Why SHUKR?
Occasionally, we receive emails from visitors to the SHUKR website informing us that they feel that SHUKR prices are too high. We are sympathetic to this point of view, and try our best to make our clothing available to everyone. However, SHUKR is an ethical designer and producer of high quality, contemporary Islamic clothing; this naturally comes with a price. We have produced this short explanation in order to clarify what goes into producing high quality Islamic clothing.
Ethical clothing
SHUKR is an ethical, fair-trade Islamic company. SHUKR is completely against sweatshop production, paying our workers above market wages and guaranteeing worker rights. In addition, SHUKR strives to produce a religious work environment, where staff can pray regularly and grow spiritually.
Innovative designs
SHUKR’s talented team designs original designs specifically made with the Western Muslim in mind. Designing and creating original patterns requires a trained, gifted team of designers and pattern cutters. Our Head Designer is a graduate from the world-famous Parsons School of Design.
Quality and variety of materials
We only use the highest quality materials, mostly natural in origin, sourced from top producers all around the world. SHUKR is the only Islamic clothing company to use such a wide range of high quality materials, including fabrics made of wool, lyocell, silk, linen, cotton, Modal, and denim.
Quantity of fabric used
Our Islamic designs require a great deal of fabric in their construction. Fabric is the major factor in the cost of a garment. Our garments are all cut longer and wider than normal designs to allow a more modest fit. Islamic designs probably require about double the amount of fabric than the average design you find in a mainstream clothing store.
High quality production
SHUKR’s garments are sewn and produced according to the highest industry standards. Any slightly defective garments are identified by our strict quality control process and sold separately in our defect stores in local markets.
SHUKR uses a lean-manufacturing production process. This means our factory employees are trained in a variety of production tasks, as opposed to the highly routinized operations of traditional mass manufacturing. In addition, each employee takes responsibility for product quality as well as helps to make the production process more efficient. Benefits of this approach include higher employee engagement, better terms of employment, higher product quality, and faster delivery times.
Read here to see how lean-manufacturing can possibly put an end to sweat shops.
Niche market
The Islamic clothing market is only a small, niche market, unlike the mainstream clothing market. Companies like Gap, Zara and Next sell thousands of pieces of the same style, which enables them to produce the garments in large, industrial factories at cheap prices. Islamic clothing companies like SHUKR only produce small quantities of each style and this inevitably means that costs are higher.
We do hope that this explains clearly why SHUKR clothing – although initially appearing costly – is, in fact, worth the prices that our customers pay. Here are some typical comments we have received from customers:
"Great clothes! The prices are in keeping with the quality, so don't worry if you think they are a little high - you really get what you pay for."
"I very strongly agree with SHUKR's philosophy of paying workers a fair and living wage and am MORE than happy to pay a little more for a garment so as not to exploit the people who make the clothing we wear."
"A few days ago I read the section of the SHUKR website explaining how the clothing is made and why the prices seem high; afterward, I sincerely regretted giving the low score on the prices and I made the intention to buy more high-quality products from your store. Pardon my mistake, if there is a way to change my rating I would."
