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“You need to be more into fashion,” my mom says to me in Urdu. “Girls are always shopping and wearing nice clothes and then there’s you.” It’s the same lecture every time, just worded differently.
Then one day, I was drawing and didn’t know what to make the character wear, so I turned to Pinterest. As I scrolled through, I felt a bit inspired to put more effort into my outfits to see which ones would work best with what I have. But I was getting discouraged.
The problem? Take a look:
(img description: over-sized gray hoodie outfit with black leggings and sneakers)
(img description: woman wearing a tan hoodie, rolled up ripped jeans, and checkered shoes)
(img description: woman wearing a black hat, jean jacket, white hoodie, knee-ripped black jeans, and white converses)
Now, I know a lot of Muslims wouldn’t have any issues with some of the outfits shown above. In the words of the Quran, “They shall not reveal any parts of their bodies, except that which is necessary. They shall cover their chests, and shall not relax this code… (except with your husband and sons and other mahram).” (24:30-31). So following the Islamic rules for dressing and also keeping in mind that I want to be able to pray in these clothes, these outfits have issues. Take the first one for example--the leggings are skin-tight and reveal your leg shape. The second one has ripped jeans that come above the ankles. The third picture also shares the same problem. Keep looking and you’ll find short tops and a number of other issues that go against the dress code. Go on any fashion site and you’ll find outfits like these.
This isn’t meant to bash people who do wear these types of outfits. What I’m pointing out is that modest clothing is not seen as ‘fashionable’ and is often ignored in mainstream fashion. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any modest clothing out there, they’re just significantly harder to find and because of that, we are exposed to mostly immodest clothing. Thus our train of thought leads to thinking that those types of clothing are the only ones that are ‘fashionable’ or acceptable. I myself have caught myself thinking like this. For someone who doesn’t care much about fashion or wearing anything but a hoodie and sweats, I was trying to find an outfit to wear for going out. Alhumdulillah, I have a lot of clothes and picked out a longer, dress like shirt. The sleeves were ¾ and I was annoyed at that but then came what I was going to wear for bottoms. I looked through my pants and caught myself only liking the outfit if I wore skinny jeans. Then I realized that I think my outfits are good mostly when I wear skinny jeans with them. Now, there are plenty of trends with more modest clothing but because we’re so used to seeing not as modest clothing, we tend to lean towards that option, making it harder for us to try to wear modest clothing.
In conclusion, mainstream fashion does not often accommodate modest styles. This then leads to people believing that immodest clothing is the only style that is ‘fashionable’ and that modest clothing is not. Due to all of that, it is hard to find modest clothing and most of the time, end up having to wear clothing that isn't as modest as we would like it. Which is really frustrating as someone who’s trying to follow the Islamic dress code. However, if you look hard enough and stop caring so much about what others will think about your outfit, you’ll find that it’s a lot easier to follow the dress code. Keep an open mind and I’m sure you’ll find modest outfits to wear.