Israeli Yael Shelbia Fronts 'Shalom' Historic L'Officiel Arabia Cover by Yossi Michaeli

Israeli Yael Shelbia Fronts 'Shalom' Historic L'Officiel Arabia Cover by Yossi Michaeli

With great excitement, L’Officiel Arabia celebrated the arrival of model Yael Shelbia as the first Israeli model to cover a UAE magazine since the signing of the Abraham Accords. AOC searched our memory — Abraham Accords — was that 30 years ago — 50 years ago? The Middle East is a mess forever, and the Abraham Accords was not front and center in our minds. We’ll clarify the Abraham Accords in a moment.

Yael Shelbia comes with much fanfare about winning some international, beautiful-face award. That’s never our interest at AOC, as thousands of women are a beutiful face, and we’re not about to fall down that rabbit hole of claiming one to be more beautiful than the next. Not when we study the scientific research around beauty standards.

Yael Shelbia is here on AOC because she’s Israeli, and she’s appearing in the pages of L’Officiel Arabia’s February issue. Stylist /creative director Julia Morris chooses elegant, sumptuous-fabrics and silhouettes luxury perfect for the fashion story ‘Shalom’ shot by Yossi Michaeli [IG] at Manhattan’s Peninsula Hotel./ Hair by David Cruz; makeup by Georgina Billington