An Innovative Brand, Veil, Is Now Making Stylish Modest Activewear

There's been a ton happening in both the activewear and modest-fashion spheres lately: The former is occupying a bigger portion of our closets than ever before (athleisure is even occupying the dictionary now). As for modest fashion, mass brands have debuted Ramadan collections (with varying degrees of success) and everyday wear, and luxury labels are finally taking note, too. Now, there's an activewear line aiming to create stylish yet covered-up clothes for sweating in: Enter Veil's new collection of athletic wear made specifically for modest dressers, which is currently fundraising on Kickstarter. Last June, Veil rolled out its Cool Dry Hijab, the inaugural climate-adaptive headscarf on the market. The brand's 23-year-old founder, Ahmad Ghanem, says the impetus for Veil to expand into workout garb was noticing "how large the gap was for modest yet functional fashionable apparel, especially in terms of sportswear," he told Refinery29. The crowdfunding campaign, which closes at the end of of this month, has already raised nearly half of its $26,000 goal. While Ghanem notes that there are already a couple of modesty-minded activewear options on the market, none of them were actually all that stylish. "You'll see a lot of women wearing tops with extremely long shirts underneath to cover up, but it shouldn't be that way," he explained. "We wanted to make a 'one garment, all the coverage you need' [piece]." Figuring out the right fit for the Spark half-zip pullover and Halo running hoodie revolved primarily around garment length, with additional attention paid to its looseness, and details like side paneling that prevents the top from riding up due to the extra length.

Although the brand is still in its crowdfunding, preorder-only stages, it's already expanded its sizing to include a 3XL option in response to customer requests. "We had a lot of plus-sized customers emailing us, saying we should make larger sizes, saying that they want to look and feel good, too," Ghanem said. He said he'd been on the fence about extended sizing in the beginning, "but we went ahead with it because we just really want to make everyone happy; that's really always our main objective." (Also, since Veil's clothing is intentionally roomier than typical sizing, a 3XL is technically closer to a standard 4XL, per the brand's fit specifications.)

Next up, the brand will likely create swimwear: "Our customers now ask us if the sportswear can be substituted as a swimming top because there just aren't any options available for modest swimming clothes," Ghanem said. "It's definitely the next project on our to-do list and by far going to be the hardest. We're looking forward to the challenge."