LOS ANGELES – Somali-American model Halima Aden just made history as the first to ever wear a hijab and burkini in Sports Illustrated’s signature swimsuit issue.
The 21-year-old will appear in the May 2019 issue of the magazine with a series photographed by Yu Tsai at Kenya’s Watamu Beach.
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For the shoot, Aden donned a collection of colourful hijabs and burkinis — a swimsuit that covers most of the body except the hands, feet, and face, which is worn by some Muslim women.
The Somali-American model was born in Kenya at the Kakuma Refugee Camp, where she lived until the age of seven before moving to the United States. For her SI Swimsuit rookie spread, she travelled to her birth country and shot at Watamu Beach with photographer Yu Tsai.
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In the states, Aden found success and broke barriers. She signed to IMG Models after making headlines for competing in hijab at her state’s Miss USA pageant in 2016. She became the first woman to wear her traditional Muslim headpiece for the entire competition, also opting to wear a burkini for the swimsuit round.
Aden revealed the shoot was emotional on Monday’s “Good Morning America.”
“We definitely had a lot of moments where everybody was, like, breaking down crying because it’s a huge moment,” she recalled.
MJ Day, SI Swimsuit editor, promised an issue with “a wide range of age and race and levels of modesty that really is a first for us” during the “GMA” segment.
