US-based Veil Garments has recently partnered with Azadea Group to bring its modest activewear to six Decathlon stores in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar. 

“Azadea reached out to us directly after a few of their customers in Qatar requested them to carry our brand,” Veil founder Ahmad Ghanem told Salaam Gateway. 

After selling well in Qatar, Decathlon expanded Veil products into all MENA locations. “We've actually sold out in most of their stores after the first order,” Ghanem said. “So they've continued to carry our brand with the increased demand for Veil products.”

While online shopping was soaring the past two years, helping global apparel sales stay afloat, Ghanem says working with physical store retailers like Decathlon better supports the brand. In September, Azadea announced plans to add more Decathlon stores to the four in the UAE and other key locations across Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman. 

The sportswear market is expected to grow within the next four years by over 30% to an estimated $427 billion, says a McKinsey report. 

Azadea holds the MENA franchise for the French sporting goods retail brand, which recorded a turnover of 11.4 billion euros ($12.8 billion) in 2020. The Lebanon-based lifestyle retail company with over 10,000 employees owns and operates over 40 international franchise concepts in fashion and accessories, food and beverage, home furnishings, sporting goods, multimedia, beauty and cosmetics. The firm operates in 13 countries across the Middle East and Africa, spanning a network of more than 550 stores. 

Designer Ahmad Ghanem started Veil Garments in 2015 after raising $69,000 in crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter to produce cooling and water-repelling hijabs. He then expanded into a wide range of modest activewear. 

This year, Veil hit over $1 million in sales, more than the previous four years combined. However, Ghanem still refuses to take on investors to grow the business.

“I rather bootstrap the brand from the ground up until we were ready to scale heavily,” Ghanem said. The entrepreneur explained that Veil has, if needed, multiple capital options at disposal, naming Shopify Capital and Clearbanc as examples.

Shopify Capital offers to fund between $200 to $2,000,000 via cash advances and loans to eligible businesses. Clearco, formerly Clearbanc, is a 2015 founded Canadian lending firm. It provides start-ups capital ranging from $10,000 up to $10 million in the form of non-dilutive revenue-share agreements. The lender uses artificial intelligence to analyse a business’s financial health. 

“It's a way we can get some funding without losing any equity,” Ghanem said.

Veil Garments’ largest markets outside the U.S. are Canada, Great Britain, Singapore, Australia and Oman. International sales only account for 4.5% of the company’s revenue. “But it is 100% organic as we only directly advertise to US customers,” Ghanem said.

According to Pew Research Center, about 3.45 million Muslims lived in the US in 2017, making up about 1.1% of the population. Ghanem says he is also working on making Veil available in the UK, Singapore, Egypt and Turkey by next year. 

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