Diaspora Girl, a California-based company that sells kippot for women and girls, hopes to fill the need for women's religious articles in a truly feminine way, said company founder, owner and product designer Rina Baraz.

After a few years of brainstorming, Baraz launched Diaspora Girl in the spring, offering 12 kippot styles through the company's Web site and in Judaica stores in California and Massachusetts.

Baraz personally designed the colorful, hand-crocheted items specifically as kippot rather than as traditional hair-coverings for married women. While she considered expanding her sales by marketing to Orthodox women, she decided that the concept of a hair- covering did not fit the Diaspora Girl paradigm.