“Wearing the Hijab has Become Optional” — Saudi Arabia’s First Female Pilot ahead of Arab Fashion Week

posted on: Mar 25, 2018

SOURCE: VERDICT

BY: SHOSHANA KEDEM

As Saudi Arabia’s powerful prince pushes through new laws to bring the Kingdom into the 21^st century, fashion on the streets of one of the world’s most conservative countries may never be the same again.

As the Kingdom opens its gates to Arab Fashion Week next week, it is in the throes of a fashion revolution, experts and local Saudi women say.

In the last year women have gone from wearing black robe-like dresses, or abayas, with full-face coverings, to more colourful versions of the cloak, with many women even starting to ditch the veil, Hanadi al Hindi, Saudi Arabia’s first ever female pilot told Verdict.

“Wearing the hijab has become optional, nobody does. In the last year you can see a lot of women outside in the restaurants, for example, they are not covering their face or their hair.”

Since Mohammed bin Salman’s ascent to next in line to the Saudi throne, in June 2017, he has passed a fleet of new laws, to empower women, and open up society to entertainment.

“Every day we hear something new. We are waiting every day for new changes,” Hanadi said.

But the big shift for fashion came in October 2017, when the crown prince curbed the power of the feared religious police who patrolled streets and malls, enforcing strict Shariah-compliant dress-codes.

“Now the Crown Prince Mohammed [pictured below] , God bless him, he put limitations on them [the religious police] that they don’t have the authority they used to have. It’s become much different,” she told Verdict.

They cannot chase people, they cannot ask you to cover. Nothing!

We don’t see them any more at all, at all. We can’t believe it,” she said, speaking from Mecca city in western Saudi Arabia, home of the most sacred mosque in Islam, the Kaaba.

I have been living in this country for the whole of my life. I have never seen Saudi Arabia the same as it is now. We walk in the streets, we go everywhere, we feel like we have rights, it’s different.

The whole idea is before Saudi women were wearing black robes, this was our image around the world, now our robes are changing.