Knowing That You Are the Expert, Melanie Elturk, Haute Hijab, Podcast #84

Melanie Elturk is Co-founder, CEO, and Chief Designer at Haute Hijab — an online retail brand that as Melanie says, “makes the world’s best hijabs for the world’s most powerful women”. Melanie went from a stable career in a law firm to diving headfirst into her growing e-commerce empire, and she doesn’t hold back about what a daunting move that was to make.

You can listen to the podcast on Itunes here.

How do women feel about hijab’s though? Business wise the idea is a good one and the site is very nice as is the product.But the idea of women wearing hijabs and the base reason for having (in many cases) to do so I don’t agree with.Not that it impacts me. Or is any of my business. It’s not. But I am not a fan at all of this type of restriction for religious reasons (or otherwise) and obviously for a woman being more or less forced to do so either by law (in some countries) or peer pressure. (Even though some may do it for other reasons every time I see a woman correspondent in a foreign country wearing one that is what I think.)I also feel (based on how I was raised) not to use symbols that could invite any type of negative response in the world. For example growing up even though my father sold menorahs and stars of david (and other religious jewelry) (he was an importer) we didn’t have a menorah in the window of our home. And he didn’t encourage us to wear any religious jewelry. This was as a direct result of what he experienced as a child growing up overseas in the 1930’s. Just avoid any trouble if you can basically. Don’t draw attention to yourself. (The period where jews had to mark their homes).

Comments (Archived):

LE Dec 3, 2018

How do women feel about hijab’s though? Business wise the idea is a good one and the site is very nice as is the product.But the idea of women wearing hijabs and the base reason for having (in many cases) to do so I don’t agree with.Not that it impacts me. Or is any of my business. It’s not. But I am not a fan at all of this type of restriction for religious reasons (or otherwise) and obviously for a woman being more or less forced to do so either by law (in some countries) or peer pressure. (Even though some may do it for other reasons every time I see a woman correspondent in a foreign country wearing one that is what I think.)I also feel (based on how I was raised) not to use symbols that could invite any type of negative response in the world. For example growing up even though my father sold menorahs and stars of david (and other religious jewelry) (he was an importer) we didn’t have a menorah in the window of our home. And he didn’t encourage us to wear any religious jewelry. This was as a direct result of what he experienced as a child growing up overseas in the 1930’s. Just avoid any trouble if you can basically. Don’t draw attention to yourself. (The period where jews had to mark their homes).
1. Gotham Gal Dec 3, 2018
  
  It is something that most of us have different responses to them. I will say on the streets of NYC we see more and more women wearing them.