Haute Hijab CEO Melanie Elturk plans to take the passion project turned premier hijab brand global this year. The move reflects Elturk’s motivation behind the brand – to provide Muslim women with quality hijabs that make them feel confident.
Elturk and Ahmed Zedan, her husband and co-founder of Haute Hijab, will begin the brand’s expansion into the United Kingdom in Q2. They plan to expand into the Middle East by the end of the year.
Hijabs For Comfort And Style
Elturk, a Detroit native, noticed as a high school student that the hijab styles accessible to her were limited. Her only options were to stock up while overseas or manipulate a department store neck scarf into a hijab.
“Girls didn’t really have role models that they could look up to and say, ‘Wow, look at that woman out there in the world wearing a hijab, kicking butt.’ She’s successful because she wears a hijab and not despite it,” she explained in an interview with Marie Claire.
Elturk kickstarted Haute Hijab in 2010 while still working as a part-time civil-rights attorney. The company offers hijabs with the Islamic tradition of ihsaan in mind – beauty and excellence. Soon enough, the brand started to attract investors. Both Elturk and Zedan left their 9-to-5’s to pursue the business in 2014.
“Haute Hijab was born in 2010 out of a struggle familiar to many Muslim women – it was simply too hard to find comfortable, quality hijabs that made me feel confident,” Elturk said in a statement on the company’s website. “I couldn’t understand why such an important garment was so often treated as an afterthought. Clearly, I thought, we deserve better.”
More Than A Fashion Brand
Haute Hijab puts fashionable hijabs on the market and ensures that Muslim women can wear them without compromise. The brand’s recent campaign, #CantBanUs, claps back at sports institutions that prevent Muslim women from wearing their hijabs. Their team partnered with organizations to lift the nationwide ban on religious headwear for high school Volleyball and Field Hockey.
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Haute Hijab also recently launched its athletic collection dubbed “HH Sport.” The collection and past collections are available to shop from on the company’s website.
