Many Saudi women suffer from obesity. One effective treatment lies in exercise, but the cost of membership to athletic clubs means that for many women the only options are: Exercise at home or outside. But going out means wearing an abaya, and wearing an abaya makes exercise more arduous than it already is.
“I am not overweight, but I like to walk, especially in public parks. But I hesitate a lot during the summer because the abaya makes it difficult,” said Laila Abdul Ghafour, a Saudi woman living in Jeddah.
She said she tried wearing a long dress over sports tights, but it didn’t work. A friend, Hind Amin, said the abaya doesn’t help anyway because sweating during exercise makes the fabric clingy, which undermines the use of the abaya in the first place: To hide the female form in public.
Salim bin Salman, a CEO of a Saudi company that imports clothing, said it was the concern of women like Laila and Hind that gave him the idea of finding a suitable exercise wear for the modest Muslim woman.
“We started importing sports abayas for Saudi women to practice sports without difficulty and without (being) revealing,” he said.
Bin Salman said 60 percent of his customers are women looking for sports abayas.
“Our women customers are those who believe in the importance of sports for health. They are educated women between the age of 20 and 40,” he added. “We import these fabrics from India and Indonesia. The women buy them and tailor them into sports abayas. They are of different colors which suit various tastes,” he said.
Bin Salman explained that the abaya is made up of 60 percent cotton and 40 percent polyester.
“The cotton abaya will give the woman coolness as it absorbs heat,” he said.
He noted that some fashion designers started using these fabrics to make sports abayas that look very much like training suits.
No comments:
Post a Comment