Colored Abayas?

Years ago in the middle east (15years to be precise in the UAE) you would most likely see everyone’s hejab as being just one color- BLACK! Even when on holiday abroad most women would opt to not wear their abayas, but their hejab would still be black. I remember at the time thinking why won’t anyone experiment with color? Especially when you travel dressing up and matching the color of your hejab with your clothes looks much better then wearing a bold dark black one to go with everything!

That was when I first started to make scarfs (hejabs, shaylas) in different colors and it took off really well! Around that time in the middle east even though everyone wore abayas that was when they slowly began to introduce colored hejabs to their wardrobe; which gave each individual self expression. Something so simple caught on and everyone jumped on the bandwagon. It was refreshing and a colorful change to look at these beautiful veiled women in colors that complimented them.

Now 15 years later and I ask myself why has it taken so long to get abayas in colors other than black. People in general are afraid of change (not afraid in this sense-more conservative). There are so many amazing abaya designers out there from the DAS sisters, Effe etc and some of my family members who design as well are Marayem and Laha. Most designers incorporate a lot of color in the abaya but always on the generic black background. Their abayas are stunning but how about a designer start to experiment with another color other than black? Yes black is stunning and elegant and I love it but what’s wrong with having other options such as Navy, Dark mocha brown, Smokey grey are great dark colors that they can start off with. It would be a refreshing change and it would still serve it’s purpose as an abaya. After all who said abayas have to only be black!

I was in Jeddah recently and came across some very funky abaya designers who designed sporty abayas (color), day abayas and night/evening ones. In Jeddah they like to do things differently and I liked their enthusiasm.

It would be nice to see more different abayas available since the market and the demand is there. All it takes is a few people to start wearing them for the trend to pick up!

Here are a few abayas I came across online they are very simple and pretty but I’m sure with our fabulous designers in the middle east they can come up with some stunning intricate work to elaborate on the abaya.

You can click here to see more of these abayas.

If you have an opinion would love to hear it just comment below