Nike Launches Its First Athletic "Pro" Hijab

The new, lightweight athletic head covering will be available in 2018 in three colorways.

(courtesy of Nike)
By Walker MacMurdo

Beaverton-based Nike is encouraging Muslim women athletes who wear a hijab to compete with a brand new, high performance head covering. The "Pro Hijab," announced Tuesday and hitting market in 2018, will be the company's first.

In a press release, Nike said, "The Nike Pro Hijab may have been more than a year in the making, but its impetus can be traced much further back, to an ongoing cultural shift that has seen more women than ever embracing sport."

The pull-on hijab will be made from a durable, lightweight mesh suitable for multiple sports, and will be available in three colorways: black, obsidian and vast grey. In designing it, Nike collaborated with several female athletes, including figure skater Zahra Lari and weightlifting Olympian Amna Al Haddad, both from the United Arab Emirates.

The announcement follows the release of a new advertisement from Nike that's causing controversy in the Middle East, featuring women athletes from across the Arab world.

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