I CREATE MY OWN CATEGORY

Groundbreaking model Halima Aden talks hijabs, catwalks and Queen Bey with Alison Cohn

AS THE DIOR T-SHIRT SAYS, ‘We Should All Be Feminists’. But what does such a progressive creature look like today? She might well be wearing a traditional Muslim head covering. ‘Feminism is a very simple concept,’ trailblazing hijab-wearing model Halima Aden tells me when we meet on set in New York for her Grazia cover shoot. ‘Ask yourself, “Am I able to support other women regardless of their own personal choices?” If the answer is yes, then you are one.’ The Somali-american beauty has just turned 20 and was born in a Kenyan refugee camp. She immigrated to the States aged six with her mother and younger brother. For her, being faithful and living a modern life go hand in hand and she sees no contradiction between the two parts of her identity.

Halima first made headlines last November, when a photo of her in a hijab and burkini during the swimsuit portion of the Miss Minnesota pageant went viral. A first-year student at St Cloud State University planning to major in either international relations or social work, she had entered for a shot at winning scholarship money. And while she didn’t advance in the competition, the exposure launched her into high fashion. In February, she made her New York Fashion Week debut in Kanye West’s Yeezy show and scored a modelling contract with IMG, the power agency that represents Gigi and Bella Hadid. ‘It’s been a crash course,’ Halima says, laughing, adding that the only luxury brands she knew until a few months ago were ‘the ones in rap songs’.

In a season when it often felt like liberal values in America were under attack, the industry was all about displaying its political awareness, with designers including Missoni, Ashish and Prabal Gurung putting models in luxury pussy hats and slogan merch with prowoman and immigrant messages. Halima – a visibly Muslim woman whose family is from one of the six countries on the US President’s travel ban – went on to walk for Max Mara and Alberta Ferretti at Milan Fashion Week. She also appeared on the cover of Carine Roitfeld’s CR Fashion Book while wearing her hijab and the full-length clothing her religious observance requires, becoming fashion month’s most potent symbol of female self-determination.

Growing up in St Cloud, Minnesota, a small town in the American Midwest, with a substantial Somali immigrant community, Halima attended a diverse local high school where she learned first-hand how hypocritical Western culture can be when it comes to objectifying female bodies. ‘I have a friend who dresses in a super-revealing way and is slut-shamed,’ Halima says. ‘You really can’t win, because I’m told I’m a victim who’s been brainwashed.’ It’s hard to reconcile the concept of oppression when faced with this bubbly former homecoming queen who loves jamming to Ed Sheeran and her ‘ultimate Woman Crush Wednesday, Queen Bey’. For anyone who would suggest she ‘modernise’ herself by removing her hijab, Halima says, ‘I’m very modern: I have Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.’ For the 317k strong followers of @kinglimaa – this social media-savvy young woman’s feed, filled with smiley selfies taken on jobs that have taken her everywhere from London to Abu Dhabi – serves as positive life-affirmation.

Halima has been getting loads of fan mail from Muslim girls all over the world, saying, ‘We never thought we’d have somebody as a public figure, especially in America.’ She says, ‘They never thought they’d see somebody [like me] in fashion.’ She does her best to respond to them. ‘Part of my job is to give them a platform to have their voices heard,’ she says, evincing her impressive work ethic instilled by working after school and on weekends from the age of 16 as a personal care aide and hospital cleaner. Having been born with so little taught Halima to dream. ‘Every kid in the refugee camp wanted to rule the world,’ she says.

She was born in the Kakuma refugee camp in north-west Kenya in 1997; her brother was born there three years later. She has never been to Somalia; her parents fled in 1993. Life certainly wasn’t easy in the camp, but she was safe. In 2005, after a lengthy application process, Halima, her mother and brother were able to resettle in the US. Halima doesn’t mention her father, although she does mention an older sister who she has never met (who lives with her grandmother in Somalia). Halima only found out about her once she was in the US and now they chat all the time on Viber.

It’s easy to forget, thanks to Halima’s magnetic presence, that at 5ft 5in she’s a good bit shorter than iconic short model Kate Moss. She’s an unconventional role model in more ways than one. While it’s obviously an enormous responsibility to be a poster girl for observant Muslim women globally as the first hijab-wearing model signed to a major agency, Halima has an endearing knack for finding common ground. ‘The girls in the Middle East, the girls in Minnesota, they love to shop and they love clothing,’ she says. Mall of America, a progenitor of Dubai’s megamalls, is located in Minneapolis an hour from where she grew up. She is always scouring high-street stores such as Forever 21 and H&M for demure things she can wear, often having to get creative. ‘I couldn’t find everything I was looking for in one piece,’ she says of her struggle last year to find a gown for her homecoming coronation. ‘If it was covered down to the hands, the back was open. So I ended up wearing a sleeveless dress over a black Under Armor long-sleeve shirt.’

One of the projects Aden is most excited about is her #ICAN campaign for American Eagle Outfitters, alongside other path-breaking models as body image activist Iskra Lawrence and Pro Era rapper Joey Bada$$, in which she wears a $19.95 denim hijab that sold out within two weeks of its debut. ‘To be able to walk into the mall and even see the word hijab, that’s huge,’ Halima says. ‘It shows that we’re finally being accepted as consumers.’ Her goal is to spread a positive message about beauty in diversity. ‘I have Christian friends who dress even more conservatively than I do, and I have Muslim friends who don’t wear the hijab and sometimes they’re better people than I am,’ she says. ‘If you’re living a good and honest life, who am I to be, like, I’m better than you because I’m wearing a headscarf and you’re not?’

For now, Halima is putting uni on hold. ‘My mom always said it’s the one thing that no one can take away from you, what you’ve learned,’ she says. ‘But experiences are important too.’ So what does her mother make of her rise in fashion? ‘My mom loves me, she motivates me to do anything I want, but we don’t know what it’s going to be. There’s no one who’s done this before,’ she says, adding that the hardest thing was entering the unknown. ‘But after doing all these shoots, they’re able to see the hijab isn’t going. That was the biggest fear: “Oh, they’re going to make you take off the hijab.”’

Halima travels with a chaperone: ‘She’s not just my manager, she’s also my companion, I feel like I’m safe.’ She requests a private place to change on set and is fine with the female stylist and assistant dressing her, but if the team is male? ‘I put my clothes on and then, yes, they can fix me. That’s fine because it goes back to intention. It’s not a boyfriend. He’s doing his job, I’m doing mine.’

Halima’s mother is visiting her grandmother and sister (who’s about to have a baby) in Somalia. While Halima does want to marry some day (not soon), she doesn’t want to have children and instead wants to adopt, which she acknowledges is not the cultural norm. ‘I’ve always been really different from a lot of girls in my culture and from a lot of girls who are American,’ she says. ‘But I’ve never been too concerned with blending in because I don’t fit in either category. I create my own category.’ ■