How to Sell a Hijab in Malaysia

For many Muslim women, the decision to don the hijab—a head covering typically worn after puberty, in order to observe the Islamic principles of modesty and privacy—is born of private self-reflection. Initially, this was the case for Yusof, who is now twenty-eight years old. But her choice soon became something else, as well: a lucrative source of attention for herself and her multimillion-dollar online-retail startup, FashionValet, which already sold hijabs and later came to include her own line of scarves and a stationery brand. Yusof is now among the growing number of Malaysian women who are trying to revolutionize the hijab’s contentious image. While the scarf has tended to be viewed primarily as a marker of Islamic duty and identity, and sometimes, especially in the West, of female subjugation and oppression, in Malaysia women are free—even encouraged—to inject glamor and prestige into the hijab, and to make money from it. Although the country is predominantly Muslim, a form of Sunni Islam is the official state religion, and it has a dual legal system that incorporates Islamic law, it is generally more moderate than many other Muslim nations. Unlike Iran or Saudi Arabia, for example, Malaysia does not force women to cover their heads by law. About five million of the country’s seventeen million Muslims—perhaps a little over half of Muslim women—wear the head scarf.

Yusof is the co-founder and chief creative officer of FashionValet, which primarily stocks clothes by Southeast Asian designers. The company has done particularly well selling clothing that is Muslimah, or observant of Muslim customs, even as it borrows the marketing techniques of global western retailers. Yusof rose to prominence with her blog, ProudDuck.com, where she has been writing for more than seven years about her college days in London, her family, and her work. Her posts, there and on social media, are distinctly aspirational. The posts are also distinctly Muslim. She has blogged, for example, about a Quran recitation app called iQuran, and about the mandatory course Malaysian Muslims take to learn how to insure a good marriage. When FashionValet opened its new headquarters in the greater Kuala Lumpur area, Yusof published a picture of the facility’s prayer room for her Instagram followers, who now number in the hundreds of thousands. A few posts later, she announced that a new line of handbags, which a regional designer had based on her style and named after her and her sister, had sold out forty-five minutes after their release. “I really don’t know what to say except THANK YOU ALHAMDULILLAH,” she wrote.

It was the donning of the hijab, though, that caused Yusof’s following to escalate most steeply. It also presented her with a clear business opportunity. Seven months after she posted the snapshot of herself in a head scarf, she launched a line of luxury hijabs, called dUCk, which the company describes as “the new cool for scarves . . . for stylish ladies who appreciate a dash of luxury in their lives.”

The dUCk brand strives to replicate the experience of buying the iconic, prohibitively expensive scarves sold by Hermès. Indeed, the dUCk box and the Hermès scarf box are strikingly similar. Both are flat, square, and sturdy, set apart by their color and trim: bold orange with a thin black border for Hermès; bold purple with a thin white border for dUCk. Upon opening a dUCk box, the customer finds a head scarf with a delicately stitched scalloped hem, available in colors with names like Banana Pudding, Diamond Rose, and Mint Frosting. The scarves can be long or short, and they barely crease, even after being scrunched up. Each has a subtle gold duck charm affixed to one corner, and costs a hundred and twenty ringgit (nearly thirty dollars).

The country’s hijab industry already hosts a slew of competing brands. In Kuala Lumpur, a single street like Jalan Masjid India provides consumers with a dizzying array of hijab designs and brands to choose from. But there, the trade takes place in small, often hot and humid prewar shops, with low prices the primary draw. Hijabs on Jalan Masjid India can cost as little as four ringgit, or about one dollar, but they more often range from twenty or twenty-five ringgit, for a scarf that stops around the chest area, to forty-five ringgit, for one that goes to the hips. Style and being on trend do matter—one vender told me that “dua muka” (two-faced) scarves, showcasing different colors on an inner and outer layer, had been particularly popular recently. But for most customers comfort and religious suitability are key. “They look at . . . whether the scarf makes it easy to go for prayers, Hajj,” a vender named Ayuniza binti Safrozal told me. Other Malaysian designers have gone after the “convenience” end of the market. The actress and television host Noor Neelofa Mohd Noor, who is better known simply as Neelofa, produces the Naelofar Hijab line of “instant shawls”—express versions of conventional head scarves that consumers can slip over their heads without the fuss of pins or draping.

dUCk’s approach places it in competition less with the instant shawls and the shops along Jalan Masjid India than with the Muslimah-fashion stores in affluent suburbs like Bangsar, outside central Kuala Lumpur. One of these outposts, Modvier, sells some sixty-five local and international Muslimah brands. Customers arrive brandishing their smartphones, to show the sales assistants photos of models they’ve seen on the store’s Instagram account or on television. For these shoppers, Modvier tries to emphasize material and workmanship—pointing out, for example, that material and stitching are crucial to the way the hijab falls around the face (some women may seek a slimming effect from the material, or want elegant stitching). Higher-end scarves might also be cooling, given Malaysia’s climate. Modvier’s operations manager, Anita binti Asril, told me that Modvier staff are also mindful of the hijab’s significance, in Islam, as a symbol of modesty. Customers often begin with shorter hijabs, then progress to longer ones as they get older—when “they know what Islam wants.” Some women, particularly foreign ones, begin their journey toward the hijab by first trying out other Muslimah wear, like jubahs (long-sleeved, loose, full-length dresses), while keeping their hair uncovered.