(Re)Defining Modest Sportswear through the Hijabi Habitus: Intersections of Faith, Fashion, and Function in Muslim Women’s Sportswear Design

This dissertation examines modest sportswear as a design and cultural field where faith-based embodiment, athletic performance, aesthetics, and digital visibility converge. Addressing a methodological and epistemic gap in modest fashion scholarship—particularly the absence of autoethnographic and designer-centered research on modest sportswear—I foreground lived experience and design practice to theorize how hijabi women negotiate modesty in motion and how inclusive sportswear can be more authentically developed and communicated. In the original research presented below, I examine: 1a.) how I, as a hijabi modest fashion designer and consumer, define and prioritize coverage, functionality, and aesthetics in sportswear and 1b.) how these design priorities compare with those articulated by modest fashion consumers, influencers, and brands in digital media; 2.) how hijabi habitus is formed, learned, and performed through personal, familial, and engagements with modest fashion and sportswear, and; 3.) how mainstream sportswear brands can frame their design and marketing narratives around modest sportswear in ways that build cultural relevance and trust. Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of practice, sartorial sociology, and embodiment frameworks, I employ analytic autoethnography as the primary method and integrate digital ethnography and visual analysis to situate personal insights within broader platform-based representations and consumer discourse. The findings show that modest dress is dynamic and context-dependent, demonstrating how hijabi habitus is continually recalibrated across micro-decisions made as modesty is navigated through the elements of movement, visibility, spatial transitions, and material constraints. The dissertation argues that inclusive modest sportswear cannot be achieved through representational inclusion alone but requires structurally collaborative design approaches grounded in hijabi habitus and the spatial and contextual negotiation of modesty across everyday situations. The study theorizes hijabi habitus as a conceptual framework for understanding faith-based embodiment in athletic and fashion contexts and introduces hijab-centered design as a lived and practice-informed approach to inclusive modest sportswear. The research presented here showcases how the hijab is a garment of choice for millions of Muslim women across the world and the demand for modest sportswear is transnational, including western nations. The research also shows that hijabi-centered design, especially in modest sportswear, allows hijabi women to participate in sports in open, public spaces rather than constantly finding women-only gyms or workout areas. Collectively, these contributions position modest sportswear as a site where embodied religious practice, material design, and spatial negotiation intersect. This research contributes to fashion studies, design studies, modest fashion scholarship, the sociology of dress, media and cultural studies, and qualitative methodology by offering an embodied framework for theorizing and designing inclusive modest sportswear.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate College

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Arizona.

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• KAVAKCI, ELIF

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Chadha, Monica

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Cooper, Anna
• Dominguez, Ashley

• Autoethnography
• Digital Ethnography
• Hijab-Centered Design
• Hijabi Habitus
• Modest Fashion
• Modest Sportswear

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction, presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10150/680893

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/680893