Sports Illustrated is making history.
For the first time ever, the “swimsuit” edition of the long-running magazine features a Muslim woman wearing a hijab and a burkini.
Model Halima Aden was announced as the historic addition to the brand’s annual issue on Monday.
Aden is Somali-American and was born at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya before moving to the U.S. at the age of seven.
For her SI photoshoot, Aden travelled back to her country of birth, to the beautiful Watamu Beach.
“I keep thinking [back] to six-year-old me who, in this same country, was in a refugee camp,” Aden said. “So to grow up to live the American dream [and] to come back to Kenya and shoot for SI in the most beautiful parts of Kenya — I don’t think that’s a story that anybody could make up.”
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The 21-year-old made headlines two years ago as the first woman to wear a hijab at the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, coming in as a semifinalist. She went on to walk runways at New York Fashion Week and appear on the cover of Vogue.
