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Haute Hijab Brings Modern Muslim Women's Fashion to the Mainstream

By Jackie Kostek | September 25, 2014 5:34am
 The Chicago-based online retailer has more than 33,000 followers on Instagram.
Haute Hijab
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CHICAGO — Melanie Elturk’s business didn’t need Instagram to make it successful. But like most in the fashion industry, the photo-sharing app didn’t hurt.

“Instagram blew us up,” Elturk said with a laugh.

Elturk, who launched her Muslim women’s fashion website, Haute Hijab, in 2010, said social media helped direct hijab-wearing fashion bloggers and companies like hers to an international audience. Haute Hijab — which is headquartered in Chicago — has more than 33,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 200,000 likes on Facebook.

Jackie Kostek says the Chicago-based business soon could expand worldwide:

“I’m trying to stay true to the foundation on which we were built,” said Elturk, who  lives in Dubai, “while still navigating through this new world that we’re in of hijabi fashion. Whether we like or not, we’re a part of it.”

 The Chicago-based online retailer has more than 33,000 followers on Instagram.
The Chicago-based online retailer has more than 33,000 followers on Instagram.
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Haute Hijab

Elturk said her online retail company is built upon Muslim women’s desire to please God and have a “sense of modesty” while still having age-appropriate and stylish options in clothing.

The business was built out of Elturk’s own struggle to find fashionable headscarves and modest clothes she wanted to wear in her native Detroit. Elturk said she often shopped in nearby Dearborn — a city with one of the largest Arab populations outside the Middle East — and felt lucky if she found simple, solid-colored hijabs. Finding a printed hijab was almost impossible, she said. Getting resourceful, Elturk scoured the racks at vintage stores for printed scarves big enough to use as headscarves.

“Muslims and those who aren’t Muslim would be like, ‘Where did you get that scarf,’” Elturk said of her vintage finds.

So when Elturk, a practicing lawyer, moved to Chicago with her husband and was unable to practice law (because she wasn’t licensed in Illinois), she decided to fuse her lifelong passions — her faith and fashion — and start Haute Hijab.

The company started with a weekly collection of vintage scarves and quickly evolved into a kind of one-stop shop for “stylishly modest” Muslim women — selling a wide variety of printed and solid-colored hijabs, layering sweaters and tops, long skirts, formal dresses and jewelry.

“The initial response was overwhelming,” Elturk said. “I think that was due to the fact that women were just yearning for it. They really wanted somebody to represent them as hijab-wearing women.”

Social media websites like Facebook and Instagram have become virtual communities for hijab-wearing women to sound off on current issues. Earlier this month, Elturk posted a link on Haute Hijab’s Facebook page to a story about how wearing a hijab affects the way Muslim women view their bodies.

Heba Alawneh commented, “I feel like those who choose to wear the hijab are less likely to care about the beauty ideals the media, society and world portray.”

Now Elturk said her company has reached a kind of glass ceiling — she is exploring options of how to “ramp up” production and move into larger-scale manufacturing. For now, her employees and inventory are still in the South Loop, but she moved manufacturing to Dubai so she can oversee it.

“It’s really hard for our scarves to stay in stock for more than a day,” Elturk said. “I understand the frustration of our customers.”

On Instagram, Saudah Saleem commented on a photo of Elturk donning a brightly colored floral head scarf, “I absolutely NEED this one. Please give me a heads up when it’s restocked.”

Another Instagram user, Zasiaa, lamented, “I’m at work and it’s probably all sold out lol.”

Still, being one of the first companies to cater to the modern, fashion-forward Muslim woman is not something Elturk takes for granted.

“The hijab is so much more than a cloth on your head,” Elturk said. “It’s a feeling in you heart that you want to have this sense of modesty about you. If somebody feels that, I think that’s an amazing thing, and the fact that we can touch women in that way is so, so rewarding.”

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