“They need to come to me. I’m not going to them,” Rawdah Mohamed (Instagram) says. “If I’m the source, why am I playing to your tune?” She knows what she brings to the table, and she knows exactly who benefits when she’s invited to sit at it.
The fashion world loves to parade its commitment to diversity, but Rawdah knows better. She’s seen the hollow gestures, the polished politics of high fashion, the performative nods to inclusion that often take more than they give. She’s not here for the performance.
“I think it’s just survival,” she says, her voice steady, as though she’s spent time untangling these thoughts. “If I don’t speak up for myself, I think I’m going to go extinct. People like me, when you’re so used to people speaking for you or speaking over you, and now that I finally have my own platform, I’m not going to play by their rules.”
Rawdah Mohamed feels she has cracked one of the codes of the industry. “The system cannot be upheld without the underdogs wanting to be a part of it, right?” They need you too,” she says. “I really want the underdogs to understand the power they hold.”
She understands the system intimately—the big houses, the curated appearances, and the unspoken dynamics behind the scenes. But she didn’t step onto the runway to be a symbol. She didn’t set out to check a box or break ground the first Muslim, Somali, or Black model. She’s not interested in a litany of firsts. She came to work. And to do it her way, sidestepping any noise.
“Now I have the platform and my community supporting me, I owe it to them and I owe it to the voiceless person I used to be,” she reflects. “I don’t feel like I have anything to lose. You guys never supported me. The system was never for me. I don’t mind messing it up a little more. Why am I expected to follow the rules? Being rejected by the elite is such an accomplishment to me.”
When we speak, Rawdah is in Norway, lounging in a hoodie while waiting for furniture deliveries to fill her new home. The move comes after a year that’s kept her on the road, hopping between Europe and the Middle East for a slate of projects that keep her in constant motion. “Elhamdullah,” she says, smiling when I ask her how she’s managing the pace. “It’s a lot of work.” Norway, she explains, is a small stage—she quickly exhausted its fashion potential. Today, her work takes her to the industry’s power centers: Paris, London, and Dubai.
Rawdah Mohamed. She has transitioned from healthcare professional to model, viral activist, even taking up a stint as fashion editor of Vogue Scandinavia, and she did it all with no blueprint in hand. “My family came straight from the war. We were immigrants—refugees. And we stayed in Norway,” she says. “I moved around a bit too—one year in New York, a bit in London.” No veils are covering her words, no over-explaining. For Rawdah, it’s simply context—the foundation for everything she’s built.
Today, her presence disrupts more than it conforms, proudly admitting that she’s always the “loud mouth” of the group; she continues to challenge the fashion world’s limited imagination of what beauty, modesty, and power can look like together. A behavioral analyst by training, Rawdah had no plans to enter fashion. But a chance encounter in 2018 with her future manager at an Oslo fashion show changed the entire plot. The industry was unprepared for hijabi models, and Mohamed had to confront its unfamiliarity—and, often, resistance—head-on.
As part of the first generation of hijabi models, Mohamed took it upon herself to educate the industry. Singular wins were never the goal. It’s always been about collective transformation for her, uplifting the whole community. The hijab, often wielded as a symbol of oppression, became a focal point for her activism. In 2021, she launched the viral hashtag #HandsOffMyHijab, aiming to discredit the French ban on the Muslim veil and used her platform to center the voices of Muslim women often left out of the conversation.
For Rawdah, the hijab is not a symbol to be dissected. It’s simply part of who she is. The fashion world she’s creating doesn’t ask her to compromise that. And she’s beginning to see glimmers of that reality now. “Before I used to get a lot of backlash. You lose a lot of jobs. Now, of course, I lose jobs too but I’ve been really outspoken about things that are important to my community, whether that is women’s rights, the hijab ban, Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon. I’ve always spoken about those things but now it’s becoming more common. And thankfully I think people have woken up, especially in the West. So it doesn’t have the reputation that it used to. I think brands now are terrified of being boycotted. The tides have changed. I think now is a great time to be vocal,” she says.
There’s a constant energy of forward motion in her words, a readiness to ignite and take action. Yet, despite her drive, she often feels as though she’s not doing enough. “There’s always more to be done,” Rawdah reflects. “But I’m beginning to understand that sometimes, this is what I can do, in terms of advocacy. I’m always conscious of what I’m not doing, and that can make me feel helpless—sometimes to the point of burning myself out.”
Still, she doesn’t let that weight paralyze her. “I don’t just sit and wait for governments to act because I know they won’t. We have to apply pressure where we can, and that understanding helps. I remind myself: I did what I could do. I need to focus on what’s within my ability and strength and accept that change doesn’t happen overnight.”
This philosophy extended to her work as fashion editor at Vogue Scandinavia. Her work was deeply personal, weaving her own evolving ethos into the magazine’s pages. From her love of thrifted pieces to her appreciation for the simplicity of a well-tailored midi skirt, she revealed a view of fashion that was at once intimate and grounded. She invited readers to see fashion not just as an aesthetic choice, but as an evolving dialogue with oneself—a mirror of identity and intention.
In one piece, she wrote, “I dress modestly, which can be timeless, chic, and it can be daring—yes, it can be daring,” she wrote in another editorial. “I choose to disengage with the constant fixation on the woman’s body and the social insanity that comes along with it. I don’t dress modestly to control men’s thoughts toward my body. I am not responsible for others, nor am I concerned with them.”
Rawdah Mohamed moves through the fashion world with the calm assurance of someone who has seen past its glittering veneer. And she decided to stay, not for the spectacle, but for the craft. She’s not chasing validation from big brands or industry gatekeepers. She decided doesn’t need to. Steady, self-assured, she navigates the system on her own terms, taking what she wants and leaving the rest.
Yet, within the industry’s vastness, there are pockets of real connection. “There are subgroups,” she explains. “That’s where you find your people – talented people, people who are making the shift and changing the industry. You go where you’re celebrated.”
Community is the key to survival and renewal in her opinion. “You have to give yourself to a community, to help each other and be a part of it. These alternative pockets within the industry are what keep creativity, passion and fashion alive. You have to give and you have to take. You have to seek out the brands, people and photographers you want to work with,” she says.
And when you “make it” she continues, “you give back to your community and offer them the opportunities, not go sell out just to have worked with a big name,” she says. We should give back when we receive, not just vie for a bigger slice of the pie for ourselves.
“Representation means keeping your integrity,” says Rawdah. “It’s about standing for what you believe in and never forgetting who you were or where you came from before you ‘made it.’”
It’s about accountability. It’s about the responsibility to uplift, to advocate, and to challenge systems, not simply exist within them.
“Just because someone shares my skin tone doesn’t mean they’re fighting for me or my people,” she continues. “If you’re not doing that, then I don’t want to be represented by you. I don’t want you in those spaces speaking for me because you’re not. You’re speaking to your masters, and that has nothing to do with me.”
It’s not enough to simply occupy space. It’s about transforming it for those who follow. And if that means calling out those who fall short, so be it.
This is where her quiet power lies: in holding her ground, supporting her peers, and nurturing her community while enjoying herself in the process. Rawdah Mohamed loves fashion, and it shows—not in the pursuit of fleeting status, but in the way she lives it.
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