"A Kind Of Artist": The Male Model Testing Saudi's Changing Gender Norms

Ziad al-Mesfer has more than 2 million Snapchat followers and another 200,000 on Instagram and has captured attention of brands including Prada and Dior

With his hot pink hair extensions and leopard print pantsuit, model Ziad al-Mesfer was bound to turn heads during his recent public photo shoot in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia.

Passers-by began sneaking pictures on their mobiles merely minutes after Mesfer emerged from his white luxury car onto the cobbled sidewalks of a high-end cafe district in Riyadh, his stylist and photographer in tow.

Such appearances have helped Mesfer, 25, build a massive social media following while blazing a trail for the handful of Saudi male models brave enough to don garments widely seen as appropriate for women only -- thereby pushing the boundaries of their country's famously rigid gender norms.

In the process he has endeared himself to expensive brands keen to profit from a spectacle that would have been unthinkable before Saudi Arabia embarked on a whirlwind series of social reforms ushered in by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.