Got You Covered: Stories of Modern Modesty Aiden Kent

As I’m recording this introduction that you’re listening to right now, I’m struggling with my modesty. Maybe that’s a surprising thing to hear from someone who hosts a podcast about the subject and makes content about it online and spouts volumes about how magical of a practice modesty and hair covering can be. But as sparkly and a-flame as covering can make me feel, it feels equally important to share the struggles, to let you know that you’re not alone.

Luckily, past me is here to offer some medicine. Cutting together this episode with Avalon Rose, the creator behind @ahijabirose and The Rebord Muslim Podcast ended up being a therapeutic exercise. In the next hour, you’ll hear how Avalon went from wanting to commit to hijab as soon as she converted, to hanging on by a thread about to take it off. Her perspectives around navigating the gray areas of religious practice have inspired me to have some grace with myself around my struggles, and I hope that in listening to her, you’ll feel supported and comforted as well.

As I’m recording this introduction that you’re listening to right now, I’m struggling with my modesty. Maybe that’s a surprising thing to hear from someone who hosts a podcast about the subject and makes content about it online and spouts volumes about how magical of a practice modesty and hair covering can be. But as sparkly and a-flame as covering can make me feel, it feels equally important to share the struggles, to let you know that you’re not alone.

Luckily, past me is here to offer some medicine. Cutting together this episode with Avalon Rose, the creator behind @ahijabirose and The Rebord Muslim Podcast ended up being a therapeutic exercise. In the next hour, you’ll hear how Avalon went from wanting to commit to hijab as soon as she converted, to hanging on by a thread about to take it off. Her perspectives around navigating the gray areas of religious practice have inspired me to have some grace with myself around my struggles, and I hope that in listening to her, you’ll feel supported and comforted as well.

In the last several months, the internet has become alight with chatter about ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and which launched just in November 2022. In the first month of its launch, ChatGPT had more than 57 million monthly users, and OpenAI reports that 13 million individual active users visited ChatGPT per day as of January 2023.

AI for personal casual use has just crested into public consciousness (raise your hand if you too have problematically (though unknowingly) used AI to generate artistic portraits of yourself), but hundreds of industries have been using AI across the supply chain from ideation to shipment and distribution.

Yasmeen Collins is a Muslim fashion designer who co-founded an AI-driven fashion startup called “AI Made This”, which uses artificial intelligence to generate the patterns and designs that are then printed onto fabric and hand-made into streetwear and modest-friendly garments in Yasmeen’s little studio in New York City.

I’m highkey obsessed with how technology, faith and futurism, that is, the study of what our future might look like, all intersect, and that was kind of the impetus for this podcast. I went into this conversation with Yasmeen absolutely bursting with questions about how faith will be expressed in this new technological era, how we’ll come to terms with what beauty and the human spirit mean in a world where a computer can produce and sell high-quality artwork, and most specifically, how inner and outer modesty can express itself as a practice under these conditions.

In the last several months, the internet has become alight with chatter about ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and which launched just in November 2022. In the first month of its launch, ChatGPT had more than 57 million monthly users, and OpenAI reports that 13 million individual active users visited ChatGPT per day as of January 2023.

AI for personal casual use has just crested into public consciousness (raise your hand if you too have problematically (though unknowingly) used AI to generate artistic portraits of yourself), but hundreds of industries have been using AI across the supply chain from ideation to shipment and distribution.

Yasmeen Collins is a Muslim fashion designer who co-founded an AI-driven fashion startup called “AI Made This”, which uses artificial intelligence to generate the patterns and designs that are then printed onto fabric and hand-made into streetwear and modest-friendly garments in Yasmeen’s little studio in New York City.

I’m highkey obsessed with how technology, faith and futurism, that is, the study of what our future might look like, all intersect, and that was kind of the impetus for this podcast. I went into this conversation with Yasmeen absolutely bursting with questions about how faith will be expressed in this new technological era, how we’ll come to terms with what beauty and the human spirit mean in a world where a computer can produce and sell high-quality artwork, and most specifically, how inner and outer modesty can express itself as a practice under these conditions.

This week, we’re going international with Italian creator and consultant Sumaia Saiboub. Born to a Muslim Moroccan family and having grown up in Catholic-dominant Italy, young Sumi fought for her creativity to be the central focus of her being.

After years of trying to prove to her fellow Italians that she was a full human beyond just the facets of herself that are religion and ethnic background, she found that Italian society had little room for the complex, curious and passionate worldview she wanted to explore in her life and career. Sumi decided to create the representation she needed growing up and began to share her story through her Instagram page and We Belong Europe, a project she co-founded that inspires young women of color across Europe to reach higher and dream bigger and teaches Italian organizations to support them.

Style is in Sumi’s blood, and as a modest fashion creator, Sumi has cultivated an elegant and flowing aesthetic that calls on the timeless looks of the generations before her in order to create a bigger world for the generations after her.

This week, we’re going international with Italian creator and consultant Sumaia Saiboub. Born to a Muslim Moroccan family and having grown up in Catholic-dominant Italy, young Sumi fought for her creativity to be the central focus of her being.

After years of trying to prove to her fellow Italians that she was a full human beyond just the facets of herself that are religion and ethnic background, she found that Italian society had little room for the complex, curious and passionate worldview she wanted to explore in her life and career. Sumi decided to create the representation she needed growing up and began to share her story through her Instagram page and We Belong Europe, a project she co-founded that inspires young women of color across Europe to reach higher and dream bigger and teaches Italian organizations to support them.

Style is in Sumi’s blood, and as a modest fashion creator, Sumi has cultivated an elegant and flowing aesthetic that calls on the timeless looks of the generations before her in order to create a bigger world for the generations after her.