The Complete Guide to Modest Fashion, From a Modest Dresser

First up, let's look at the primary stat that gets referenced time and again. According to the Global Islamic Economy Report, the Muslim fashion spend alone in the UK is estimated

to reach £226 billion by 2020. This is, in part, due to an increasing number of millennial Muslim women—or Generation M—who have larger amounts of disposable income, thanks to their new positions in the workplace rather than the home.

Outside of facts and figures, take a second to think about where fashion is headed right now: Social media has prompted diversity to become a mainstay—not a gimmick—within the industry. It's also shone a light on the (obvious) facts that women of different shapes, faiths, colours, sizes and backgrounds can be just as stylish and can be equally valuable customers.

The global response every time the modest fashion market is addressed highlights just how much this faction wants to be spoken and catered to. When DKNY marketed a Ramadan collection of existing pieces that were suitable for modest dressers in 2014, the press coverage was phenomenal. The same goes for when H&M selected Mariah Idrissi to feature in a video in 2015. She became the first hijab-wearing model to feature in one of the megalith's campaigns. She tells me her life "changed overnight. I was scouted in a shopping centre soon after graduating university and [had been] planning on working for myself in a creative field, but I never expected to be a model."

"That went viral within minutes," Lewis says of the high-street campaign. "I think the brands involved haven't realised the appetite for this … how much it would get taken up. I think Mariah got more traction and coverage than the other people involved in it, but the video was innovative in a number of ways in terms of how it presented social diversity for fashion."

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