KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Saami­rah Ali grew up in the re­tail fash­ion in­dus­try.

As a child, she would ac­com­pa­ny her moth­er to her var­i­ous fash­ion stores. It in­spired her from a very young age to want to be in the busi­ness of fash­ion and own a bou­tique.

At first, she ven­tured on a dif­fer­ent path, pur­su­ing stud­ies in nurs­ing.

“Af­ter gain­ing the knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, I re­alised it was not the job for me,” she said.

“While I like tak­ing care of peo­ple, it was not my dream. I tried it, but af­ter two years, I de­cid­ed to fol­low my heart.”

In 2015, that dream be­came re­al­i­ty with the open­ing of her first store, Glam­our Con­nec­tion, in Debe.

“I love fash­ion. I love what I do. I put a lot of en­er­gy and time in­to it. They say you must do what you love,” she said.

Life changed for Ali af­ter the open­ing of that store. She de­cid­ed to em­brace Is­lam as her re­li­gion.

“When I re­vert­ed to Is­lam, I found it dif­fi­cult to find mod­est fash­ion­able cloth­ing, so I de­cid­ed to ven­ture out in­to Hi­jab House by Saami­rah in 2019,” she said.

“Peo­ple were hap­py be­cause, at the time, there weren’t many busi­ness­es that car­ried mod­est fash­ion.”

In Is­lam, mod­esty is a cen­tral prin­ci­ple for women. Mod­est fash­ion pri­ori­tis­es cov­er­age and com­fort with­out com­pro­mis­ing on style.

“Mod­est fash­ion is not on­ly for Mus­lim women,” Ali said.

“It is al­so for oth­er con­ser­v­a­tive peo­ple. I cater for both Mus­lims and non-Mus­lims at Hi­jab House. You can be fash­ion­able and mod­est at the same time.”

Mod­est fash­ion is ex­pect­ed to grow by bil­lions in 2024. More in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion brands are even recog­nis­ing the month of Ra­madan with spe­cif­ic col­lec­tions of mod­est cloth­ing and ac­ces­sories.

“Mod­est fash­ion is be­com­ing main­stream,” Ali ex­plained.

“With the in­ter­na­tion­al growth ex­pect­ed, the in­spi­ra­tion is there for me to al­so ex­pand my busi­ness lo­cal­ly as I as­pire to in­spire young fe­males.”

Ali con­tin­ues to split her time be­tween both busi­ness­es as she seeks to of­fer the best ex­pe­ri­ence to her cus­tomers.

“I have to man­age both busi­ness­es at the same time. It’s dif­fi­cult at times, but I get it done,” she said.

“My goal is to make sure that each and every one of my cus­tomers is sat­is­fied.”

In the last cou­ple of years, there have been sev­er­al oth­er mod­est bou­tiques open­ing in the coun­try, of­fer­ing mod­est fash­ion op­tions.

“I do not be­lieve in com­pe­ti­tion, as there is room for every­one in the mar­ket,” she said.

“It will on­ly add to the growth of the mod­est fash­ion in­dus­try, al­low­ing ac­cess to more op­tions.”

Ali, who marked her sixth year of fast­ing for Ra­madan, was anx­ious to cel­e­brate Eid-ul-Fitr with her fam­i­ly last Wednes­day.