Nada Kadasa, founder of Nanaya, Saudi Arabia's first fitting-focused lingerie boutique, recalls the moment that changed her life: crying at a Bravissimo checkout counter in the UK after a proper bra fitting. She had been wearing a 34HH, a hard-to-find size, and believed her body was the problem. The fitting proved otherwise.
By 2013, while working as an architect, Kadasa wondered why Saudi women couldn't access the sizes or fitting experiences she'd found abroad. After years of waiting for existing retailers to close the gap, she registered her own company on January 1, 2024. Nanaya was born.
Her architectural background shaped the boutique's warm, maximalist interior, designed for privacy. The fitting area has two layers of separation, and men are never allowed inside. She stocked every size of her bestselling style and displayed them in the fitting area, showing customers the full range of over 200 sizes.
Initial stock assumptions proved wrong: 30 and 32 bands in F-GG cups sold fastest, revealing a common body type-petite frames with fuller busts-that international brands often ignore.
Kadasa found greater acceptance from the medical community and the public than from parts of the fashion community. She navigates cultural sensitivities by focusing on women's health, citing the principle that there is no shyness in matters of religion.
Nanaya also offers post-mastectomy fitting, which she believes is the only combined service of its kind in the Middle East. She discovered breast prostheses were available in only three locations nationwide, all in the capital. Training came through Helen Masters' "Better Bras After Breast Cancer" campaign with Cancer Research UK.
Looking ahead, Kadasa plans three pillars: education, charity, and retail. She wants to train fitters and designers, build a charitable arm inspired by her mother's work with Kayan, and launch the first Saudi luxury lingerie brand designed around Arab body proportions, plus her own line of prostheses in sizes she still struggles to source.
Originally reported by LingerieBriefs