ZINAH

For iNews.co.uk

Asos joins the fashion retailers selling 'modest' clothes with the launch of its Verona collection

Modest clothing is designed for women who want less skin-revealing clothes, most commonly for spiritual reasons

When it launched in 2000, the fashion site Asos offered items that were inspired by celebrities – As Seen on Screen was its original branding. Almost 20 years on, it stocks more than 800 brands and sells accessories, activewear, co-ords, coats and jackets, dresses, hoodies and sweatshirts, jeans, shoes – and the list goes on.

It remains a major player in online fashion, despite newer rivals such as Boohoo coming for its crown by offering cut-price trends aimed at women (and men) in their teens and twenties.

If a trend in womenswear is happening, chances are it’s something Asos is already selling, or is planning to. So when it announced a new category this week – modest clothing – with both own-brand designs and those created by US label Verona Collection, it’s a sure sign that Asos knows it can turn a profit.

Showing less skin

Modest clothing is designed for women who want less skin-revealing clothes, most commonly for spiritual reasons. It’s worth noting that while one does not have to be of any religious practice to wear modest clothing, it’s generally used for a niche group of women within certain cultures and religions, predominantly women of the Islamic faith.

Verona Collection’s founders, Lisa Vogl and Alaa Ammuss, are Muslim and started their business after struggling to find modest fashion at an affordable price in America. The label launched in the US in 2015 and as of last year is stocked in Macy’s department stores. Now, with the robust distribution and customer reach of Asos, the business is expanding on a global scale.

More mainstream than you might realise

In the press release announcing the Asos launch, there was a rather bold claim: “Pioneers within the fashion industry, Verona Collection caters for a market that has previously been overlooked within mainstream society.” The idea that modest fashion is not commonly recognised within the British fashion industry isn't necessarily the case – the UK was one of the first Western markets to embrace the sector. Brands such as Aab UK, selling through Debenhams since 2017, and Maysaa have been catering to the British modest fashion market since early 2010.

Major brands have already started designing specific collections for that demographic, from Uniqlo’s collaboration with Hana Tajima to Nike’s Pro Hijab collection. And mainstream retailers have always created modest fashion pieces, albeit they haven’t been labelled as such.

Diversity, inclusion - and potential profit

The right marketing, branding and labelling is what makes certain brands stand out over others. It’s not necessarily pioneering anything new, it’s labelling it as such to encourage diversity and inclusion.

And this is what Verona Collection is doing right. As of 2018 the division “modest fashion” has been considered to be a $250bn (£19bn) global industry, and with Asos shares falling by 38 per cent in December 2018, it comes to no surprise that it needs brands such as Verona to target a “new” demographic with such spending power.

Dress for between Seasons

It’s the time of the year where we switch our wardrobe from winter clothing to spring/summer! It’s quite an exciting time to see the sun beam again, the trees blossom and the weather getting a little warmer. Though admittedly in London we are still in a transition of season & weather. We haven’t fully put away the winter coats or knitwear...yet!

Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop us from decluttering and switching our seasonal clothing’s! We are optimists and like to dress warmer before the warm weather even arrives! It’s not an easy task, as you can imagine temperature in the UK can be quite unpredictable. This week it supposedly should be 17 degrees! Wonderful! Getting carried away talking about the weather is a very British thing, so let us dial back to some tips for trans-seasonal dressing.

Let’s start with swapping seasonal clothing from our wardrobe. We haven’t fully embraced warm weather yet, so we can’t put everything away. But we can remove anything that’s too warm, bulky and very much the definition of winter clothing. That’s mainly referring to heavy winter coats. However, certain warm knitwear can be worn on their own during this time of the year, perhaps with a t-shirt underneath or a thin thermal. Footwear is fairly debatable, I personally have cold feet all the time (feet of an 80 year old man) so I can get away with wearing loafers, ballerinas and such without socks. Since my feet are already cold, the cold weather has nothing on them. At this stage, my boots are already in hiding. However, you may still need yours until the heatwave hits us again. Let’s carry on with some hopefully useful trans-seasonal dressing tips.

After 15 years in London, you’d think one would be an expert in dressing for the English weather, but the unfortunate truth is that we just wing it and play it by ear. The trick is to wear enough layers in order to peel them away when it gets warmer or keep them on when it gets colder. Of course, you don’t want to waddle around wearing several layers. What usually works is wearing a thin knitwear over a blouse or t-shirt and paired with a light winter coat for those days when you leave the house at the crack of dawn and arrive home when the sun has long set. This kind of outfit works perfectly if you’re on the move and not stationed in one place.

If you’re work requires you to be in an office all day, you’d want to wear an outfit that’s warm outdoors and cool indoors. No magic trick required, only two simple layers of a top + coat and voila (yes of course you’d wear bottoms too, we’d like to think that’s a given!). Or a dress and a coat, but you get the idea that its two layers only. The coat only serves the purpose of keeping you warm for the walking distance you need to take to your workplace.

One thing that works really well is wearing a heavy knitted scarf (whether that may be cashemere, wool or synthetic is down to you) and wrap that around yourself for warmth. We usually use this trick on flights from London to any place in the world that is warmer than London (we are thinking south). That way, you don’t have the burden of carrying around a coat when it gets warm, you simply let the scarf hang around your handbag or inside your handbag.

Of course, there are various creative ways to dress for unpredictable weather, you can even put on a fashion show, be our guest. We are merely thinking of practicality combined with style and personality.

(Photography by Rongji Sun, Edited by Zinah Nur Sharif)

ZINAH

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