US beauty magazine Allure has unveiled its first-ever cover featuring a model in a hijab with the coverline “This is American Beauty”.
Nineteen-year-old model Halima Aden stars on the startling cover while wearing one of Nike’s new sports performance hijabs. The cover calls the model “Muslim, model, destroyer of stereotypes”.
Aden, who was born in Kenya and came to the US as a refugee, shot to fame in 2016 when she entered and won the Miss Minnesota contest which she entered in a burkini.
Following the win Aden’s become a successful model in the US and even featured on the cover of Vogue.
In the accompanying interview in Allure, Aden said: “Society puts so much pressure on girls to look a certain way,” she said.
“I have much more to offer than my physical appearance, and a hijab protects me against, ‘You’re too skinny’, ‘You’re too thick’, ‘Look at her hips’, ‘Look at her thigh gap’. I don’t have to worry about that,” she said.
