00:12Hello, my name is Mariana Lam. A hijab for me is an Islamic observation of character,
00:20morale and dress. And why I made the decision to wear it is as an act of spirituality between
00:27myself and my creator. For me, clothing is as much of a, it's emotional. My mom was an
00:33opiateur seamstress. That's what she studied for. I grew up with the sound of a sewing machine and
00:38watching her craft and seeing the beauty that she would make out of clothing. So that really
00:42started from a very young age. My message to my clothing is basically, do you who you are at that
00:49moment and make the choices that you want to make regardless of what people think. My personal style
00:54is comfortable. In terms of hats, I have a fascination for hats. I collect them, I wear them, I style
01:01them, I have fun with them. What I love about fashion is for me it's an instrument to tell my
01:06story,
01:07how I dress myself, every single aspect of it is giving you a message about something. My Latino
01:14culture, I'm very proud of that and I like to find ways every day that I can apply that in
01:22my dressing.
01:22One of my main dresses in my closet is my Mexican dress. Although it's not specifically for my dad's
01:27part of Mexico or my mom's but it is a representation of Mexico but it's also a representation of social
01:33fights and my love for Mexico as well as my message to bring back our Mexican clothing as a regular
01:41wear
01:41and not as a costume. So when I'm out and about, I really don't put attention to what people's reactions
01:49are to my personal decisions. Normally there are these events where you know you go and mingle and
01:55things like that. It was for a brand I was launching. I was standing and mingling with another
02:00another woman when there's this man next to me and he said oh yeah those Muslims and I'm here talking
02:06to
02:06somebody else and this individual right next to me is like oh those Muslims and then he said oh yeah
02:11you should they should kill them all. We have to know that yes we're there's there's a certain
02:17attention that we need to pay it to the headscarf because there's woman violence attached to it and
02:21my life is a risk every time I go out in the street. The first thing that I would definitely
02:25want to say to the fashion industry is that the term diversity is not being used to its full extent.
02:31Definitely there's a lot more room to expand on that. When brands think that they're fulfilling
02:38them to our entire diversity and then they use hashtags like every woman and I go look at your
02:44lookbook and I'll go see your show but I will not see myself in that show then you're not really
02:50representing every single woman.
03:00Our faith says that it's about balance and also our faith says that we have to seek justice for
03:08ourselves and then we have to represent ourselves and our attention goes to our Lord it doesn't
03:12go to the people around us. So you do your hijab and you rock that.
