Welcome to My Wardrobe, a peek into the closets of Edmontonians known for their style savvy. Every other week, we’ll ask one of the city’s best-dressed to show us around and tell us what their closets say about them.
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Mona Ismaeil’s wardrobe is filled with fiery hues, bold animal prints, luxurious fabrics and high heels. Ismaeil has a weakness for heels.
“I’m a typical girl,” says the 25-year-old, and she has a typical closet – just filled out, perhaps, by a few more scarves and turtlenecks.
Ismaeil, a Grade 5 teacher at the Edmonton Islamic Academy, is a devout Muslim who adheres to her religion’s requirement to dress modestly. Everyday, Ismaeil dons a hijab that covers her hair. Rarely does she expose more than her feet, hands and face.
“Realistically, hijab is just a scarf that you wrap around your hair. But being a girl who wears hijab, it is a way of life,” says Ismaeil, who was born and raised in Jasper. At 18, she moved to Edmonton, where she eventually earned a bachelor’s degree at Concordia University College.
Ismaeil sees her hijab as a giant “Ask Me” sign for Islam, which she says is much more diverse than most people think it is.
“I wear it as an outward expression of my faith,” she says. “I want people to ask me about it – about the hijab, about Islam, about fasting, about everything about our religion.”
Today, Ismaeil tells Style about her struggles with the hijab, how she balances faith with fashion, and what it means to be a modern Muslim woman.
How long have you been wearing hijab? It’s only been 2-1/2 years.
I’d always been fairly modest. I mostly wore short sleeves – T-shirts – but never spaghetti straps or really short shorts. My skirts and shorts always went to my knees – still fairly modest, so it wasn’t a hard transition for me. The only difference was going from short sleeves to long sleeves.
I didn’t buy brand new clothes. I just wore what I wore before and just adapted it. For example, I’m just wearing a long sleeve turtleneck underneath (my vest), that’s it.
Do you have a lot of turtlenecks then? You only need a few basic ones – black, white and grey – and I just wear those pretty much all the time.
Does it ever get frustrating to have to layer all the time and wear clothing differently than how it was intended?
Sometimes it’s frustrating when I want to wear something, but it ruins it when I wear it. It’ll look really cute on somebody else and then when I put something underneath it, it looks stupid. The other option is you can wear a jacket overtop or a cardigan overtop. It’s more like how it’s supposed to be worn, but I prefer to wear something underneath.
Is there a certain type of clothing that you’re drawn to?
I like a lot of these tops – flowy, sheer, fancy-type things. These actually work really well with stuff underneath it.
You still get the shapelessness that we’re supposed to (have) to keep it modest. When it floats away, you don’t see a tight figure. (Tunics) actually work really well for us (too.) Lots of them are long, so most girls will wear it as a dress . and I just wear skinny jeans, so (the tunic) still covers my behind.
Article source: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Faith+fashion/5183381/story.html
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