Abayas in Australia: Local Design, Makers and Personal Style

Abayas in Australia can be understood through the people who design them and the choices behind individual garments. A particular piece offers a useful starting point: who made it, what gives it its character and how it relates to the wearer’s life. Those questions leave room for personal preference without expecting an entire country to share one aesthetic.

This guide follows documented garments, makers and public conversations. A museum acquisition, a designer interview and an organiser’s event record each capture a different moment. Keeping their dates visible makes it possible to trace local creativity and international connections, while recognising that a historical collection need not describe what is available or popular today.

Three Australian abayas with distinct design ideas

Fay Tellaoui: pockets, pleats and a tiered alternative

Powerhouse holds two abayas designed and made by Fay Tellaoui in Sydney in 2012. Its black cotton-elastane example has a crossover detail at the chest, a band beneath the bust and pleats beside the centre front. Oversized pockets form long draped shapes towards the hem. Here, the pockets help create the outline instead of disappearing into it.

The pale pink polyester abaya uses a high waist and eight gently gathered skirt tiers. Placing these garments together reveals two different ways to develop a long silhouette: concentrated drape in one, repeated horizontal divisions in the other. Each asks the eye to pause in different places, even before accessories enter the picture.

The records trace Tellaoui’s early designs to 2004 and her Bankstown boutique to 2008, followed by Coburg in 2010. They also distinguish Sydney manufacture from overseas-made fabric sourced locally. Tellaoui described nearby production as allowing her to visit the factory and follow the work closely. These details locate the garments within a particular creative and production history.

Hijab House: a simple outline within a playful collection

Powerhouse’s 2011 Hijab House abaya, designed in Bankstown, offers another approach. The grey polyester garment has a round neckline, an uninterrupted waistline and three buttons at each cuff. Its restrained construction allows the long outline to remain the main visual feature. Although acquired in 2019, it is catalogued as a 2011 design; acquisition and design dates describe different events.

The museum identifies it as the Signature Abaya from the You’re Late for Tea collection. Founder Tarik Houchar explained the collection’s connection with Alice in Wonderland and the importance of a story that customers could engage with. He described coverage through decisions about length, cut and transparency, with prints and storytelling contributing to the fashion identity.

The catalogue also records customer feedback through Facebook influencing prints and shop layout. That gives the design story another participant: the people responding to the clothes. Beside the abaya’s understated outline, the collection’s imaginative theme is particularly interesting. A visually quiet garment can still belong to a playful creative world.

The wider local wardrobe gives the abaya context

These abayas sit within a wider Australian modest-fashion wardrobe.

Baraka Women: separates and the work behind them

A 2010 Baraka Women outfit in the Powerhouse collection brings together a black long-sleeved top, chocolate draped cardigan, leather belt and floral silk maxi skirt. It is a group of separates, rather than an abaya. The combination shows how a modest wardrobe can create its length and visual interest through several pieces.

Kath Fry and Eisha Saleh established the label in 2008 after discussing the clothing they struggled to find. The museum records cutting in Marrickville and sewing in Surry Hills and Marrickville, alongside materials sourced both locally and overseas. Naming those stages makes the making process tangible. Fry brought fashion-design experience and Saleh business skills; their partnership grew from conversations while they were studying Islamic law together.

The outfit belongs to their Japanesque collection, whose documented references included Japanese draping, origami wrapping and countryside colours. This is the designers’ explanation of a particular collection. It adds a specific creative connection to the Australian story while allowing the clothes to be considered on their own construction and appearance.

Aida Zein: a casual design language

In the ABC’s 2013 Compass programme, Aida Zein described buying fabric, developing designs and having them made before moving into a clothing business. The programme identified denim as a signature material in her casual range. Zein spoke about adding distinctive trims and designing pieces that could be worn in several ways.

That same programme included blogger Delina Darusman-Gala. She explained that her blog began with friends asking where she found her clothes and scarves. Putting those answers online created a way to share her styling choices more widely. Both accounts show people responding to an immediate need: finding clothes they wanted, or explaining where an outfit came from.

The interviews capture these activities in 2013. They help explain how design and informal style conversations were connected, without requiring every item in those wardrobes to be called an abaya. Later, the programme follows a Hijab House bridal commission, including separate attention to the bride’s head covering. Special-occasion work appears beside everyday design, with different people contributing to the complete outfit.

Asia Hassan: drape and long silhouettes

Melbourne designer Asia Hassan described the defining features of Asiyam in her 2022 interview with Fashion Journal: manipulating fabric, creating drape and working with pleats for long, loose silhouettes. Her interest was in making clothing that reflected the aesthetic she wanted to wear.

Hassan also discussed the difficulty of entering an industry without the connections or examples she wished she had. This places the polished collection alongside the less visible work of finding a way into fashion. Her account of creativity includes both an attraction to cloth and the practical challenge of developing a label. The label’s name, she explained, came from a childhood friend’s affectionate version of her name.

For someone exploring abaya design, that focus offers a useful question: how much of the garment’s character comes from the way its material is shaped? A plain surface may contain substantial design thought. Hassan’s work belongs to a broader modest wardrobe, so the relevant connection is her approach to long silhouettes, rather than a claim that every Asiyam piece is an abaya.

Yasmin Jay: fabric, upbringing and contemporary dress

In Diandra Malivindi’s June 2022 interview for ELLE Australia, Sydney designer Yasmin Jay described growing up with Lebanese parents in Australia as an influence on her creative identity. She had studied fashion design at the Whitehouse Institute of Design, developing an interest in styling into work with design and craftsmanship.

Her explanation of making was specific: a relatively simple pattern could become expressive through the use of a luxurious or embellished fabric. This puts attention on the relationship between surface and cut. It also gives personal heritage a place in contemporary design without demanding that every garment reproduce a traditional form.

Jay recalled struggling to find practical clothing she liked when she began wearing hijab. The interview accompanied her participation in a retailer’s modest-fashion edit, which she welcomed as a form of recognition. Those are her reasons for designing and her response to that occasion. Her ambition to make women feel confident is a designer’s intention, rather than a promise about how every customer will feel.

Australian surroundings can become a personal design reference

In Fares Hassan’s 2018 SBS interview, Melbourne designer Sara Awamleh discussed an eveningwear collection named Daintree. The Queensland rainforest inspired the collection, and she wanted it to draw attention to pollution and deforestation. She wanted modest eveningwear to be available through ordinary fashion outlets and to appeal beyond Muslim customers. That ambition concerned the place of covered clothing within the wider wardrobe.

Awamleh also described her own experience of moving from Australia to Saudi Arabia as a child and living there for twelve years. Her reflections on wearing an abaya formed part of a wider conversation about dress, personal identity and women’s freedom to choose. She emphasised that women could feel beautiful and confident while making different clothing choices from her own.

The collection provides a specific example of an Australian landscape entering a designer’s work. Its environmental theme describes the idea she wanted to communicate; it does not establish the environmental impact of the garments’ manufacture. Keeping those two questions separate allows both the creative ambition and the production evidence to be assessed fairly.

Melbourne’s modest runway grew from a local conversation

Yusuf Liban, co-owner and creative director of Sunna Style, connected his interest in design with the clothing frustrations of his eight sisters in Juliette Capomolla’s November 2020 interview for Fashion Journal. They wanted to express their tastes while observing their faith. His account makes the starting point a family’s experience, rather than an abstract description of what all Muslim women want.

Liban described returning to Melbourne in 2018 after presenting menswear in London, then working with Melbourne Fashion Week to develop its Modest Fashion Runway. The interview dates the first edition to 2019. By November 2020, he was discussing an online edition bringing designers and panellists together, with opportunities for emerging Melbourne designers.

This adds an organising role to the Australian design story. A collection needs somewhere to be encountered; a dedicated event can put different approaches beside one another and invite discussion. Liban’s account describes work towards that setting. His hopes for the industry’s future remain his expectations at the time, rather than evidence that one aesthetic would become Australia’s next dominant style.

Embroidery connects personal heritage with an Australian setting

A wider example of local making comes from Gina Barjeel. In Fares Hassan’s November 2020 SBS report, the Jordanian designer described incorporating Jordanian and Palestinian embroidery into a collection shown at Sydney’s Golden Eagle event. She had moved to Australia in 2018. The fashion presentation was organised by Fabrics of Multicultural Australia and the Australian Turf Club.

Barjeel connected the embroidery with pride in her heritage and a wish to introduce it to another audience. She also described working with refugee women she had met in Wollongong, learning from their sewing expertise. At the time of the interview, she said three women were working with her part-time. This is a dated account of her workshop relationships, rather than a claim about its current staffing.

Her contribution to this wider fashion story is the connection between a particular heritage, people with practical skills and a local presentation. Those details give cultural expression a human scale. They show who brought knowledge to the work, instead of treating embroidered decoration as an anonymous sign of an Australian multicultural style.

Fashion exhibitions make room for the wearer’s voice

The Western Australian Museum’s Geraldton presentation of Faith, Fashion, Fusion ran from 13 December 2014 to 3 March 2015. Its description brought designers, retailers and bloggers together with individual women’s accounts, using photographs, interviews and treasured objects.

That combination offers a helpful way to encounter fashion. A garment can be examined as design, while a person can explain what mattered in her own life. Those strands may connect, but a display of clothing does not have to carry the whole explanation of someone’s identity.

In her first-hand review for reCollections, Petra Mosmann described work commissioned from the Muslim women’s art collective Crooked Rib. The photographs paired women’s images with messages about themselves. A related visitor activity invited people to identify something an observer could not know from their appearance.

Mosmann also raised a tension in the exhibition: celebrating individual achievement could leave less room to examine the pressures surrounding fashion and modesty. Her review is an interpretation of the exhibition, with both appreciation and criticism. It gives the discussion more depth than a simple claim that visibility automatically resolves misunderstanding.

The Melbourne presentation also included author Hanifa Deen and her well-used feminist books, Mosmann recorded. Deen’s involvement in women’s liberation during the 1970s gave those objects a personal history beyond an outfit. Their inclusion matters: a fashion exhibition can introduce a woman through the ideas she has lived with, as well as the clothes she chooses. Mosmann’s review keeps that broader identity in view while questioning the exhibition’s limits.

Online style has people and work behind it

Housnia Shams’s 2020 ABC interviews with Sydney creators Nawal Sari and Sana Sayed describe another part of this fashion landscape. Sari spoke about wanting someone whose fashion and Muslim identity she could relate to. Sayed described sharing styling ideas and taking her own promotional photographs, sometimes spending up to two hours on them. At that time, Sari said she had moved from several jobs into full-time content creation, and that management helped her reach commercial work she had struggled to access alone.

The same report included Twiice designer Mawluda Momin, who discussed adapting mainstream ideas for her customers and the different roles influencers played in exposure and sales. These are accounts from the people involved, tied to that reporting period. They show that an online outfit can involve creative work, a commercial relationship and a personal point of view at once.

Sari and Sayed also described hostile comments about their clothing. Their experience complicates any assumption that publishing a stylish photograph guarantees a supportive response. The creator remains a person with boundaries, even when her work is public.

Local style includes different places and different seasons

The Bureau of Meteorology’s explanation of Australian climate zones gives a more useful foundation than assigning one weather profile to the country. It distinguishes tropical conditions in places such as Darwin and Cairns, subtropical regions and the more pronounced seasonal changes of temperate places such as Melbourne and Hobart. Distance from the coast and mountain ranges add further variation. For Darwin and Cairns, the Bureau explains wet and dry seasons. Melbourne and Hobart have shorter, colder winter days and longer, warmer summer days.

For an abaya wearer, this means a local reference should be specific enough to be useful. A photograph taken outdoors during one city’s summer does not answer what you would want for a different season elsewhere. Begin with where and when the outfit will be worn, then consider the actual conditions you expect to encounter.

The climate description is background, rather than a forecast for an event. Check the nearer-term conditions when planning a particular day. Doing so gives the clothing decision a real setting without turning geography into a rule about personal style.

For practical questions about garment shapes, fabrics, sizing and movement, Amani’s complete abaya guide provides the separate foundation.

Representation should leave room for individual requirements

In the ABC’s reporting from Australian Fashion Week in May 2023, Asia Hassan discussed her collection Liberty and the creative freedom she associated with modest fashion. Attendee Shereen Kassir described feeling recognised by the presentation while wanting to remain both stylish and faithful to her values. The account is set at Sydney’s Carriageworks, bringing the designer’s intentions and the audience’s responses into one identifiable fashion event.

The report also gave space to creator Basra Ajeh, who said she still had difficulty finding the clothes she wanted and continued to adapt outfits through layering. She discussed using colour, print and texture in her own style. Recognition on a runway and the work of assembling an everyday wardrobe appear together in these accounts.

Kassir’s welcome and Ajeh’s unfinished search describe different responses to the same changing fashion landscape. Neither cancels out the other.

For broader questions about the range offered to different bodies, our size-inclusive modest-fashion guide separates representation, available clothing and access. Those practical distinctions help a welcoming image become a more informative conversation.

Ask what an environmental claim actually describes

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s guidance on environmental claims emphasises accurate information, supporting evidence and the impression created by words and images together. A claim should make its meaning and relevant qualifications understandable.

Applied to an abaya, that encourages a specific question: which part of this garment or process is being described? A statement about recycled packaging answers a packaging question. A statement about the cloth concerns that material. Neither, by itself, explains all the other stages of making and supplying the garment.

If an attractive environmental description leaves you unsure what changed, ask for the underlying detail. The useful answer identifies the feature, its scope and the evidence behind it. Clear terms help you recognise a specific improvement without expecting a garment to answer every environmental concern at once.

Australian design participates in international conversations

The Australian Embassy’s March 2018 announcement placed Faith, Fashion, Fusion at the Jakarta History Museum from 1 to 18 March. It named Delina Darusman-Gala and curator Glynis Jones in the programme of masterclasses, and announced a presentation of Darusman-Gala’s collection alongside Indonesian designer Jenahara Nasution.

This makes cultural exchange concrete: particular people, an exhibition, teaching and a shared presentation. It also allows each contribution to remain identifiable. Showing collections alongside one another does not make them a jointly designed range, and an announced event does not establish its long-term commercial results.

The organiser’s record of Paris Modest Fashion Week, held on 16–18 April 2026, lists Asiyam among its participating brands. Think Fashion identifies the venue as Hôtel Le Marois and describes this as its first Paris edition. It describes designers meeting retailers, media and industry specialists across the three days, placing professional exchange alongside the presentation of clothes. The record places an Australian label within a specific international programme; it does not establish how widely any particular garment was adopted at home. The interesting development is a named designer entering another setting, with her own creative identity still visible.

Let the wearer decide what the clothes mean to her

The freedom to enjoy clothing also depends on how people are treated. In the ABC’s October 2014 interviews with Muslim women in Sydney, accountant Randa Jada described feeling avoided in public, while grandmother Maryam Ali spoke about discrimination connected with her head covering and the importance of respecting individual choice. Jada also described parents distancing their children from hers and less conversation, locating the exclusion she experienced in ordinary family life.

These are their accounts from that time, not a measure of every Australian woman’s experience today. They add a necessary human dimension to a fashion discussion: an attractive collection cannot, on its own, determine how its wearer will be received. Respect should not depend on whether someone finds her clothes fashionable or understands the reasons behind them.

You can enjoy an abaya’s workmanship, attach personal meaning to it, regard it as ordinary clothing, or experience several of those things together. You also have room to change your preferences. The ability to explain a garment’s history is valuable, but it should never become an obligation placed on the person wearing it.