Friday, December 19, 2008

Take a stand - to hijab!


"Women have broken through the glass ceiling in many areas. In this country, for instance, we've had two women prime ministers and a woman governor-general. We still have a woman chief justice.



In the sphere of travel, however, there are still a few barriers to be broken. In some countries, like Saudi Arabia, women can only visit if accompanied by a father or a husband.
 Women certainly suffer more than men from the need to conform with local dress customs. In Iran, for example, that means wearing a scarf, long-sleeved coat and closed shoes, regardless of the heat.


There are also many parts of the world where Western women have to take particular care because the local males have the impression that any female on her own or casually dressed is signalling she wants sex.


And there's no doubt that male travellers have a huge advantage when it comes to relieving themselves. For women the process is a bit more complicated, making relief much harder to achieve. My wife has sometimes seemed quite aggrieved by my advantage in that respect.


But all that may be changed by the emergence of the Shewee, a device which claims to allow women to, well, wee standing up.


Needless to say, I couldn't test it myself, so I asked my big daughter Alex to give it a test-run."

Hilariously I was wearing the same outfit as pictured when I read this article. I'll have my comfortable hijab clothes over standing up to wee any day.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Iranian Esarp

I regularly watch the wonderful show Mosaic by Link TV which organises Middle Eastern produced news into a week day half hour current events show in English. This image is of a beautiful muhajabat on al-Alam TV who is wearing an esarp (satin scarf) that repsonds beautifully under the stage lights.
Aker Online Esarp 4098202 for 80TYL ~ USD $50

This scarf is quite different but equally beautiful in my opinion, here is a set similar to that the news anchor is wearing. I hope the sisters who wear abaya are enjoying my abaya sets, I myself rarely wear abaya however they are beautiful garments and I support all my sisters wishing to please their Creator (swt).




Gold anchor by celeritas

Friday, December 12, 2008

Tichels - Evening Aubergine


Gold & Purple Night by celeritas

This look features a scarf from Savvy Sheitals a shop that mainly sells sheitals - wigs used by married Orthodox Jewish women to cover their hair rather than wearing a cloth cover. They are based in the USA and also have a great range of tichels which Muslim women can use for hijab.

This look shows two beautiful evening looks picking up the colours from the shiny aubergine shimmer scarf The shoes are fabulous, I'd love to wear them to a wedding party.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Creme Anglaise

Here's a set with an Anokhi scarf I would love to have. Loose blue jeans would pick up the blue flowers in the scarf and the dress matches the background colour of the scarf. The sandals also feature fabric like the scarf however I wouldn't wear shoes that high, I would be more likely to wear flats with this look.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

I love Anokhi


The most beautiful hijabs that I have ever seen are Anokhi's rectangular scarves which are large enough (15" by 72"), have a gorgeous range of patterns and are soft cotton voile. The scarves cost USD $14 and include the price of shipping to the US & Canada. They are made in India, block printed and embroidered by hand. You can order by colour groups and there are patterned and solid scarves.

Anokhi also sell square scarves of 30" but these are too small to properly cover the neck and chest as can be seen on the left, if you were to wear an al-amira underneath however they would fulfill the obligations of hijab as I have shown on the right.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Tichels - Introduction


Tichel is Yiddish for kerchief and they are worn by our Orthodox Jewish sisters who follow the rules of Tzniut. These rules are similar to hijab however only married women must cover their hair and they tend not to cover their ears or neck as required under hijab. Modest dress is required for men and women regardless of marital status. Men also always wear hats as was once common amongst Muslim societies and is still common amongst Muslim men wearing traditional clothing.

Most tichels are large enough for hijab however some are a bit small to cover to hijab levels such as 30" square scarves, I generally think that 40" is good for most sisters however Turkish eşarp and Malay tudung can be 35".

Tichels, caps and snoods are favoured by married Orthodox Jewish women who take the ruling that wearing a wig or sheital does not fulfil the rules of tzniut.

I am definitely not an expert in Judaism and my posts on this subject will focus on using products advertised as tichel or sold at Jewish retailers, as hijab head coverings.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Safari Hijabi


I'm loving the Safari look and its come around again this Spring/Summer in New Zealand. The key color for Safari is khaki and this goes fabulously with white. 

Some high fashion looks pair Safari items with animal accessories like chetah, zebra or giraffe prints but I think thats a bit tacky. The traditioinal Safari was going to Africa to shoot wild game, preserve it using taxidermy and put the spoils in their smoking rooms. Hunting for big game animals for sport is not very popular these days and has always been forbidden for Muslims as the Prophet (pbuh) said "whoever shoots at a living creature for sport is cursed." (Hunting for food however is permissable, there is a great article here). So I personally think matching the khaki pieces of the Safari look with animal prints can easily look over the top and tacky and sort of seems like you've gone out and shot something to wear on your arm/feet/head.

So I've instead made the feature piece a khaki scarf with mageneta, orange and white cyrasanthimum flowers and picked up these colors in the accessories.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Her Closet Order

 
I love Malay clothes, although what I mostly bought while I was over there was hijabs. I needed these casual square cotton 'tudung' but I don't wear them that much now, I tend to wear shayla. 
I do however really love my blouses that I got in Brunei for SGD $25, however they are both bright turquoise and green with lots of embroidery so a bit too much for formal workwear. They are called Blaus Muslimah in the Malay language and are always at least butt covering length so about 30" long. You have to be careful though cos Malays are more petite than White or Black sisters so check they fit before you buy.
There are a wide range of Blaus Muslimah styles- formal business shirts, kurti styles, t-shirt, Western inspired like faux layered shirts, based on the traditional Malay dress the baju, coats, shirt dresses, salwar kemis, kimono, there are even some in galabia length with and without splits. Just to be really cool you can get Busana Muslim which is a matching set for your husband and tiny version for your kids,  Malays are into the matching outfits.
They usually sell for around USD$25 but Her Closet is selling them for $10, so yeah I jumped on them. I've got all the items above plus a cream blaus and I may get a grey blaus or the pink hoodie depending on what they have. What with shipping and Western Union fees they cost USD $14 but such good value! I will be wearing them all the time to work now I wear hijab there and I burnt two of my work shirts with the iron. I felt guilty for wasting them but I can only wear them with skirts, coats and long hijabs cos they are tight and short which is a pain. Now I have the hoodies I can wear them more, there's a great example of that here on Her Closet

She so classy and cute, I'd definitly wear that to work  and I doesn't scream, "look I'm wearing a hoodie!"

Monday, October 6, 2008

"Kreuzberger girlies" - Streetsyle Five

 

Here's the final kreuzberger girlies 1 look, this time a magenta and purple eşarp with a purple dress over white wide trousers. Again there isn't an exact scarf to the one pictured so I have done three options with three differnt purple scarves. The first look is a dress over a white trouser, shorter shirt over white tee and white skirt and a more modest bolero over a maxi dress. I've picked up colours form the eşarp in the footwear and handbags. I personally love the maxi dress look, so pretty and classy.
 

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Chain stores - Spring Just Jeans Blue


It's fantastic that maxi dresses are in fashion this New Zealand Spring season, I walked down the main shopping street here and thought - I want that, and that and that! So I've done this look all on Just Jeans clothing and accessories. I'm not sure if the scarf would be wide enough for a hijab but you could wear a navy al-amira with the scarf round the neck as shown. I'm not the biggest fan of all these items, the maxi dress is my key piece but I wanted to show that you can indeed buy a whole outfit of hijab from one shop. When I grew up in a small town there were only about four shops that sold 'cool' clothes and one was Just Jeans so its great to know that even sisters in small towns can get hijab clothes.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Rayyan's Twenty First Outfit - Hijab

In this look Rayyan wears a pale blue and off-green almost beige striped shayla over an olive underscarf. I really like how the off-green sections match the beige shirt without being matchy matchy. Here are my hijab options:


Hijab World Green Shimmer Striped Shayla for £6.99

Hijab World's Rectangular Rainbow Silk Blue Striped Shayla £19.99

Thursday, October 2, 2008

I Heart Hijab In All Its Colours

Blogging is an interesting experience, however it can be a very demotivating one. When you don't recieve many comments, your hits drop, other bloggers get media coverage that you do you can end up not blogging because you feel negative about it. I thought that was the problem with my blogging and why I find it hard to blog sometimes. But I think, really it is that I have put too many limits on my blogging.

hy should I restrict my inspiration? Why should I have to seperate my love for Rayyan's clothes from my love of Egyptian and Turkish outfits? Surely there must be other people who like them all too. Why should I care if other bloggers do things similar? A community is full of similar people who interact with each other and I shouldn't pretend that a New Zealand Muslims blogger can be niche. I don't think there is another one so I'm niche enough already.

So apologies for dumping a whole lot of posts and the eventual rationalising of my many blogs into fewer blogs. I hope you don't get lost and that you still keep reading. Please forgive me if I do anything that annoys or upsets your blog reading experience. I will tidy it all up in time inshallah.

So Hijab Chique will still be the blog name, as I like it, however it will be a blog not exclusively deveoted to LMOTP's Rayyane. I find it hard to endlelessly blog her outfits as like me she wears a lot of the same clothes again and again. Tesettur Hijab will eventually be shut down but the posts and new posts on tesettur will live here. I will also feature abaya when I like them, Egyptian hijab and even some New Zealand / Australian based outfits with items from stores we have here. So hopefully more posts, more motivation and more diversity :)

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Loving the eşarp - LOSVE Turquoise Paisley



Paisley is soo cool. Wikipedia says "is a droplet-shaped vegetal motif of Persian origin, similar to half of the Yin yang symbol, or the leaf of the Indian bodhi tree or the mango tree; or to a leech. The pattern is sometimes called "Persian pickles" by American traditionalists, especially quiltmakers,[1] or "Welsh pears" in Wales textiles as far back as 1888.[2]"

What I love about LOSVE scarves is that they are like eşarp, howerver they are not silk so are a lot cheaper, but they feature different patterns from the Turkish eşarp houses as they are independent of Turkish fashion being in the UK. This hijab features turquoise, white, orange and yellow so I have picked these up in my look. There's an alternate scarf or dupatta as I saw a sister wearing this in a salwar kamees recently and it was soo beautiful. I hope you like the quirky accessories, we are moving into spring now so I thought I would love to wear some OTT looks.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Loving the eşarp - LOSVE Red and Black Splatter


Aren't the LOSVE eşarp fantastic and they are much cheaper than silk ones. Go to Hijab Trendz for an interview with the creators and a discount.

I love this black, grey, white, red splatter eşarp it could be worn with a grey, black or white outfit as the feature item or used to pick up colours in the look.

My look I've done here combines a cute plaid jersey (buy it loose) with a long black jersey skirt from Funky Frum a modest clothing estore by a Jewish woman. To cover it up wear a grey trench and boots, if its warmer you could wear sandals instead. As this look is a mixture of patterns I also wanted to add a cute gingham purse to make the look casual. If you want it more formal you could wear black heels, red patent hand bag and a more structured coat.

Friday, September 19, 2008

"Kreuzberger girlies" - Streetsyle Four

Source: herr klamm - kreuzberger girlies 1

Another beautiful summery look from the kreuzberger girlies 1! This features another white long sleeve tee with a maroon short sleeve shirt over the rop and a lovely flowing white skirt. The scarf is also maroon white white polka dots, perfectly matching this tesettür look. I couldn't find a scarf that matched exactly and as before I've done a range of outfits for different interpretations of modesty. There are so many cool purple scarves that I couldn't help but use them like a border. I personally like the geometric and stripy patters best as they are so distinctly tesettür-hijab.


Friday, September 12, 2008

Tracy Reese Trench


I really like this trench from Tracy Reese Spring 2009 so I thought I would do a Tesettür inspired look based on it. I prefer the trench from Tracy Reese rather over any one I've found, the skirt shape is gorgeous.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

PVC Tesettür

This is from Yaren

This look is from Tugba's Summer 2007 collection

Now I just don't know about these looks, I am perfectly happy with leather/PVC boots, bags and gloves, but wearing a statement leather/PVC coat I'm just not sure.


In my teens I had a PVC coat in feeble attempt to do the 'Trinity' look but it ripped at the seams and got too small so I stopped wearing it and now I wouldn't wear it with hijab. I don't know if this sort of look has the same 'ahem' connotations in the Middle East. The other thing that bothers me about these looks is that they are tight and well, leather did use to be skin so I would not wear it like this even if I did like it in a garment.

As usual the black, red white esarp are great - I'd do this look instead like this:

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Autumn Aker Eşarp

Aker's new Autumn collection is here so I thought I would do a post on it. Its a typical Fall season look, dark colors, autumnal palette and even some tartan and tribal patterns. There are a few soft pastels but these are broken up by black, dark blue or grey. The makeup is classic cold seasons too, dark eyes with thick brows and nude lips. The floral and plant elements of the eşarp are primarily Autumnal carnations, roses, daises, furns, maple leaves and for-get-me-not but with the hibiscus print reflecting the tropics.

As eşarp are designed to be repeated in a range of colors for each pattern there are many other colors than those described here, I have based my comments on the fashion shots below. Click the purchase button on AkerOnline to find some hijab based on the same patterns but with white or cream as the primary color.

Once a season of eşarp is finished they are pulled from the website so if you clickthrough from my old posts in polvore you will get a blank page, sorry about that. However I will be using all the new eşarp so that we can all keep our tesettür-hijab up to date!

Friday, September 5, 2008

Glam Gold and Black

This Armine look is so high fashion, wow! It would be great for a formal event like a ball, sister's part or Eid. You could wear a maxi dress under the coat instead of a skirt so that you could transform it into a sister's-only or family event outfit quickly.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Ramadan Mubarak

May you all have a blessed Ramadan Inshallah. This image is of the Blue Mosque in the suburb of Ramadan in Istanbul.

A tesettür sister contemplating iftar of beautiful fruit.


Beautiful decorations for the month of Ramadan.

Friday, August 29, 2008

"Kreuzberger girlies" - Streetsyle Three

What a yummy mummy! This is sort of the new tesettür, similar to Misri fashion - body suits with a shorter sleeve shirt on top however the eşarp is still there. I've done four looks inspired by this (you can tell I really like it huh?). I've started with a look directly inspired by the photo on the left that some may not be happy with, as the shirt hits directly at the hips with no coverage for the booty or croch. The next is more modest, keeping the shirt and the jeans if you wish, a strappy knee length red dress and a lovely white crochet bolero over top. There's then a light trench coat options with 3/4 sleeves so keeping the white tee underneth. The final look is for those that wear abaya - I suggest you wear this caftan over a white abaya or the white tee with a white maxi skirt. I've chosen different options for footwear all casual or semi-casual, please sisters - wear nice shoes with hijab, no Crocs please. You don't have to go out and buy every color but at least have black, brown and blue. All these looks would be fine with black or navy semi casual shoes but I prefer to not wear sneakers with skirts. I haven't done any further accessories, mix it up yourselves!