Cover Girl

Brains, beauty and a point of view: it’s a millennial recipe for success that blogger and fashion entrepreneur Manal Chinutay has perfected. Here’s exactly how she did it.

- Ingeborg Van Lotringen ​

Here’s a lesson in presumption for you: when I first saw Manal Chinutay’s Instagram feed (220k followers and counting), I assumed she was a Saudi princess. With her vaguely Middle-Eastern beauty and elegant, modest gowns, combined with the luxurious hijabs she has become famous for (more of which later), she looked the picture of wealth and immaculate royal breeding.

In fact, 24-year-old Chinutay is Canadian, a qualified nurse, and the daughter of first-generation Ethiopian refugees. She’s also a blogger with more than 335k YouTube subscribers, and a fashion entrepreneur with her own line of hijabs. Starting out doing homespun make-up tutorials with a camera her mates gave her for her birthday, she achieved all of this in just four years – and you get the distinct impression she’s barely started.

But hers is not just the familiar story of the accidental social-media star-turned-businesswoman, interesting simply because it’s the model so many hope to base their careers on. Thanks to impeccably fortuitous timing, Chinutay is capitalising on the Kardashian and Huda-led vogue for more ‘exotic’ (and less sizeist) beauty, the rise of modest fashion, and the power of social media to force open markets previously under-served in the West. In a shifting society where aesthetics, ethics and behaviour are under intense review , her looks and point of view are becoming central to her success, whether she likes it or not.

The short road to success

“Doing my rather inconsistent and mistake-ridden tutorials was a form of escapism from homework and work placements on a dementia ward,” says Chinutay. “The YouTube success just sort of happened, but nursing was what I wanted to do, which is why I didn’t give up my studies and become a professional blogger. I didn’t even know there was money in blogging until I graduated!”