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THE 966 explores the news, people, and issues that define the Kingdom through conversations and interviews with business leaders, officials, and newsmakers. THE 966 goes beyond the headlines and tackles the complex U.S.-Saudi relationship, discussing topics like oil and energy, security and defense, Saudi culture and society, and much more.
The 966, Episode #131, with Reiting Lee, Saudi Sports and how it is impacting Saudi Fashion
Richard Wilson (00:01.904)
Hello and welcome to The 966 episode number 131. I'm your host Richard Wilson and I'm excited to be able to share this episode with you. Today we're taking a look at not only the growing percentage of Saudis who are participating in sports and other healthy activities, but how that is impacting Saudi fashion. It's an interesting and meaningful story and to help us get a better handle on it, our guest today is Reiting Lee, founder of the Oriental Hybrid.
Oriental Hybrid is a unique consulting firm that specializes in innovation strategy and serves fashion brands in Arabic markets. Rating, so glad you can be with us today. As we were just chatting, this whole process of communicating with you and preparing for this episode has been a lot of fun.
Reiting Lee (00:48.256)
Thank you, Reiting. I've enjoyed the process with you too. And it's interesting to see more people interested in the fashion sector in Saudi Arabia. Yes.
Richard Wilson (00:57.008)
Absolutely. And I'd like the audience to know a little bit about your background and the Oriental Hybrid, which you founded. It's really quite extraordinary. And can you tell us a little bit about the genesis of Oriental Hybrid and the niche that you occupy right now, which is really fascinating.
Reiting Lee (01:18.368)
So definitely my name is Reiting Lee and I'm Taiwanese and currently based in Paris. And why I started the Oriental Hybrid is that after eight years of working in the sustainable fashion sector, I realized that there are a lot of people interested in the Arab fashion, just like me, myself. And so, I founded the Oriental Hybrid in 2020 and it is a boutique consulting firm that specializes in innovation strategy and intercultural communications. And we mostly serve Arab fashion brands, fashion media, and fashion weeks, both, not just the Arab, but both in East Asia and the Middle East which is occupying the Arabic and Chinese markets. And our team is very special. So, we have a remote team that is built with Arabic and Chinese native speakers. For example, Arabs who is studying or living in East Asia or vice versa.
And all of us are very passionate, very passionate about sustainability, social entrepreneurship and cultural exchanges between East Asia and the Middle East. So, we are very passionate about what we do, and this can translate into our consulting. For the Saudi market, we do for the Saudi brands and designers, we provide an accelerated understanding of the East Asian markets and international markets expansion strategy through diversification or differentiation of the products and for the corporates or media outside.
of Saudi then we provide mainly market insights and trend analysis.
Richard Wilson (03:07.152)
So, you have corporate companies, fashion brands, coming to you and asking for your assistance and trying to understand the Saudi market.
Reiting Lee (03:19.04)
Yes, yes, corporates or fashion brands or media outside of Saudi who want to know about the market.
Richard Wilson (03:28.912)
Let me jump in here just for background. And because we're talking about activity in Saudi Arabia, sports activity and how it's becoming to impact the fashion brands, especially sportswear and athleisure. And as many of our listeners know, Saudi Arabia is becoming an influential player in many sports, including football, motor sports, golf, e -sports, boxing, many others.
Richard Wilson (03:55.568)
A major priority of Vision 2030, however, is growing healthy lifestyles within Saudi Arabia. And in this regard, the kingdom is actually making real progress. And they've put in tremendous efforts financially and organizationally. For example, the number of official sports federations has tripled from 32 in 2015 to 97 in 2023.
And this includes sports federations for everything from kite surfing to yoga, beach volleyball, paddle tennis. A real effort to meet Saudi citizens where they are and where their interests are. And the goal of achieving the 40 % participation in regular healthy activity by Saudis by 2030 was actually surpassed in 2022 when that percentage hit 48%. So, it continues to go up.
And Reiting, as you know, women in particular are getting involved with overall women's participation in sports actually increasing by close to 150 % since 2015. So that's just background. So, the insights we hope to get rating is let's talk about the sportswear athleisure market, because as this greater participation interest in the activity in sports grows in Saudi Arabia, it's beginning to impact fashions and apparel choices.
So how large is the sportswear athleisure market in Saudi Arabia?
Reiting Lee (05:19.072)
So right now, in 2023, the fashion commission of Saudi Arabia under the Ministry of Culture, they published a report that is called the state of fashion in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And according to this report, they say that the sportswear category has generated 1 .3 billion in 2022 and is still expected to grow more and reach 1 .5 billion in 2027.
And this segment of sportswear is growing with the annual growth rate of 13%, which is pretty impressive. And it's because that there is a lot of international brands putting on marketing efforts in the kingdom, as well as you mentioned that Saudis are becoming more into the active lifestyle of participation in sports, and this also leads to the change of their diet. Many young Saudis, they become like even vegetarian or vegan and this is interesting into not just the diet change, their participation and many of them become interested in gym, in yoga and so on.
Richard Wilson (06:38.992)
Interesting. And what are the primary factors in this in terms of people adopting new patterns in terms of both their lifestyles and also their purchases?
Reiting Lee (06:53.152)
In terms of the purchasing influences, I think there are four main factors that are driving this whole lifestyle change and participation. The first one is social media, definitely, because Saudis are pretty competitive community. They like to look at what each other's doing. So, the more people posting on social media in their private stories, whether in TikTok, in Snapchat or Instagram,
This influenced other people. So social media trends definitely and then as we just talked about the health awareness of a healthy lifestyle This is the second factor and the third one, which is pretty interesting is the oversee education a lot of people related to the sportswear Sector as well as who are interested in sports are Saudis who have Pursued education out of outside of Saudi Arabia and they brought this lifestyle and knowledge back to the Kingdom and driving the force. And the fourth one is, as you mentioned, that the government is putting a lot of initiative to encourage university students and everyone to participate. And all the Saudis that I have spoken to who are currently in school, they say that they feel very supported, and they feel this is a huge revolution of...
fitness into that they are able to find clubs competition that is catered to everyone's interest like any kind of sport they can find relevant activities and events.
Richard Wilson (08:32.144)
Yes, and you mentioned that a lot of these individual Saudis who are leading sort of the markets in Saudi Arabia, studying in the US.
Reiting Lee (08:42.72)
Yes, for example, some of the prominent brands, Saudi brands, let's say,
Proud Angeles, the founder studying Ablai before, and then Masrood.
The founder studied in, I guess, University of Denver before, and as well as the first concept store that caters to athleisure category in Saudi Arabia is Crowdless and it's based in Jeddah. And the founder also studied in California before. So all these is leading a trend and is very influenced by the trend in the States and Europe as well.
Richard Wilson (09:27.472)
Fascinating. Take us through, you mentioned the scholarship program that was actually started in 2005 with King Abdullah and it continues today. What happens is as it grew, at certain points there were well over 100 ,000 students and their families studying in the US, for example. So that had a big impact. What were some of the others? So, for example, we have talked in our conversations about the first concept store in Jeddah for international athlete brands. This was Crowdless Rice in 2014.
Reiting Lee (10:03.584)
Yes, I studied in 2014 and they are now big, unique retail points for the international brands such as Adidas and...
you know, Nike and Puma, and so on. And they also cater to a niche market, which is some of the designer labels like Stussy or Pleasures. So other than the men international string, they also select some of the designer, which is in between streetwear and athleisure.
Richard Wilson (10:45.52)
And you said in 2016, a number of athleisure sportswear brands sort of turned up, sprang up. You mentioned Proud Angeles.
Reiting Lee (10:55.392)
Yes, so.
The first store started in 2014 and then this led to the demand and in 2016 because of the scholarship and more people, more Saudi study abroad. So Proud Angela started in LA and then at the same time, Mazrou started and then the 1886 started in London and 1886 is a brand that just won the Saudi Fashion Awards yesterday.
and it has a very complete product profile that caters to both female and male.
Richard Wilson (11:37.2)
And what are some of the other touchstones, important milestones? For example, I guess in 2018, the Saudi Fashion Commission was established. Who established this?
Reiting Lee (11:48.544)
It was the Saudi fashion commission was started by the Ministry of Culture and it's guided by her highness Princess Noura bin Faisal al -Saud and before 2018 actually she started the first concept store in Riyadh as well which is called Personage, and this concept store selects Saudi athleisure brands and regional athleisure brand.
This is in comparison to Crowdless in Jeddah, which is focusing on international brands. And then a personage in Riyadh by Princess Nora is focusing on Saudi and regional brands. So, in 2018, this fashion commission started. And then 2021, fashion commission launched the Saudi 100 program. And 2023, the Riyadh Fashion Week started.
Richard Wilson (12:47.024)
And I want let's come back to the Saudi 100 brands. And also, I was struck recently because I was watching the French Open and I was watching Ons Jabeur and she was wearing a Saudi brand, Kayanee.
Reiting Lee (13:05.472)
Yes, it was Kayanee. Her Highness Princess Reema, she founded the Kayani brand in 2023 and is supported by the Public Investment Fund as well. And it's growing greatly in the kingdom. I spoke to a lot of young Saudi girls, and they are very excited because Kayani has partners with some of the leading athletes as well as that. If you go to their Instagram, you can see they cater to a very large number of different types of sports, including.
let's say ballet dancer, this is something not available in other brands yet.
Richard Wilson (13:46.416)
Interesting. Can you give us a breakdown? Tell us a little bit about the Saudi 100 brand initiative.
Reiting Lee (13:53.312)
So, the Saudi100 was started in 2021 and it's a branding that includes many brands underneath. Every year they select more than around 100 brands from Saudi Arabia to be in this program. So, there's like season, season one, season two, season three. The brands, some of them repeat, some of them don't. And out of this 2024, out of this four-year program of Saudi 100 brands,
34 of those brands are under the category of sportswear and streetwear. Why I'm calculating sportswear and streetwear together is because there is a fine line in between how functional it is. So, these 34 brands account for around 20 % of the whole Saori100 brands. And out of these 34 brands, three of them are founded by women.
Only 6 have female friendly products. It's either female products or like unisex. And then only 3 of them have pure active wear. So, from this that we can see that...
Reiting Lee (15:16.832)
female founders or female friendly products are still quite rare in the market, even though it's expanding fast. And out of this program, they also launched a Riyadh Fashion Week. And from the Riyadh Fashion Week, there were 29 brands on the runway.
and only six of them are sportswear and streetwear. So that's about 21 % as well. So, both in terms of the whole Saudi 100 program and in terms of the wrong way, both of them are about 20 % that is sportswear related. Yes.
Richard Wilson (15:51.984)
Fascinating and I want to go I want we want to come back to some of your recommendations going forward, but let's talk about Though which sports are seem to be the most influential in terms of fashion and I also want you if you can elaborate a little bit on the distinction between street wear and sportswear and You know, which is which seems to be predominant right now in Saudi Arabia But first what sports what activities seem to be the most influential in terms of fashion in Saudi Arabia?
Reiting Lee (16:19.936)
In terms of fashion in Saudi Arabia, definitely I would say that I spoke to the buyers over there. I'm Crowdless and another designer platform in Riyadh called Chapter 4. And both of the buyers share with me that soccer is definitely the most popular thing to sell. And people who want to buy soccer items are mostly in the age group of 12 to 30.
and basketball is very popular as well. In Jetta, there is a big basketball community and yoga for both cities and volleyball is also pretty big in Jetta.
Aside from this, what is quite special that could be different from other parts of the world is that Saudi Arabia is definitely a big Muslim country and community. So based on their history from the hadith, it was mentioned that encourage the Muslim to do swimming, horse riding, archery, and I see them also performing pretty well in the sector. And recently I've seen the Saudi archery team,
team went to Taipei to do competition. So, these are the sports that are leading this space.
Richard Wilson (17:44.784)
I want to do a shout out here to my good friend, Lina Almaeena, who is a co -founder of Jetta United, which is a sports club in Jeddah. And she was a visionary, really, she is, and was very early in terms of promoting and making space for women to participate in sports well before Vision 2030. I think she founded Jeddah United; I'm going to say 2012, but maybe even earlier than that. But that is interesting. So, what,
You mentioned some of the Saudi brands or you know that are local. What foreign brands are predominant?
Reiting Lee (18:20.928)
The market leader now is Adidas. And from the feedback of the consumers, because they think Adidas is a German brand, it's very trustworthy, as well as that I think that they have a very good strategy collaborating with local influencer, content creator, and very unique retail points. So, Adidas is the first leader, and then Nike, Puma, and Fila. Fila is using more of a strategy of popups.
Yes, so these are the main international brands occupying the space.
Richard Wilson (18:57.072)
What do you mean by pop -up?
Reiting Lee (18:59.104)
pop -up events.
Richard Wilson (19:00.88)
All right, gotcha, gotcha. Interesting. So, there's only one American firm in there.
Reiting Lee (19:06.464)
yes.
Richard Wilson (19:07.344)
Nike. Have you seen any, you know, people come and, you know, potential clients come talk with you, existing clients come talk to you, they ask about.
you know, how do we get, how do we get established? How do we get plugged in? Have you seen any trends of late in terms of interest in Arab organizations or Arab companies or that sort of thing?
Reiting Lee (19:34.72)
could you elaborate a bit more like the
Richard Wilson (19:36.912)
So, for example, we were talking about some of the political situation now, concerns about US policy in Gaza and the like. Has that impacted, has it had any kind of economic impact from your perspective?
Reiting Lee (19:54.464)
Yes, this past year it has been a very significant shift or change because of the Palestine genocide. So, more and more consumer, both in the Arab region and in the Gulf region, they want to shift their consumer choices.
to brands that are not necessarily supporting the genocide. And I think this is also a great advantage for the Saudi brands because they provide alternatives to those who want to have a different choice. Yes.
Richard Wilson (20:29.232)
Right. Let's talk about this sector. Where do you see it heading? It seems to have tremendous potential.
Reiting Lee (20:34.432)
So, for this sector it definitely has a huge opportunity to grow. And as you mentioned that women, more women are participating in the space. But from the statistics that I've shared with you that there are just not enough female founders or female friendly products in this space. So definitely it's something to look into. And sports.
what we discussed that the difference between sportswear and streetwear is streetwear is actually like
sportswear without too many functions. Yes, so it's more of an aesthetics and sportswear is more of a function and to have very good functions you need to have a strong understanding of the ergonomics and technology to support whether in functional fabrics and the design of the shoes, the clothing and so on. So, it's something that more company can go into the space and the brands can you know find more innovative.
Richard Wilson (21:15.056)
So, it's for show.
Reiting Lee (21:42.018)
and more investment into this. And then there will be more for international brands to enter this space. They definitely need to look more into the localized campaigns and localized designs that caters to sports and the body shape of the Saudi consumers. And since there's a huge diversity in the Saudi 100 brands, I also...
expect that there would be more synergies between the Saudi brands themselves. For example, Nike have collaborated with Tiffany before, and Adidas have collaborated with Yohji Yamamoto before. So, this could elaborate both the Saudi brands and the
the non-sportswear, the sportswear brands, and the non-sportswear brand to collaborate together. And lastly, I will say that the boost and investment into the tourism of Saudi Arabia will also definitely accelerate the sector because more people will be traveling to the kingdom interested in the culture and want to purchase the Saudi brand, whether on their vacation or take those clothes back to them.
Richard Wilson (22:59.6)
You mentioned rating the, I guess 2017 all women, women gyms were launched. Is that correct?
Reiting Lee (23:10.336)
Yes, 2017, they start to license more women -only gym. So...
That gives this flexibility in terms of product offering because if you're in a public space where there are men, then you need to care a lot about the modesty of the clothing. But if it's only a women only gym or sports space, then it can have more needs catered to the women. Yes, not necessarily caring too much of modesty and more on what the women want of the aesthetic.
Richard Wilson (23:50.896)
Rayden, your background is very interesting. You speak five languages now. You've spoken many more in the past. You've been in the course of your work with Oriental Hybrid. You've worked in 13 countries in the last five years. You're really getting a comprehensive view of both the sector as well as the region and the markets and that sort of thing.
What's your take on Saudi Arabia? Where is it in the process? Do you see, you know, increasing numbers of women owned Saudi sportswear athletes or businesses coming along?
Reiting Lee (24:31.456)
I believe there will be more and more because from the statistics that I see in the Saudi 100 brands that in the beginning the sportswear is only about 8 % and now it grows to 22 % among the 100 brands and I've met more and more Saudi girls abroad.
In the beginning, how I start to touch the Saudi culture, Saudi people is when I was studying in Beijing. Back in 2013, there was a lot of Saudi students. So, I started to be interested in this space. And over the years as I travel in Europe, in USA, in Middle East, I just start to know more and more of them. And they are with the education they're receiving; they are becoming very open-minded and very business oriented.
Most of them want to start their own brand, their own businesses. So, I do see this growing prominently.
Richard Wilson (25:35.984)
Wonderful. Rating Lee, the founder of the Oriental Hybrid, joining us from Paris, only the last place or the many, many places she's been and continues to travel. Thanks so much for joining us. A fascinating conversation and an exciting sector, and it's going to be fun to see how it progresses from here.
Reiting Lee (25:54.912)
Thank you so much, Rita, for this opportunity. And I hope we will all be wearing Saudi brands in the coming years. Yes.
Richard Wilson (26:02.96)
That's a possibility. I don't know how they'll look on me, but I'm supposed that's an exciting future. And I know that certainly, when you look at the ambitious nature of Vision 2030, 100 brands, Princess Rima is a dynamo. I mean, in so many ways, she's so much more than a diplomat. She's a businesswoman. Princess Noor, of course, is involved with this. There's real energy and I think excitement to do exactly what you're saying becomes really prominent in the sector.