One photo is all it took for Rolla Al Arabi to start making waves in Egypt’s fashion frontier. Half-Saudi Arabian and half-Moroccan, her roots are grounded deeply within the Middle East and North Africa region where she seeks – or rather, demands – social change. The 22-year-old is an eccentric by nature: her love for high fashion and popular culture is not surpassed by her drive to create something drastically different. The modeling industry just so happened to be where she would start. After stumbling upon a picture of an Egyptian modeling agency’s “first plus-sized model”, Al Arabi was outraged that someone who was clearly not plus-sized was branded as such. In that moment, she decided that she had enough and was going to make it a personal mission to change the industry’s ideology. From her drive, Invicta was born. “After witnessing this, I was in a state of shock, sadness and anger. It all kicked off because not only was the model not plus-sized by definition, but clearly this misrepresentation is showcased to be the standard of the plus-size community,” Al Arabi said of the photo that started it…
