Athleta Enters GCC Through Gap Inc. and Chalhoub Group

DUBAI, UAE – The women-first performance brand launches online across the region, built for women whose workout is only one part of a day that never stops. 

In the GCC, a woman’s day rarely has an off switch. It’s the meeting before the run, the commute after class, the late shoot, the school pickup, the flight at dawn. The women-first performance and lifestyle apparel brand arrives in the region with a simple belief: if women perform all day, their clothes should too. 

Launching under its regional campaign, “My World. My Rules.”, Athleta enters the GCC with a point of view the category hasn’t owned: performance isn’t just the workout. It’s everything around it. 

The all-day edit. 

Activewear has long asked women to choose between performing and looking considered. Athleta was designed for women and refuses the choice. Technical performance meets everyday versatility, so the same piece moves from a run or training session into work, travel and everything in between. Performance, comfort, versatility and design matter everywhere. 

“The workout is one part of the day. Movement is all of it.”

Three women. Zero shortcuts. 

The regional launch campaign is led by three women from across the region, each at the top of a very different field: 

• Amna Al Qubaisi, Emirati professional racing driver. The first Emirati woman to compete internationally in single-seater racing and the first Arab woman to win a Formula 4 race. After F1 Academy, she became the first female driver in the Pro category of the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, and was named to Time‘s 100 Most Influential People in Sports list in 2026. 
• Lojain Alrefae, Saudi fitness trainer, endurance athlete and fashion designer. Co-founder of Saudi activewear label Mulu Athletics, she runs endurance races, including AlUla events, with a personal goal of completing a 70+ km ultramarathon. 
• Salma Elkashef, Egyptian cinematographer, photographer and visual artist based in Cairo. A graduate of Egypt’s High Institute of Cinema, she is known for a cinematic approach that blends fashion, film, light and emotion. \

The campaign looks past the podium, the finish line and the final cut. How Amna performs behind the wheel, how Lojain performs on the run and how Salma performs when she calls “action” aren’t built only in those moments. They’re built through the discipline, mindset and everyday demands of the rest of their lives. Their worlds are different. Their rules are different. But for each of them, training isn’t something that starts and stops with a workout. It’s a way of living. 

Shot through campaign films and photography, the launch follows all three beyond their defining moments and into the unseen hours of preparation, travel and routine that sit behind them. 

A community in motion. 

Athleta’s arrival in the GCC is about more than product. The community of women who define performance on their own terms already exists, a space where ambition, wellbeing and style sit together rather than compete. They just don’t know they’re part of it yet. Athleta isn’t building something new. It’s bringing together what’s already there.