Meet the hijabi fashionistas!

It's an exciting time for Muslim women to finally have mainstream fashion brands recognise the latest hijab trends. Last year, this 'little-known subculture of style' caught the attention of Tommy Hilfiger, Mango, DKNY and Dolce & Gabbana. H&M's ad featured a Muslim model dressed in a hijab. Fashion magazines Elle and Vogue, too, gave generous newsprint space to this piece of clothing and its designers.

Our story, though, is about the mainstream fashion worlds's new darling, the hijabi fashionista or 'hijabista' as they call her. For she already has evolved sartorial choices. Yes, even the ones closer home. Over-gowns of many Indian hijab-wearers have become sporty-chic dresses, long coats with pants, and even jumpsuit-inspired pieces.

The other-cool

Look up Salva Rasool online. A calligraphy artist, she's often featured alongside her colourful work in equally colourful, chic scarves, long coats and tunic dresses. My favourite is her apparel for last year's media appearance with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt during the inauguration of her art exhibition in Mumbai.

In a rani pink embroidered stole and a Persian blue tunic dress with asymmetrical hemline, she represents the "other kind of hijab wearer", says fashion designer Sumaiya Merchant. "These are women who don't wear the traditional abaya, but do the hijab in an elegant, fun fashion. It's closer to what you see in Iran, Turkey and Lebanon, where every other woman wears the hijab, but not like a uniform, rather with individual style". Shermeed Syed, head of Anjuman I Islam's Begum Sharifa Kalsekar Girls School, does just that. The 36-year-old took home the Best Teacher's Award at the Mayor's Awards in a floor-length kurta-style brocade abaya and a printed scarf. During rehearsals, she'd often turn up in self-styled blazer-over-dress hijabs from Splash, Amsterdam-inspired trench coats and buttoned-down denim jackets from Riva (a Middle Eastern brand). "At work, I'm the only one who wears this kind of hijab," she says. But doesn't mind being the odd one out. She finds it empowering and says it's helped dispel stereotypes associated with hijab-wearing women.

An eye for ideas

Then there's Bushra Mansuri, founder of Monochrome Mumbai, a modest fashion stylist, whose black cape abaya appearance at a wedding has hijabistas talking about it. "I don't want to come across as someone fashion-obsessed, but show people you can be fashionable even when covered up. As a community, we are currently in that state," says Mansuri. Since she started her venture in June 2015, she's sold 200 abayas including – Turkish skirt-style abayas, calf-length coats with baggy pants, printed trench coats, maxi dresses with shrugs, and a jumpsuit abaya with floral pink piping that she confesses is inspired from an Elie Saab gown.

Her personal collection has 30 unique pieces, some custom-made (like buttoned-down tunic with pants – for outdoor gardening – in different colours), a "prized" asymmetrical Hanayen abaya from Dubai, and picks from mainstream brands like AND and Mineral repurposed as hijabs.

Rasool also does a great job with re-imagining mainline clothing as hijab – picking up loose shirts and cardigans from the US, and wearing tunics by Anita Dongre and Anmol Kakkad as overcoats. "They aren't sold as hijabs, but serve my purpose with the long look, full sleeves and loose fitting. Cotton World and Global Desi have stuff that can be adapted. You just need to have an eye," she says. Or easy access to inspiration, which social media now offers.

Catching up with hijabistas

Websites and Instagram updates of modest fashion designers like Annah Hariri, and fashion houses like Aab (London), Islamic Design House (IDH) and Shukr Clothing have also shaped fashion choices of Rasool's 20-year-old niece, Aakifah Noorani. A Sophia college student, Noorani has a collection of colourful sporty-chic jilbabs and abayas – created by her mom, Naila, one of the city's early modest designers – inspired from IDH designs. She teams "one-size bigger dresses from Colaba" with shrugs and bright stoles; it's a trendy collection admired by her "non-Muslim classmates too".

Aakifah and all women we met – ones mentioned and couldn't – are a unique, fast-growing demography of Muslim women. Unique because their story lacks a narrative for 'a particular trend', a good thing I suppose. But it makes the job of mainstream designers difficult.

Industry watchers sense that to get into this space, mainstream designers will have to approach it by looking beyond the inviting numbers (pegged at over $266 billion globally and poised to double in three years). The consumer they want to woo is very different, says Alia Khan, chairwoman of the Islamic Fashion Design Council (IFDC). "This new age Muslim woman wants and can have it all. She's educated, has varied interests, a career and spending power. She's not into the go-in-and-buy scene; she's individualistic, self-assured and unwilling to compromise on her modest values or beliefs. Unless you appreciate who you are catering to, you're likely to make mistakes," feels Khan.