Ramadan: The Eid Decor Designer Who Took Macy’s By Storm Is Ready With Her Unique Aesthetic For Eid And Beyond

A decade after founding her online shop, modernEid, Jomana Siddiqui says her decor and clothing business for American Muslims is booming.

While products for Muslim holidays are not as rare as they once were, stores still don’t commonly offer more aesthetically designed items that might attract a modern buyer.

Siddiqui, who grew up in a Lebanese-Muslim household, originally studied neuroscience. She designed products for her friends and family purely as a hobby. However, she began to realize that her daughters were growing up learning several different cultures and felt they were missing out by not being children of immigrants.

“That’s kind of what led to Modern Eid in the sense that I wanted to be able to address people, if you’re not Middle Eastern or you don’t completely identify with that type of aesthetic, how can we produce something that appeals to the American Muslim? All of that came together at a point,” she said.

In 2011, she decided to make products forPictured: Siddiqui with her modernEid display at Macy's Ramadan and Eid, as most stores only sold stereotypical decorations.

“Quickly, I realized that once I saw the reaction that very first year from my customers just being grateful that these products existed and really came from a different aesthetic point, a more modern vantage point, that I realized this was bigger than just creating products,” Siddiqui said.

The original goal was to address American Muslims, but Siddiqui’s products have since appealed to Canadian, Australian and British markets to make Muslim products normalized.

In fact, modernEid is the first Muslim line picked up by an American retail store. Siddiqui said they had no luck reaching out to department stores until Macy’s approached them about their products.

“Macy’s actually reached out to me,” she said. “The woman I spoke to was a non-Muslim woman who said their store gets a lot of tourists specifically looking to shop during Ramadan.”

Siddiqui and Macy’s collaborated Pictured: Ramadan welcoming party at Macy'sto create in-store displays and together hosted an event welcoming Ramadan. A Macy’s associate told her that that was the largest crowd they’d seen in the store on a Wednesday afternoon.

“The reaction that they got was phenomenal,” she said. “That one little act really opened their eyes.”

ModernEid was officially picked up as an in-store product.

Siddiqui said it was a struggle to get where she is today, but she was successful through “keeping things fresh” and original.

She left Muslim entrepreneurs with a similar success story as hers with one warning: educate yourself. There are companies that steal her creations and sell them on their website. This is why everything she creates is unique and original.

“Being educated and doing research about what you want to do is very important. I’m seeing a lot of my products, other entrepreneurs’ products, being counterfeited, being sold by other companies,” she said. “There is a way to be successful in this space in an ethical way. There is a way to be successful in this space by being original.”

Pictured: Ramadan advent calendar available on modernEid

 

By putting her voice and vision into her designs, they have stood out against other products. Looking like everyone else, she said, won’t make you successful.

“The companies who stay are the ones who brought something that no one else had. Be authentic.”

Siddiqui’s Ramadan and Eid creations can be found on modernEid. Her greeting card line, Cali Love, which launched in 2014, can be found here.