WASHINGTON: Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue, best known for its racy covers of scantily clad bikini models, will feature for the first time a Muslim model wearing a hijab and burkini, the magazine said Monday.
Somali-American model Halima Aden’s rookie spread will be set in Kenya, where she born in a refugee camp and lived until the age of seven.
“Growing up in the States, I never really felt represented because I never could flip through a magazine and see a girl who was wearing a hijab,” Aden said in a video tweeted by the magazine.
Sports Illustrated also posted a picture of her posing lying down in shallow water, wearing a turquoise hijab, long yellow earrings and a deep blue burkini — the full length swimsuit favored by some Muslim women.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw2Bd2kh81a/?utm_source=ig_embed
Halima, 21, made headlines at age 19 when she was the first woman to wear a hijab in the Miss Minnesota USA Pageant, where she made the semi-finals in 2016.
She has previously featured on the cover of British Vogue and walked on the New York Fashion Week runway.
[source_without_link]Agence France-Presse[/source_without_link]