While he was transiting at Doha, Qatar, a day of June 2008, the French fashion photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino swooned over two silhouettes – totally masked by an abaya. "I've saw those two girls dressed in black, wearing haute couture bags and shoes, and I found them extremely elegant. For the first time of my life, I look at them with a fresh eye and I appreciate their beauty. How could I consider as attractive this pretty scary image of women who don't seem to be free, and whose body is locked? I was imagining lots of things." For the French magazine Libération Next, Mondino recalled in photos this fascinating memory. Perhaps one moral of this story is that, sometimes, fashion allows to go beyond pre-conceptions of beauty, elegance and freedom.