By Hayley Welbur
Finding stylish conservative clothing is one thing, but finding modest athletic wear is nearly impossible.
After struggling to play sports in long skirts, a group of young Muslim girls on a community traveling basketball team in Minnesota designed their own uniforms to wear.
Lady Warriors players encountered issues like tripping on skirts and stopping a game to fix a fallen hijab.
“The girls quickly learned that traditional dress and basketball don’t mix well,” Thul, a volunteer research consultant to the program, told the Associated Press.
With help from the University of Minnesota College of Design, the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, coaches and community members, the girls were able to create and then debut the outfits at a local fashion show.
The uniforms, including one for basketball and one for all sports, are made of bright breathable fabrics, leggings instead of skirts, knee-length tunics, and hijabs with velcro so that the headscarves stay in place.
“I actually focus on basketball instead of our scarf,” Zubeda Chaffe, a basketball player on the team, says in the AP video.
This is a time when several Muslim women are realizing the lack of stylish clothing options they have to choose from. The Lady Warriors unveiling a new uniform comes after a Kickstarter was held for a waterproof, workout hijab and Uniqlo’s recent collaboration with blogger Hana Tajima featuring modest clothing geared toward Muslim women.
Source: mashable.com
