Saudi Arabia's 1st "Historic" Swimwear Fashion Show
Saudi Arabia held its first fashion show featuring swimsuit models on Friday, an envelope-pushing step in a country where less than a decade ago women were required to wear body-covering abaya robes.
The poolside show featuring the work of Moroccan designer Yasmina Qanzal included mostly one-piece suits in shades of red, beige and blue.
![[Image: Swim.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/x8HM6crh/Swim.jpg)
"It's true that this country is very conservative but we tried to show elegant swimsuits which represent the Arab world," Qanzal told AFP.
"When we came here, we understood that a swimsuit fashion show in Saudi Arabia is a historic moment, because it is the first time to have such event," she said, adding it was "an honour" to be involved.
Prince Mohammed, who became first in line to the throne in 2017, has initiated a series of dramatic social reforms in a bid to soften Saudi Arabia's austere image stemming from its historical championing of a purist form of Islam known as Wahhabism.
Those changes have included sidelining stick-wielding religious police who used to chase men out of malls to pray, re-introducing cinemas and organising mixed-gender music festivals.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/in-pics-...ow-5692541
Saudi Arabia held its first fashion show featuring swimsuit models on Friday, an envelope-pushing step in a country where less than a decade ago women were required to wear body-covering abaya robes.
The poolside show featuring the work of Moroccan designer Yasmina Qanzal included mostly one-piece suits in shades of red, beige and blue.
"It's true that this country is very conservative but we tried to show elegant swimsuits which represent the Arab world," Qanzal told AFP.
"When we came here, we understood that a swimsuit fashion show in Saudi Arabia is a historic moment, because it is the first time to have such event," she said, adding it was "an honour" to be involved.
Prince Mohammed, who became first in line to the throne in 2017, has initiated a series of dramatic social reforms in a bid to soften Saudi Arabia's austere image stemming from its historical championing of a purist form of Islam known as Wahhabism.
Those changes have included sidelining stick-wielding religious police who used to chase men out of malls to pray, re-introducing cinemas and organising mixed-gender music festivals.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/in-pics-...ow-5692541
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
