But as the first Vogue editor to have formerly been a retailer (she was a founder of a fashion concept store in Riyadh called D’NA), she pointed out that she was in the best possible position to understand the demands of her 21st-century readership, “be it the sophisticated Qatari woman able to shop in Europe, or to help a young woman in a remote village in Algeria or Yemen have dreams and feel like she can belong to something.”

“This job is not without its challenges,” she said. “It only really dawned on me after the appointment that this won’t just be me doing something I love, but is also a massive responsibility. But I know what offends in this world and what doesn’t, because I am one of them. I have my own sensitivities as to what is appropriate and what is not. I certainly don’t believe that you have to have blatant sexuality or absolute nudity to do a beautiful editorial.”

As the furor set off by France’s attempt to bar Muslim women wearing burkinis in public this summer proved, tensions around the right to bare skin (or not) and what freedom really looks like still simmer across the world. Reina Lewis, a professor of cultural studies at London College of Fashion, UAL, and the author of “Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures,” suggested that Vogue Arabia may struggle to be all things to all people.

“Any regional title outside the so-called Western world has to make decisions on models and their ethnicity, skin color and body type rather than the usual default Caucasian, and consider considering cultural distinctions,” Ms. Lewis said. “But Vogue Arabia will have to constantly cross overtly into religious as well as national and regional identities, practices and a variety of income brackets in order to find her reader. And that won’t always be easy.

“Then again,” she continued, “this is something Western brands are being forced to think about more and more when it comes to appealing to observant women from numerous religious backgrounds. Fashion designers in particular need to think more laterally about how they design and the nonnegotiable elements of some lifestyles they design for.

“Modest fashion and Muslim fashion are no longer on the periphery of the industry, and an industry that stopped being able to afford to be elitist and exclusive long ago. This movement is really driven by an empowered new demographic who are expressing their presence in the modern world, and attempting to assert their place in it.”