Hanifa Is Back: Inside the Return of the Black-Owned Luxury Fashion Brand After an Eight-Month Pause

“Is that Hanifa?” is a question I got often walking down any street, from Miami, New York, to D.C. and Los Angeles. The clothing brand built a cult following over the years, largely made of career-focused, fashion-obsessed Black women around the world who loved existing as a “Hanifa woman.” Anifa Mvuemba originally launched the label in 2012, initially gaining traction after she posted a self-made 21st-birthday dress on Instagram. The brand slowly continued to grow, and then eventually blew up on a widespread global stage during the COVID-19 pandemic when it launched its groundbreaking “Pink Label Congo” collection via a viral 3D virtual runway using headless digital avatars.The independent brand became synonymous with luxury, sensuality, and well-made designs. But that all came to a halt this past March when Mvuemba announced a pause for the brand due to an assortment of backend issues—from shipping delays, warehouse complications, and burnout.But after taking time for herself and resetting, Mvuemba is entering a new chapter. And Hanifa is set to return November 18, 2026. We caught up with the 35-year-old founder to talk about her time away and what shoppers can expect now that Hanifa is coming back.When did you start thinking about designing this collection? What was the lead-up like? Honestly, Hanifa is like a part of my DNA at this point. I started this brand when I was 21, and so I think I just needed a moment to just take a breather, rest, be with my new baby, enjoy my family, enjoy this time, and just think about how I wanted to move forward. It was a lot, but eventually I was just like, ‘Okay, I need to get back to work,’ because I genuinely enjoy and love what I do, creating. I'm such a creative person, and I love business. I can't leave a Hanifa alone like that. I can't do it.The collection feels very like true to your design motifs, but I'd love to know what specifically inspired it. I really was thinking about the opportunity that this pause awarded us. It gave us the opportunity to build this dream world of Hanifa that I've always wanted to have. To be completely honest, within the last couple of years, I always wanted to have a moment to fix things, rebrand a few things, and I felt like I finally got the opportunity to be able to do that without feeling the pressure of doing all of that. So we were able to go back into our archives. I really wanted to start there, and think about the woman that we are building for. Just looking at those moments that the customers fell in love with from the beginning, and reintroducing that in different ways. Of course, keeping the woman, her body, at the center. I wanted for this new era for the brand in design to feel a little bit more elevated, a little refined, while still remaining true to Hanifa. And then just exploring different things. We really wanted to try different materials. Knitwear being our biggest category, wanting to explore different ways that we can do knitwear, color, textures, fits, patterns, while still staying true to the brand and what people love us for.On a personal level, what did you learn by having this moment to step away?I really understood the importance of resting. I'm someone that enjoys working, but I think rest is actually necessary to be able to have peace of mind. I thought it was necessary for me to be present for my family, also for me to be the best leader that I could be for my team, and I think it's okay to rest. I'm grateful that we were able to even pause for this long. It's not usually the norm for independent brands. But I'm grateful that we even had that opportunity to be able to say, “Hey, we're gonna step away for eight months, 10 months, and just figure it out and do all the things that we needed to do.”The conversation around you stepping away became so big online. And I think that speaks to the impact and the space you took up in the luxury retail market. What are you excited about, coming back? What are you nervous about?I'm excited for people to experience this new era of Hanifa. We've been working so hard, considering every touchpoint for the customer, restructuring the business. I mean, we've literally been uprooting everything, and refining, going back and forth and redoing the website. I'm very, very excited for everyone to really experience this world that we're building. And so the collection is called World of Anifa. We're now allowing them into this space and making the brand feel more full. We always speak about how we've grown with our customers, we're journeying with our customers, and wanting them to experience what it is to be in this world, and how we actually consider them in the decisions we make too.Through this collection, do you feel like that woman you're designing for is she still the same? She's evolving. I think we're all evolving. I was 21 when I started, my perspective was different. Now I'm turning 36 this year, and everything is shifting. So she's grown with us. We've grown with her. She's rediscovering herself. She's maybe a new mom. Maybe she just got her new executive position. Maybe she just started a business. She's in a new season in her life, and so she still wants to feel seen. She still wants to look good. Also a big thing that we're building is the categories, really diversifying that so that she can really have Hanifa all the time. Kid drop-offs, airport outfit. You know, we're thinking about every single detail.There's just so much pressure put on Black founders with the things that they create. On a personal level, how do you navigate that for yourself just as a human being? I don't care. Period. But seriously, it took a while for me to get to this space. I do care actually because I see it affecting my peers and people that I care about, too. When I announced the pause, I received so many DMs, messages, and support from other women who own businesses, Black women, too, who shared what they've experienced, similar situations of what we went through. And I realized that there really isn't a safe space for us in this world, and so that's also something that I'm working on on the back end, figuring out how we can have these safe spaces for founders like me, where we can lean on each other, support each other, because I think we'll just be stronger as a unit. Literally, a friend of mine reached out to me recently. Was just like, “Oh my god, this is going on.” I'm just like, “Here's what to do. Here's what you could do.” Being able to support each other in that way, I think that's the most important thing because you really can't focus on the noise. I think that was the hardest thing: just type it, delete it. Respond and delete your response. But at the end of the day, the algorithm makes you feel like everyone is talking about it when in reality they're not. So you just kind of have to take it for what it is and move on.What would you want to say to people that are coming back to Hanifa to shop when this collection comes out, and the new people that maybe weren't familiar with the brand before its pause? I think in this new era, I really want to focus on educating the customer and just letting them know what it is, and figuring out the best way that we can talk about what goes into building these brands that we have and building this world and letting them in, giving them a little bit more of that insight, so that there's more of an understanding. Because even with the chatter that happened earlier this year, as I was just processing and reflecting and reviewing, I was like, “There's also a lot of like misinformation,” and I'm like, “I don't even know if they really even understand.” We want to make sure we have an educational component within that so that we can make sure that that's clear because the girls need to know.Aiyana Ishmael is the style editor at Cosmopolitan magazine. In her work, Aiyana focuses on the culture of fashion and how it intertwines and shapes the zeitgeist. She is an award-winning journalist from Miami, Florida, and a graduate of the historically Black university, Florida A&M. She is a 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30: Media honoree, and her debut romance novella PASSING GAME is set to release March of 2027 (831 Stories/Simon & Schuster).