DUBAI: Dubai-based influencer couple Ali and Walaa Hennaoui are gearing up for the new year after closing out 2024 on a high note with a Ralph Lauren campaign.

The duo shared an inspiring message on their joint Instagram account, writing: “And to 2025, we say: no matter what you hold, we are ready for you — together. Sky’s the limit, always. Dream big, live boldly, and most importantly—believe in yourself.

“Here’s to a new year, stronger hearts, and endless possibilities. Happy New Year, everyone,” they added. 

The couple, who have two children, reflected on their achievements in 2024, including their latest milestone: Starring together in a campaign for US fashion label Ralph Lauren during the festive season.

In a clip shared on their Instagram profile, they are featured aboard a yacht showcasing the brand’s latest collection, which includes clothing, accessories and perfumes. The video shows the couple preparing together on the yacht as it sails through locations such as Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with the region’s landmarks featured prominently in the background.

“Getting ready together…but this time aboard @ralphlauren yacht. Sailing through Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai,” the post’s caption reads.

Ali was dressed in a crisp white shirt and black trousers, with a tailored maroon knit sweater layered over his shoulders. Meanwhile, Walaa donned an off-white, full-sleeved knit sweater with a high neckline, featuring intricate patterns. She paired it with a flowing, pleated off-white maxi skirt, cinched at the waist with a statement brown leather belt that had a bold buckle.

In another image shared on their profile, Ali wore a tailored navy double-breasted blazer paired with a striped shirt and cream linen trousers, while Walaa opted for a navy blazer adorned with an embroidered crest on the chest.

The couple also took the opportunity to share heartfelt reflections on the past year.

“This year, we learned to embrace the beauty of the small things and truly understood the meaning of family first. Through every challenge and every doubt, we found strength in each other, solidifying our love, our marriage, and our smallest, most sacred circle,” they said on Instagram.

The pair share daily updates on family life on their social media feeds, including Instagram and TikTok, and have worked with fashion and homeware brands in the past. They also frequently attend runway presentations by Lebanese couturier Elie Saab, including his recent shows in Paris and Riyadh.

DUBAI: The late Mohammed Al-Saleem was once again the Kingdom’s stand-out performer at art auctions this year, topping the price list for a single work by a Saudi artist at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s.  

He didn’t quite match the record-breaking levels of the 1986 piece sold by Sotheby’s last year, which made him the first Saudi artist in history to fetch more than $1 million for an auctioned work, but this year Al-Saleem’s 1990 work “Bi nur al-iman, nara al-s'adah” (In the light of faith, we see happiness) realized well over twice its highest estimated price for Christie’s, eventually selling for £630,000 (around $788,285), while, at Sotheby’s, an untitled Al-Saleem piece from 1960 went for £84,000.  

Seen together, the two pieces clearly demonstrate Al-Saleem’s evolution as an artist over the three decades separating the pieces. But the earlier piece also shows just how well-defined Al-Saleem’s aesthetic sense was even at the start of his artistic journey.  

As Sotheby’s head of sale for 20th Century Art/Middle East, Alexandra Roy, says of the untitled painting, “It’s a work that’s finding its own language. And they you see him really evolve, which I think is always a sign of a great artist — they really find their own language that you can recognize immediately. Even if you only know his later works, you can immediately infer that this was done by Mohammed Al-Saleem. 

“You can see he is starting to think a lot about the visual culture around him,” she continues. “And what I love is that he is super-interested in the landscape around him, abstract art, calligraphy, the Qu’ran… and this work combines a bit of all of that: it has the abstract, the calligraphy, and that important element of the landscape around him with the figures in the painting, which are actually camels. 

“It’s actually super-rare to find a work from the 1960s and really amazing to see the development — how he goes on from this,” she continues. “There’s something traditional and yet very avant-garde about this work. For me, it looks like an Arab flag. So, immediately, my associations go to those early pan-Arab artistic movements. It’s also very textured — he’s really creating something with depth and movement. And visually it has all of these elements which kind of harken back to the Islamic world, to Saudi Arabia’s landscape, to popular motifs, but done in a very original way.” 

Ridah Moumni, Christie’s chairman, Middle East and Africa, also stresses the fact that Al-Saleem had a very clear aesthetic identity — one which, by the time he came to paint “Bi nur al-iman, nara al-s'adah” — had become clearly defined.  

“It’s more than the technique. It’s really the composition,” Moumni says. “He creates very abstract layers of colors, in which we see a sort of geometry that we can sometimes identify as human forms, or calligraphy, or animal forms. It’s very interesting. Sometimes people would say this is a Saudi style — I don’t think it is; it’s the style of Mohammed Al-Saleem. He’s an excellent painter in the way he uses the colors to create these abstractions.” 

This particular work is unusual in the way that Al-Saleem used a painted frame to divide the canvas into quarters.  

“This is a really special work. You won’t see two of them. It’s a rare composition and I think the collectors who saw this work saw its exceptional quality,” says Moumni. “I find this piece extremely beautiful. I love it because it’s an abstract piece, with spectacular composition, but it’s also a piece that is absolutely optimistic and shows extraordinary creativity. In the Nineties, the artist was really struggling financially. Then he paints this beautiful message — ‘In the light of faith, we see happiness.’  

“I think the Arab world is full of talent, of resilience, of creativity, of richness. And I think the artists of the Arab world have so much to give, not only regionally, but also from a global perspective,” he continues. “So when I see this work, I see also the optimism and the generosity of the art scenes of the region. The Arab world has so much to give, and we have so much to learn from its artists.”