Sports Illustrated: The burkini issue!
A MUSLIM supermodel has become the first woman to feature in Sports Illustrated wearing a burkini.
Halima Aden, 21, appeared in the annual swimsuit issue of the magazine in the swimwear which covers the whole body except for the face, hands and feet.
The Somali-American model, who was born in a Kenyan refugee camp, moved to the US at the age of six and began wearing a hijab shortly after.
She said: ‘Young girls who wear a hijab should have women they look up to in any and every industry. We are now seeing politicians, businesswomen, television reporters and other successful hijabi women in visible roles.’
Miss Aden, who also made history last year by becoming the first woman to appear on the cover of British Vogue in a hijab, returned to Kenya for the shoot at Watamu Beach, near Malindi.
She told Sports Illustrated: ‘I keep thinking back to six-year-old me who, in this same country, was in a refugee camp.
‘To grow up to live the American dream, come back and shoot in the most beautiful parts of Kenya – I don’t think that’s a story that anybody could make up.’