Opinion: we need to talk about fashion’s relationship with headwear

2025 has been decreed the year of headwear by fashion insiders, and we are all worse for it. The trend has swept through the fashionable on Instagram like the plague; I’ve seen more pictures of white women in knitted balaclavas in the past two months than I have hijabs at my local mosque. From notable brands like Simone Rocha to independent knitwear companies such as &Daughter releasing their own take on the trend, there doesn’t seem to be a corner of fashion that hasn’t plummeted face-first down the headwear abyss. As a Black Muslim hijabi seeing head coverings become the season’s hottest accessory has been as amusing to witness as it has been frustrating. 

Being a minority and a fashion lover is to see the fashion and beauty customs you were once teased for by white gate-keepers cycle round and become the next hot thing. Think about the major shifts in consumerism and styling in the past decade or so. Streetwear reigns supreme not only on the runway but on red carpets even, despite the cultural (and usually racialised) connotations of the tracksuit for instance. The gold jewellery stacks and exuberant long nails that were uncouth and too flashy when our mothers did it are now so common, it’d be strange to see a stylish person who doesn’t have their nails done up with some complex design; just ask Marc Jacobs himself. Tooth gems. Grills. Laid edges and dark liner; the list truly goes on of fashions we have helped popularise. If you want to see our influence, just take a look at the world of K-pop; Black culture is very much the blueprint for this titan industry, no matter how much stans try to deny it. 

Now, we must watch as bonnets and mini hijabs become ‘hot’ and covetable. It is a tale as old as time: ridiculed when in their natural context, the fashion of minorities becomes attractive and worth coveting the moment they touch a white body. Any time I come across a balaclava on a white person, all I can think is how they Anya Taylor Joy white look at the Dune II red carpet ould react if my older brother wore his around them. Would they grip their Miu Miu purses tighter? Would it look dangerous on him and full of whimsy on her? Dirtied and deemed ‘thuggish’, a piece of clothing that has been socially condemned, is now made gentile through its proximity to whiteness. 

The same can be said for the ‘headscarves’ we are seeing take over our for you pages. Anya Taylor Joy can pull up to a red carpet in a fit identical to the one my mother prays Fajr in, and only one of these women will be called ‘fashion forward’ and ethereal. It seems silly to even point something this obvious out, but why does no one seem to have a problem when the people covering their hair are not Muslim women? 

Kim Kardashian’s full body black Balenciaga look at the 2021 Met Gala was hailed as ‘new’ and ‘inventive’, modest-wear made chic because it was Kim Kardashian who was doing it. The political implications of a woman who has spent her whole life being looked at- and to some degree coveting that attention- deciding to cover up entirely was easy to understand. I doubt Vogue would be as understanding of a Muslim woman in a niqaab walking the carpet in a similar fit. 

We have been living in an era of the Y2K revival and it seems it isn’t just the fashion of the early 2000s that are making a comeback, but the vile conservative politics of the period too. You can see it in the way people are discussing the hijab; a post of mine on X last month on this very topic triggered a discourse cycle so toxic, it is astonishing to think the comments being left about Muslim women were being made in 2025. 

Everyone is socially liberal and an ‘ally’ until the hijab comes up, then suddenly they’re sprouting the same nonsense you’d expect from Nigel Farage. 

France’s hijab ban came into practice precisely to keep Muslim visibility in check; just as white feminists believe it is their ‘responsibility’ as white saviours to emancipate Muslim women, the West’s aversion to the hijab masquerades as protection of ‘secular values’. In 2023, we saw France’s obsession with Muslim women and their clothing choices reach an embarrassing high when a new law was introduced that would ban abayas from state schools. Considering that the abaya cannot be easily differentiated from any long, non-fitted dress, French schools have had to essentially racially profile students in order to ascertain who is a likely Muslim – and thus in an abaya as opposed to a dress- and who isn’t. In other words, much like the hijab and head covering in general, the moment the garment touches a brown body, it should be viewed as a threat and appropriately punished. 

As Edward Said argued in his pivotal work ‘Orientalsim’, the othering of anyone the West deems as ‘exotic’ is a pillar of colonial self- obsession. As a political ideology, Orientalsim ‘carries within it the stamp of a problematic European attitude towards Islam’- a problematic attitude that sets double standards so blatant, it’s a wonder I even have to write this piece. Gendered Islamophobia is state sanctioned policy in some places and an acceptable political position to hold in a world obsessed with what we wear and why we follow a faith they do not understand. 

The hijab has, over time become a symbol in the Western mind of everything they protest to–namely Islam. The Muslim woman has become a vehicle by which the ‘liberal minded’ can condemn a religion they have been seeking to wilfully misunderstand since 9/11. Outdated racist tropes of Muslim women being submissive victims to the will and decree of aggressive, terrorising Muslim men have become so normalised they are no longer even condemned. There was a short period of time after Trump was first elected into office where liberals pretended to tolerate Muslims. 

The ’woke’ haze of 2016 has worn off it seems. 

In the white imagination, an Arab man will appear from the sky with a stick ready to beat me if I leave my house without a headscarf on. Apparently, users on X know more about the lived experiences of Muslim women than even we do. If this hatred for the hijab is rooted in a supposed concern for our autonomy, why is it that Iran’s laws to force the hijab on women are easy to condemn but it is  suddenly difficult to call out countries like France who wish to force Muslim women to remove their clothing? 

France and Iran are two cheeks of the same arse, run by men who wish to dictate what we do with our bodies. I chose to wear a headscarf for the same reason I am writing this piece defending it: it brought me closer to my community and linked me to the women who came before me. I choose to wear a hijab the same way I choose to fast during Ramadhan. Having convictions is not the same as being stripped of autonomy- even if you do not understand the choices being made. There is an infantilising condescension Muslim women are forced to come into contact with any time their fashion choices come up. We are not children that need coddling or saving: as the women of Iran have proved, Muslim women are more than capable of saving themselves. 

The irony of all this is that when we do advocate for ourselves, we are shouted down by self-victimising voices who refuse to even engage in good faith with our concerns and reality. You call us oppressed and then actively repress any attempts we make at defending ourselves. The only people who wish to subjugate Muslim women are the wilfully ignorant who feel comfortable telling us about our faith and our relationship to it without ever being quiet long enough to hear what we have to say. You write paragraphs calling us backwards in our comment sections, our beliefs antiquated and outdated and then order yourself a silk scarf because your favourite influencer told you it would elevate your tired wardrobe. 

The irony of it all is not lost on us. 

Feel free to buy your little wool balaclavas and pseudo headscarves but remember: you can never outdo the doer, no matter how hard you try.