The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is all set to host its first ever Arab Fashion Week in March.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the powerful heir to the Saudi throne, has been leading a drive to reform the country’s dependence on oil, including expanding the private sector and empowering women.
The Dubai-based Arab Fashion Council said on its website that fashion week would be held in Riyadh from March 26 to March 31, with a second edition already scheduled for October.
Arab Fashion Week will take place at Riyadh’s eco-friendly Apex Centre, a white honeycomb-like venue designed by the late celebrated Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid.
In December, the Arab Fashion Council announced the opening of a regional office in Riyadh and named Saudi Princess Noura Bint Faisal Al-Saud as its honorary president.
“The first Arab Fashion Week in Riyadh will be more than a world-class event, it is a catalyst through which we believe the fashion sector will lead other economic sectors such as tourism, hospitality, travel, and trade,” Princess Noura said in a statement on the council’s website.
Listed as an international fashion week alongside Paris and Milan, the twice-yearly Arab Fashion Week offers exclusively see-now-buy-now collections and pre-collections.
The line-up for the Riyadh event has not been revealed yet and it remains unclear whether it will limited to modest designs in accordance with the strict dress code observed in Saudi Arabia.
Earlier, the Kingdom lifted ban from screening movies and said that the licencing for theaters will being from March.
In January, Saudi women were allowed for the first time ever to enter a football stadium to watch a game and the kingdom is also opening several sectors of the workplace to women.
The long standing and heavily criticized ban on women driving in the Kingdom has also been lifted and will take effect from June.
