A Look Back; Hijab as I remember it in the 90’s/Early Y2K!

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So, yes…I’m an old-school Hijabi…
I’ve worn Hijab since I graduated from High School in the late-90’s. I had wanted to wear it in High School but unfortunately my mom was a no-go on that one so instead I had to wait until I left home for College, but that is a story for another day!

Lets take a trip down memory lane…

I split my experiences with wearing Hijab into two groups; namely pre 9-11 and post 9-11.

Pre 9-11, I rarely had outright hostility towards covering. Most people on the street were just curious and would stare (not in a hostile manner) and I remember usually people would ask simple questions like…why do you wear that? where are you from?
Being from Pittsburgh, I also remember mid-90s when there were a lot of members of the Nation of Islam around and anytime I was downtown they would be on the corners vending incense and handing out their newspaper, they would see me in my hijab and give me a free pack of incense and a newspaper. I never considered them Muslims in the orthodox, authentic sense but I felt they were on the deen, as some of my closest friends came from families that were originally of the Nation before converting to mainstream, orthodox Islam and so with any interaction, I often felt a sense of similarity and “brotherhood” that went past superficial racial lines.

During this time Hijab wasn’t fashionable or “popular” for fashions sake. Hence, I believe that many of the women I met who wore Hijab at that time, here in the US did so primarily for religious reasons. There was no way you could possibly look chic in Hijab. At least here in Pittsburgh, we just did not have access to the latest trends coming out of larger Muslim communities.

If you were in the Market for “Islamic” clothing your options were few and far between; namely you knew someone going abroad who could get you something, you attended a Islamic convention which had vendors in attendance, you ordered from a Mail order company (i.e. CaravanXpress), you cobbled together what ever you could!

At that time; mid-late 90’s, early Y2K what you could look forward too was; Oversized, baggy, pleated Jilbabs –think nightgown style with big shoulder pads, shoulder pleating, pleats down the front and back, cheap snaps down the front, usually a mandarin collar! Square or maybe if you were lucky Rectangular scarves. I remember when the pull-over tube style Al-Ameera scarf was band new to the market; it was *life changing!*.

But yea, that was it…

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My very first jilbab was actually a gift from a sister I met through the SisNet list (when it was in it’s heyday mid-1990s).
…It was huge, black and white checkered and had fluffy black lace & frilly cuffs and came from Kuwait. I’m sure I looked like a 16th century musketeer in that and as can be imagined my mother at the time was not very thrilled with any of this.

Now your asking, OK what about Abayahs? Well, Abayahs as we know them now were very new to the Islamic fashion scene and very rare here in the USA. Don’t forget that in the Gulf countries traditionally womens Abayaahs (abayaat) were actually huge squares of material that flowed from the head (overhead abayaah) and covered the entire body. I don’t recall even seeing one in real life until about 2000-2001 when an American sister I met via SisNet and who was living in Saudi Arabia sent me one. I believe the only real abayah style you could possibly buy here in the US at the time was the type that overlaps and closes at the shoulder and they would only have been available if you lived in a large metropolis with a huge Muslim community.

The availability of suitable head scarves was another obstacle. As mentioned previously, options were quite limited! Namely, squares and triangles, occasionally a rectangular scarf-south asian duppatas were fairly easy to obtain due to there being such a large South Asian Muslim community here in the USA. The infamous Al-Ameera of two-piece jersey tube scarf which became popular with kids and busy moms alike came into fruition around 1999. I have several issues of the short-lived Sisters magazine, the precursor to Azizah that contained ads for a type of “pull-over” scarf made of a cotton/lycra material made by a women here in the US or a company in Syria. Who knows who originally invented it?

Rectangular scarves (shaylahs) also started to pop up here around 1999. My very first one was in a lovely burgundy Georgette material and ordered from Al-Mujalbaba in Jamaica, Queens. I remember my first couple times trying to wear it, oh what a fiasco!
No one I knew had ever seen one before, and forget about any shaylah styling instructions online!
At first I just laid it over my head and pinned it behind my head, bringing the ends around to the front and then took those ends criss-crossed back around to the back to secure behind the head. I knew no other way to wear one. A few months later the infamous hijab styling book published by Laila Baroon in South Africa came out and I finally saw some Shaylah styles I could work with! Namely the wrap and tuck method.

Oh and forget underscarves, they did not exist! Everyone I knew used bandannas…

At the time as far as internet based shops went…the biggies were;
AlHediya, CaravanXpress & Al-Mujalbaba. Modesty catalog was still a catalog and Caravan Xpress had both a video and a catalog before getting a website. I remember several times when I would attend a sisters function and the height of the event was looking throuigh one of the attendees CaravanXpress mail order catalog and placing an order via letter!

Yup, those were the days.

Now if you preferred to not wear jilbabs, there were at the time these really wide leg jeans favored by Skater boys and the ubiquitous palazzo pants from the early 90’s were still around and readily available. Since jilbabs were expensive and fairly hard to get I only really ever had 1 or at most 2. My favorite way of dressing when I was a late teen to early 20’s was going to Goodwill! Id spend hours in the mens section and get oversized, tall mens dress shirts like oxfords and wear those with the really wide leg skater jeans and of course a square scarf I cobbled together from a scrap of material found at Joannes Fabrics or was gifted from another Musim sister. It was the easiest way of finding modest clothing and a good many sisters I knew also enjoyed raiding the mens shirt area of Goodwill. It was close to impossible to find suitable pieces of clothing from the womens section of really any large retailer at the time and layering pieces of clothing to achieve a specific look wasn’t really as common then as it is now.

Well, I’ll end my stroll down memory lane here. Ensha’Allah you found this informative and possibly even amusing!