The global modest fashion market is entering a new phase. As demand matures, momentum is shifting away from volume-driven labels toward luxury houses that combine cultural fluency, founder-led authorship, and genuine craftsmanship. Among these emerging players, SELHAYA®, a London-based luxury abaya Maison, stands apart for a clear reason: it is not adapting to the existing luxury landscape — it is deliberately redefining it.
Founded in London by Aisha Hossain, a former UK government and Ministerial policy advisor for nearly a decade, and Sajjad Choudhury, a former product and technology leader in unicorn companies, Selhaya represents a new model of luxury modest fashion. Rather than emerging from traditional fashion circuits, the Maison was built at the intersection of culture, strategy, and long-term brand architecture, with the operational discipline required to scale without dilution.
Selhaya’s vision is precise: to elevate modest clothing — including the luxury silk abaya — into heirloom fashion. Each piece is grounded in natural materials such as pure silk, disciplined craftsmanship, and intentional design. The Maison creates for women who move seamlessly across professional, cultural, and social worlds, where clothing carries meaning as well as refinement.
Two founders, one strategic vision
SELHAYA® is shaped by the convergence of two complementary disciplines.
Aisha Hossain leads the Maison’s creative direction, storytelling, and sustainability ethos, approaching fashion as a form of cultural communication. Her background in government, policy, and international development informs a deep understanding of how identity, aesthetics, and soft power increasingly shape global influence — often more visibly through fashion than through formal diplomacy.
Sajjad Choudhury brings a product-led, technology-informed approach to building a modern luxury house. His focus is on how Selhaya grows without erosion: controlled distribution, invitation-led client events, made-to-order and bespoke pipelines, and operational systems that preserve exclusivity as the brand expands. The emphasis is not speed, but structure — ensuring the Maison remains architecturally distinct and difficult to replicate.
Together, they operate Selhaya as a founder-led luxury Maison with global relevance, positioning modest fashion as a serious and evolving category within high fashion rather than a peripheral niche.
Positioned at the intersection of culture and diplomacy
Selhaya’s visibility has been shaped by strategic alignment with platforms where fashion, culture, and leadership converge. This became particularly evident in Istanbul, under the auspices of the Türkiye Presidency, where the Maison was featured at the World Halal Summit and the OIC Halal Expo — gatherings that bring together policymakers, cultural institutions, and industry leaders from across the OIC region.
Within this context, Selhaya presented The Rose of Resilience, a pink couture collection created to honour women and the quiet strength with which they navigate life’s challenges. Crafted entirely in pure silks, the collection was first introduced in Abu Dhabi at the third edition of the Wayakoum initiative, held under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Dr. Shamma bint Mohammed bin Khalid Al Nahyan, before being showcased on the runway in Istanbul.
SELHAYA silk abayas have since been worn within private royal and diplomatic circles, reinforcing the Maison’s positioning as a trusted luxury fashion house for culturally and institutionally influential women.
Beyond its fashion collections, SELHAYA® operates a highly selective cultural advisory practice, working discreetly with a small number of ministerial and royal-adjacent institutions and luxury organisations. Drawing on founder expertise in policy, product strategy, and navigating culture-sensitive markets such as the Middle East and Türkiye, the Maison has contributed to projects spanning royal patronage initiatives, ministry-level engagements, and luxury brand strategy across the Middle East and Europe.
This advisory work is not positioned as a volume-driven consultancy, but as an extension of Selhaya’s role as a cultural authority — applying design thinking, storytelling, and symbolic intelligence to environments where perception, heritage, and influence matter.
In this sense, Selhaya operates not only as a luxury fashion house, but as a long-term cultural authority, where fashion, diplomacy, and identity intersect quietly and with intention.
Craft, sustainability, and the business case behind them
SELHAYA® operates on a slow, considered production model rooted in natural fibres and made-to-order craftsmanship. Each garment is created using pure silks and natural materials only, with no synthetics and no mass manufacturing. This approach is not framed as ideology, but as a strategic response to how luxury consumption is changing.
Across the Middle East, Türkiye, and Southeast Asia, high-net-worth clients are reassessing value. Demand is shifting away from seasonal volume toward fewer garments with longevity, material integrity, and emotional relevance. Clients increasingly seek pieces that can be worn repeatedly across years and occasions, rather than replaced each season.
Selhaya’s production philosophy aligns with this shift. Rather than fixed-scale drops, each collection is curated through storytelling and purpose, a process that takes time and — by design — limits output. In bespoke work, garments are often created as singular, one-of-one pieces, preserving individuality and exclusivity, particularly valued by private and high-profile clients.
As Sajjad Choudhury has noted internally, “the next generation of luxury brands will not win by being louder or larger, but by being disciplined from the start — embedding scarcity, trust, and cultural relevance into the business itself. Selhaya’s model reflects this thinking, with growth shaped by intention rather than volume.”
Building a category that had been underserved
What makes Selhaya compelling to global editors and industry observers is that the Maison is not simply designing garments — it is defining a category that has long been underserved at the highest end of luxury: founder-led, culturally fluent modest fashion built to couture standards.
For decades, mainstream luxury houses treated modest dress as an adaptation rather than a design language in its own right. They failed to speak to women who move confidently across spiritual, cultural, and professional contexts, and who expect clothing to reflect both refinement and identity.
SELHAYA® addresses this gap directly, positioning luxury modest fashion as a contemporary and globally relevant expression of high fashion.
The Maison’s trajectory reflects this ambition. Selhaya is preparing for further international showcases, deepening its presence across Türkiye, the Middle East, and adjacent markets, and curating private, invitation-led experiences for clients who value narrative-driven design and cultural intelligence.
The path ahead
With visibility gained through Istanbul, growing editorial interest, and an expanding base of private clients, Selhaya is entering a defining phase. The focus ahead is deliberate rather than expansive: strengthening select global relationships, refining bespoke and made-to-order services, and continuing to build a luxury house defined by longevity rather than speed.
For Aisha Hossain and Sajjad Choudhury, SELHAYA® is not about seasonal dominance or trend leadership. It is about constructing a luxury Maison with cultural authority, where craft, restraint, and meaning function as strategic advantages.
In an industry increasingly driven by scale and noise, Selhaya offers a quieter proposition: luxury defined by relevance, intention, and depth — helping shape a more considered future for global fashion, and for the women who move confidently within it.