Rima Chahrouk
At age 24, Afghan-Dutch Muslim Influencer, Ruba Zai, brings her passion, skill and drive to become the face of lifestyle expertise host on the Dutch-based television programme RTL Boulevard featured on broadcasting station RTL 4. She is commonly known as @HijabHills on Instagram.
About Ruba
In her early twenties Ruba began a Youtube channel as a side-project to promote fashion and beauty lifestyle. Her hobby evolved into a market-need and attracted Muslim women worldwide, which resulted in her channels success of 900,000 monthly views and over 400,000 subscribers. She continued to promote her lifestyle on Instagram developing a current following of 1.1 million people which has sought attraction by eminent brands.
Before and during her work she realized the absence of the representation of Muslim women in the media and fashion industry and strongly focused on topics such as clothing and wearing the hijab to fill the void. Her unique outlook inspired Muslim women worldwide, her LinkedIn biography reveals one of work motifs, “so that the everyday Muslim women can gain more self confidence”.
Ruba has been featured on world leading brands such as Cosmopolitan, Sephora, Puma Woman, Magnum and YSL Beauty. In 2017 the Italian Label, Dolce and Gabbana, contacted her to feature the labels Autumn-Winter campaign which took place in Morocco.
Since the onset of her journey, Ruba and hundreds of other beauty influencers are developing the ‘Modest Fashion’ brand and catalyzed the reshaping of industry marketing approach for inclusion and diversity.
In response to their work and the growing market, fashion brands and media agencies are collaborating with the Muslim market to increase their outreach and promote the image of an accepting and diverse world.
Ruba’s new role as a television host in Europe plays a symbolic role in the representation of practising Muslim women in media and fashion.
