Supermodel Halima Aden: 'Why I quit' - BBC News - 0 views
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the first hijab-wearing supermodel, quit the fashion industry in November saying it was incompatible with her Muslim religion.
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However she was dressed, keeping her hijab on for every shoot was non-negotiable
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"There are girls who wanted to die for a modelling contract," she says, "but I was ready to walk away if it wasn't accepted."
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But as time went on she had less control over the clothes she wore, and agreed to head coverings she would have ruled out at the start.
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In the last year of her career her hijab got smaller and smaller, sometimes accentuating her neck and chest.
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"I eventually drifted away and got into the confusing grey area of letting the team on-set style my hijab."
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IMG supported her in this and in 2018 Halima became a Unicef ambassador. As she had spent her childhood in a refugee camp, her work focused on children's rights.
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"The style and makeup were horrendous. I looked like a white man's fetishised version of me," she says.
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"Why would the magazine think it was acceptable to have a hijab-wearing Muslim woman when a naked man is on the next page?" she asks. It went against everything she believed in.
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I'm putting my mental health and my family at the top. I'm thriving, not just surviving. I'm getting my mental health checked, I'm getting therapy time."