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‘Change the game’: supermodel Halima Aden reinvents modest fashion

"Since I was a little girl, this quote -- ´don´t change yourself, change the game´ -- has gotten me through so much in life," Halima Aden said

By AFP
September 19, 2021
‘Change the game’: supermodel Halima Aden reinvents modest fashion
‘Change the game’: supermodel Halima Aden reinvents modest fashion

Halima Aden, the first supermodel to wear a hijab and pose in a burkini, has ripped up her lucrative contracts in an industry she feels lacks "basic human respect" and entered the world of modest fashion design instead.

For the Somali-American who was born in a refugee camp in Kenya, it was a matter of preserving her self-worth and well-being in a fast and loose sector that increasingly clashed with her Muslim values.

"Since I was a little girl, this quote -- ´don´t change yourself, change the game´ -- has gotten me through so much in life," she said in an interview in Istanbul.

"When I took the decision to quit, that is exactly what I did," she said. "So I am very, very proud."

Aden´s departure last November delivered a shock to fashionistas and Muslim influencers who have admired her trailblazing career.

Aden, who turns 24 on Sunday, broke ground in Minnesota, where she became the first contestant to wear a hijab and a burkini -- a full-body swimsuit whose appearance has stirred controversy on some European beaches -- in a US state beauty pageant in 2016.

She posed in them again for Sports Illustrated´s annual swimsuit issue when her fame was spreading in 2019.

But personally, Aden felt increasingly boxed in -- sometimes literally.

"I was always given a box, a private place to change in, but many times I was the only one given the privacy," she said.

"I got to see my fellow young women having to undress and change in public, in front of media personalities, cooks and staff, designers and assistants," she recalled.

"To me, it was very jarring," she said. "I couldn´t be in an industry where there is no basic human respect."