London Modest Fashion Week: Fashionably Chaste Clothing Hits Runways

The first modest fashion week has officially debuted in London.

The very first Modanisa London Modest Fashion Week opened this weekend, following the success from the event’s first modest fashion week, which commenced in Istanbul in 2016.

Sponsored by Modanisa, a large online clothing retailer and purveyor of modest apparel that launched in 2011, the event concluded Sunday and tickets were said to have sold out weeks in advance. The first iteration of London Modest Fashion Week featured 26 designers from around the globe, according to an announcement released Monday.

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Opening the inaugural show was Halima Aden, a Somali-American model renown for wearing a hijab on the runway, who wore a complete look designed by Minel Ask. Aden has walked in other leading Fashion Week shows, most notably for Yeezy and Alberta Ferretti.

Other featured designers included British-based brands like Pillar and Farrah Naaz. Other designers known for modest garb included Mayovera from Turkey and Helena Latifi from Norway.

Many of the collections featured traditional scarves, wraps and hijabs, designed to meet the needs of women whose fashion choices must adhere to a religious code.

“The shows illustrated how diverse modest fashion style is,” a co-creator of Modest Fashion Week, Franka Soeria said in a statement. “Some were heavily defined by cultural influences, while others fused East-West elements, producing modern daywear and glamorous evening dresses that adhere to Islamic principles, yet appeal far beyond.”

Designers, fashion consultants, media members and even known “modest fashion bloggers” like Leena Asad attended the show.

Modanisa decided to sponsor the modest fashion shows due to a growing demand for fashion-forward modest apparel. The company's site receives around 4.5 million visitors a month, according to Women's Wear Daily.

“Being the pioneer in our league, we inherently feel responsible to help designers of this culture exchange ideas across continents and introduce themselves to a wider audience,” one of Modanisa’s founders, Kerim Ture told WWD last March.