The Modist Delivers Style Without Sacrifice

A native Algerian who grew up in the Middle East, Ghizlan Guenez was working in private equity when she developed the idea for a luxury e-commerce platform devoted to the kind of clothes that she and the women in her family like to wear: high fashion, just with “long sleeves, long hems, no high slits, not too much lace,” she says.

- Claire Dodson

But when Guenez began taking the concept of a “modest” fashion site to designers a couple of years ago, she found that many had a very narrow idea of what that meant, envisioning plain fabrics and loose silhouettes. “[They] had a specific woman, religion, and even country in mind,” she says. “We are smashing these stereotypes.”

Last March, on International Women’s Day, Guenez launched the Modist, which showcases everything from floral silk dresses to fitted sequin jumpsuits from more than 100 designers. The site, which has already attracted shoppers in 65 countries, reflects the concerns of a growing group of women who, for reasons both cultural and personal, want full-coverage clothing that doesn’t forgo style. The modest fashion space is predicted to grow into a $484 billion market by 2019, largely spurred on by Muslim shoppers, who are expected to spend $368 billion on apparel by 2021, according to the recent State of the Global Islamic Economy Report from Thomson Reuters.