By Boudou Gueffai, Editor-in-Chief
The Saudi Times sat down with Belen Hernandez-Mancha during one of her visits to Riyadh, at a quiet table in a cafe in Laysen Valley. The conversation was unhurried, warm, and moved naturally between fashion, identity, family, and the strange beautiful logic of a life lived across continents.
She arrived with the kind of ease that cannot be learned. Graceful in the way she sits, the way she speaks, the way she reaches for her cup. A Cola on the table, a Carmex within reach. Small details that say everything: she knows exactly what she wants, and she does not overthink it. A naturalness that comes from somewhere deeper than style. It comes from who she is and the roots she comes from.
There is an assertiveness to Belen that never tips into hardness. It is confidence and class in the same breath, a combination that takes years to arrive at and looks effortless once it does.
Belen is originally from Spain, the daughter of a prominent lawyer who gave his family something more valuable than any professional credential: a foundation of values, education, and grace. That upbringing is present in everything about her. In the way she listens. In the way she chooses her words. In the attention she gives to the small details that most people walk past without noticing.
She is a mother of two, a global citizen who studied in Paris, San Francisco, and Madrid, and a former media advisor who covered Africa, Middle East, and Latin America for international media. She speaks Spanish, English, French, and some Arabic. A woman who has moved through the world with an explorer’s curiosity and a voyager’s openness, enhancing another fragment of her sophistication from every place she has been.
It was in Beirut, over a decade ago, that the lands of Arabia first found her. She fell for the city, for its energy, for the particular beauty of a place that holds contradiction with charm. And it was there that she met her husband, a visionary Saudi businessman and architect with a passion for design and a foresight for what things could become. That encounter changed everything.
They settled together in Saudi Arabia. She built a life, raised a family, and slowly, in the way that only feels inevitable in retrospect, she found her creative voice in the country that had become her home. In that home Belen gave birth to Thaa.
A Bridge Between Two Cultures
“Spain and the Arab world share deep historical and artistic roots,” Belen told The Saudi Times. “You see it in architecture, craftsmanship, ornamentation, and the way we value textiles and detail.”
The shared thread between Andalusian and Arab aesthetic culture runs through centuries of art, geometry, and the handling of fabric. For Belen, that connection was not an abstraction. It was a lived experience, felt in the markets of Jeddah and Riyadh, in the patterns on the walls of old buildings, in the instinctive recognition of something familiar at her home away from home.
The name Thaa comes from a letter in the Arabic alphabet, a sound that also resonates in Spanish. Two cultures, one point of convergence.
Founded in Jeddah, Rooted in Craft
Thaa was founded in 2016. A Saudi-born brand with a subtle European sensibility. Abayas and luxury caftans, hand-selected fabrics, intricate embroidery, couture finishing. Slow fashion in its truest sense. Limited quantities. Meticulous execution. No compromise for speed or volume.
“Our clients appreciate the care that goes into every piece. Their trust allows us to keep doing what we value and love.”
The Legacy She Reimagined
The creative inspiration that led to Thaa did not begin with Belen alone. It began with her mother-in-law, Rida Ghazzawi, a renowned businesswoman and pioneer of Saudi fashion and art who launched her own brand more than four decades ago and dressed some of the Kingdom’s most prominent women, long before the global conversation about Saudi creativity had even begun.
What Belen did was harness that creative dynamic to continue that legacy. She launched Thaa; with a modern eye, a European sensibility, and a clear vision. Over the years, she built a clientele that reaches into Saudi royalty and the most influential women in the Kingdom. Her signature is not loud. Every piece carries her taste in its construction, her instinct in its fabric, her standard in its finish.
Belen’s sophistication is reflected in all the details of Thaa. The care each piece produced communicates that to her valued clientele. Perception must meet expectations. That commitment is as much a part of the brand as the garments themselves.
Saudi Arabia itself has been a constant source of material and inspiration. Its textiles, its layering of tradition and modernity, its openness to the world while remaining rooted in its own identity. For Belen, the Kingdom is not a backdrop. It is a collaborator.
Fashion as Storytelling
She wears her own brand. Not as a marketing choice but as a statement of belief. She is Thaa’s first client and its most exacting one.
And woven into every collection is something deeply personal: a touch of Andalucia. Her mother is from the historic city of Cordoba, capital of the Umayyad Khalifate whose soul embodies the apex of culture and knowledge, engraved into its tilework, its patios, its light, and its way of making beauty feel like a natural law. This heritage sits in Belen’s instincts as a designer, quietly but unmistakably.
A Life Built Between Two Worlds
Belen divides her life between Saudi Arabia and Spain through the year, moving between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea with the ease of someone who has long since stopped needing one place to feel whole. Her priority in both countries is the same: her children. Giving them a foundation that is multilingual, multicultural, and built on values that travel across continents.
She supports Saudi designers and brands with the conviction of someone who has seen the creative potential of this country from the inside. She knows what is being built here and she is part of it.
What She Represents
Belen Hernandez-Mancha is not just a businesswoman and a designer. She is proof of what integration looks like when it is done with intention. A Spaniard who chose the Kingdom, a corporate professional turned creative, a mother raising global citizens, a woman who took a family legacy and made it her own without erasing what came before.
Saudi Arabia is empowering designers and talents like Belen to capture the attention of the world, even if only for a moment. And in fashion, a moment is sometimes all it takes to leave something everlasting.
Thaa mirrors the country that shaped it. Grounded in heritage, open to the world, and quietly confident about what comes next. And at the command of that story, in every detail and every delivery, is Belén.
