About
Welcome to Cover Me Chic, a home for modest women who want to design and make their own clothes.
I’m Zahiyya (pronounced Zah-hee-yah). I’m a designer and serial entrepreneur. Over the past 25 years I’ve worked in the NYC fashion Industry – but my next journey is just beginning.
Designs featured in:
Our Mission
Cover Me Chic’s mission is to help women feel confident in their own skin. Dressing well, is a large component of feeling good, which makes you look good. Not the other way around.
I teach design and sewing so you learn how to dress the body you have in the most flattering way possible. I design patterns meant to make a statement, not to blend into what is traditional or expected.
Get started by learning how to measure your body. Sign-up and get my free how to measure your body tool kit.
Here are what some of her clients had to say:
Bio (A brief switch into the third person…)
Cover Me Chic was founded by Zahiyya Abdul-Karim. She is a Designer and serial entrepreneur. Over the past 22 years Zahiyya has worked in the NYC fashion Industry building millions in revenue for design firms, also sewing and designing for private clients.
Growing up Muslim
Zahiyya started sewing in elementary school because she didn’t like the options she had for modest clothes. She learned how to sew from her mother and father, yes, her father had his own sewing machine which she wasn’t allowed to touch until later on when her skills improved.
She loved it
She got really good fast by making clothes for herself and her six siblings every Eid. Eventually, she began sewing for other people in her family and community, making sewing her first business.
By high school, where she studied fine art, she landed a job at Harlem Textile works where she learned business, textile design and screen printing. That experience sparked her interest in entrepreneurship.
Zahiyya studied Fashion Design in college and soon after got her first job in the New York fashion Industry. While working as an Assistant Designer, she started her second business, a t-shirt company, in 1998. She sold her wares by vending at street fares and trade shows throughout the city on the weekends. Recognizing she needed a home base and not wanting to own a storefront, she learned web design and built her first website (when dial-up was still a thing) to promote and sell her designs.
She started offering her web design and online branding development services in a new business in 2014 and now offers it for individuals and small businesses on Cover Me Chic. To book a free discovery call click here. If you are an established brand looking for a done for you service, she offers fashion design and product development services at Region Design Agency.
Her fashion and textile designs have been featured in various publications including he New York Times, Huffington Post, Aziza Magazine, Sew News and the Philadelphia Enquirer among others.
When Zahiyya is not sewing and designing clothes, building brands, or creating websites she can be found tending her many plants, reading, sipping coffee or hanging out with her two daughters, husband and family.
I see you’ve read all the way to the bottom, I knew I liked you! While you’re here sign-up and get my free how to measure your body tool kit.
If you have questions or just want to say hey, contact me here.
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