The women you see within the pages of Under The Abaya: Streetstyle from Saudi Arabia, celebrated International Women’s Day onboard the MSC Bellissima luxury cruise based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Under The Abaya, is a platform founded in 2018 to guide Saudi Arabian street style. This platform was created to further pursue female empowerment, with 100% of its profits going directly to academic scholarships for underprivileged women.
Saudi entrepreneur, Mariam Mossalli, the founder of Under The Abaya shares, “Under the Abaya is a celebration of women’s empowerment in its purest form: it allows the women of the Kingdom the opportunity to narrate their own stories through authentic representations of themselves,” which clearly shows that besides being a fashion guideline for Saudi street style, it’s more than that. Every woman in that book has a story to tell and UTA is the perfect platform to do so. It’s created by Saudi women, for Saudi women.
To celebrate its fifth year of empowerment, Under The Abaya took over MSC Bellissima and turned the ship’s skydome promenade into a giant runway. The trip included a make-up masterclass and a styling session by DKNY, given to guests by local artists. Women from the book gracefully walked down the runway, turning heads.
The fun does not stop there, as a series of concerts took place featuring local artists like Nawell Mossalli and Rayana. The guests had several activities on board waiting from them, from a live Karaoke night in the ship’s theatre, to going dancing during ‘Tango Nights,’ night-themed event under the name ‘Carnival Night,’ yoga under the moonlight, a floral arrangement workshop and much more.
The anniversary ended with ‘Girls Night Out,’ a soiree that brought together the women of UTA for an evening of socialising before the event was put to a halt and the ship set back to dock. Guests from all around the region joined to celebrate and support UTA.
