Glamour interviewed Habiba Da Silva in February 2018, the Birmingham-based creator explained the connection between her Lebanese and Brazilian background and her interest in culture and identity. That interest shaped the concept behind her SKIN hijab collection.

She described having the idea before she had the budget to realise it, and being surprised by the response when it reached an audience. Her explanation connects the collection’s colour concept with identity and representation.

Moving from blogging to speaking on video had required another adjustment. Da Silva recalled feeling exposed by the format; support from family, friends and followers helped her continue. The finished public presence had involved learning to feel comfortable being heard.

At the time of the interview, she had also released SKIN II, describing changes to shades and material. The development matters as a creative process: a concept can be revisited through specific alterations instead of being treated as finished after its first appearance. Her story adds a Birmingham voice to this discussion and shows how an online creator could turn a personal interest into a focused clothing idea.

Nabiilabee: a tutorial beginning in everyday encounters

In Franka Soeria’s April 2015 interview, UK-based fashion student Nabiilabee traced her online work to a blog she began at sixteen. Existing hijab tutorials did not suit her taste, so she experimented with scarves and colours. People approached her in town to ask how she had arranged them. A requested tutorial became her first YouTube video in February 2011.

She recalled feeling shy at first, then growing to enjoy the work. The sequence connects an ordinary encounter with a digital audience: a question asked in person became something she could demonstrate to people elsewhere. Her style developed through trying things before it became material to teach.

The relationships continued beyond requests for instructions. She described friendships that began through her accounts and argued for creators helping one another. At the same time, she found constant expectations difficult, particularly when comments about visible skin displaced recognition of her own religious struggles. Her account preserves both the enjoyment and the pressure of the work. An audience could offer friendship and encouragement while also asking a young woman’s appearance to carry more certainty than she felt.

Family sewing, travel and a designer’s influences

Nabiila Bee added another part of the story in Sarah Amr’s July 2018 Arabisk London interview. Her mother gave her a sewing machine at nine and taught her to use it. Making dolls’ clothes preceded university study in fabric and fashion. She described making modest clothing as a response to difficulty finding what she wanted to wear.

Her references crossed several places. She identified Russian, Algerian and Turkish family backgrounds, and connected her style with childhood experiences in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Architecture, people and the clothes encountered while travelling informed her outlook. Her family moved to Britain when she was six; the British setting did not cancel those earlier and continuing influences.

She also recalled participating in Dubai Modest Fashion Week in 2017 and welcomed such events while wanting stronger opportunities for the field. Her emphasis on colour and unconventional combinations belonged to her design ambition. This account brings a useful scale to cultural exchange: a mother teaching sewing, a student choosing a subject, and a designer naming the places that shape her eye. Those connections explain more than a general claim that fashion crosses borders.

Community as a starting point for creative work

Muslim Sisterhood: making space for collaborators

The London collective Muslim Sisterhood was founded in 2017 by Zeinab Saleh, Sara Gulamali and Lamisa Khan. In their Dazed 100 profile, they describe a project that began with photographs and developed into work across publishing and events.

Their first zine was produced with Between Borders, using an all-Muslim creative team. The collective explained that seeing themselves recognised within their own community mattered alongside being seen by a wider audience. That places authorship at the centre of the project: who makes the images, writes the text and decides how the finished work feels.

Asked what funding could support, they identified another zine and payment for themselves, writers and collaborators. This was a proposed use of support, not a documented later result. It nevertheless makes the practical ambition clear. Creative visibility involves the labour of making something together, and the possibility of giving contributors time and resources. Their account takes the conversation beyond the appearance of a scarf in a photograph and into the relationships behind the publication.

The friendships behind the images

In Hudda Khaireh’s March 2021 Vogue interview, Muslim Sisterhood described friendships growing through its shoots. Gulamali recalled Instagram recording the people they met. Saleh’s aunt Faye provided make-up; Shireen Kadhim offered to join the team. Khan explained the trust involved when photographing people who were not professional models.

Saleh recalled a bakhoor workshop with jewellery designer Noura Alserkal. Learning how to make a familiar household incense gave the group another way to connect. These accounts make community tangible through shared skills, relationships and time together.

Listening to several kinds of practitioner

London College of Fashion’s report on its Fashion Focus discussion, organised with Arts Students Union and La Marche Fashion, brings several perspectives together. Participants included model and community organiser Asha Mohamud, textile designer Memunatu Barrie, and label founders Abigayle Andre and Ruby Aslam. Aminah Ali chaired.

The account describes Andre and Aslam discussing the wish for practical clothing that led to their brands. Both were identified as women who did not wear hijab, while designing for customers who did. Their conversation emphasised learning from the people who would wear the clothes.

Other discussion concerned how practitioners could draw on their own experiences while treating clients as individuals. This is a useful distinction within British fashion: having a personal creative voice and listening carefully to a customer are compatible responsibilities. The event report also records differing interpretations of modesty, rather than presenting the term as a single agreed specification. Its range of speakers makes room for modelling, textiles, community work and garment design within the same professional conversation.

Athleisure as a British design project

Yasmin Sobeih: turning fashion study into a collection

In London College of Fashion’s interview about UNDER-RAPT, Yasmin Sobeih described growing up in northern England with English and Egyptian heritage. She graduated in Fashion Promotion with Styling from the University of Central Lancashire in 2012, then developed her experience in styling and buying. Her route into a collection came through several parts of the industry.

During postgraduate study in buying and merchandising at London College of Fashion, encouragement from course leader Julie O’Sullivan helped her develop the business idea. A collection followed at London Modest Fashion Week in 2017. Sobeih described oversized forms, separates and layering, drawing on sport and loungewear while considering modest dressing.

The interview also makes the less visible work tangible. Visits to trade shows informed her thinking about colours, shapes and prints. She discussed learning to connect buying with merchandising and taking responsibility for logistics. A design idea had to become an organised project, with decisions about the range and how it would reach people. Her account gives athleisure a specific educational and professional history within British modest fashion.

Garment shapes beyond a general sportswear label

Hafsa Lodi’s October 2018 interview with Sobeih described a range that included hooded tops, relaxed jumpsuits, harem trousers, raincoats and the skight: a sports skirt attached to tights. These names reveal different approaches to assembling coverage, from a separate outer layer to two elements joined into one piece.

Sobeih named Yeezy, Fenty and Vetements among her references for oversized, relaxed silhouettes. She connected those shapes with her own interpretation of modest dressing and gender fluidity. This was a designer explaining a visual direction, rather than evidence of a national dress code or a shared religious position.

She dated her athletic hijab concept to a postgraduate business plan developed in 2015. She also discussed a sports hijab and a hooded base-layer top. Her stated starting point included friends and relatives who found their scarves slipped during exercise. That explains the design problem without establishing how any product performs. Although based in Britain, she reported receiving many orders from the Middle East and South East Asia. The interview therefore places a British project within wider clothing conversations, while allowing different wearers to interpret the garments for themselves.

Sheffield perspectives on the London fashion stage

Kazna Asker: clothes designed in relation to one another

The British Fashion Council’s profile of Kazna Asker identifies her with the 2022 MA Fashion Menswear course at Central Saint Martins. It describes a practice combining her British upbringing and Yemeni heritage through technical sportswear fabrics and woven Middle Eastern textiles.

One particular design decision stands out: she creates paired menswear and womenswear looks, using the relationship between them to express brotherhood and sisterhood. Corresponding tracksuits and outerwear sit alongside abayas and thobes. The connection is built through clothing forms and materials, rather than requiring everyone to wear an identical garment.

This is a specific example of shared visual language across a collection. Looking closely at the pairing allows a more useful question: what is repeated, and what changes? A collection can establish a relationship through cloth, colour or construction while still giving different pieces their own shape and purpose.

A living-room setting for autumn/winter 2024

Elliot Hoste’s March 2024 Dazed report and interview describe Asker recreating her grandmother’s living room at the Old Selfridges Hotel for London Fashion Week. Friends and relatives occupied a setting furnished with carpets, books and tea, alongside people from the fashion industry. An accompanying storyboard included images of local businesses, teachers and counsellors, giving those everyday relationships a place alongside the clothes.

The report gives clothing detail as well as atmosphere: an ink-black and olive shell suit incorporated patterned cloth panels, while an abaya used shell-suit material with related panelling. The room made those combinations feel connected to a lived environment rather than displayed in isolation.

Asker explained that her research had included cousins in tracksuits and puffer jackets beside older relatives in hijabs and abayas. She wanted to explore the relationship between those generations. Her account gives the combinations a precise reference point in her own Sheffield upbringing. It also shows how a fashion presentation can carry meaning through its setting and participants, alongside the garments. The family scene was a deliberately constructed part of the collection’s public introduction.

Developing the design vocabulary

In Sitara Mulchandani’s 2025 interview for The Kurator, Asker recalled receiving her grandmother’s sewing machine at seventeen and learning to make a jacket with help from a video. That experiment preceded the later fashion presentations.

She also described widening her references. Earlier work had drawn heavily on young people in youth clubs; noticing the three-piece suits worn by her grandfather and his friends prompted an interest in learning tailoring. Her community contained several generations and ways of dressing.

The interview describes an electric-blue, abaya-inspired jacket and maxi skirt with contrasting woven fabric at the lapels, styled with scarves and silver jewellery. The accompanying oversized hat recalled her grandmother’s former life as a shepherd in Yemen. Asker remembered her grandmother recognising that reference; the headwear and matching bags helped give a particular family journey a place in the collection. Here, colour and tailoring become part of the story alongside sportswear. Following these details helps avoid reducing a designer to one signature formula. The continuity lies in whose experiences she attends to, while the garments can change as she develops different skills and considers other family perspectives.

Making room for thoughtful, lasting choices

Chohan’s London College of Fashion alumni interview offers a candid account of learning. She said environmental concerns were not part of her awareness when she first established her business. Documentaries and further research later prompted her to develop a strategy for changing her practice.

In the same interview, she describes research as a favourite part of starting a project, including time in the British Library and museums. Her education, completed at London College of Fashion in 1995, had also encouraged independent working and attention to commercial realities.

She also recalled taking part in the fashion exhibition at San Francisco’s de Young Museum and finding an unplanned role in public speaking, sharing what business difficulties had taught her.

These statements explain a designer’s developing priorities. They do not establish the environmental performance of any particular garment. That distinction matters when the language of sustainability appears beside fashion: an intention, a change in practice and a measured result are different kinds of information. The interview is most useful as an account of someone recognising questions she needed to investigate. It leaves room for further evidence about how those intentions were implemented.

Looking at the clothes and the work behind them

There are several rewarding ways to explore a fashion image. Follow the garment: how are its parts assembled, and what visual effect does that produce? Follow the maker: which problem or reference began the work? Or follow the collaboration: whose skills helped turn an idea into a collection, publication or presentation?

These questions also leave room for enjoyment. You might be drawn to a colour, a generous sleeve or an unexpected meeting of materials before knowing anything about its background. Learning the story can deepen that interest without requiring you to reproduce the outfit or adopt the designer’s preferences.

A British hijab-fashion history becomes richer when it includes the experiment as well as the polished result. Clothing can be discussed with attention to its shape and construction while the people involved retain their own explanations of faith, ambition and taste.

Explore a city and a creative career

For a closer local view, continue with Birmingham’s designers and personal style. Our article on Amena Khan’s creative work follows a different path through beauty work, media and personal choice, offering another way to consider the relationship between visible style and an individual career.