Now They're Taking On Saudı Arabia

Paint fumes lingered inside the airy new studio, where my thighs were burning from the endless squats.

- Maria Aspan

Around me, Lululemon-clad women with bare arms and lustrous hair gripped the wooden ballet barre and assessed themselves in the mirrors, while our instructor cheered us on. “Put on your brake lights,” Rihanna chanted over the sound system. “You’re in the city of wonder.”

Outside the windowless room, this city of wonder was shining. Palm trees waved gently near the outdoor plaza, at a picturesque remove from midafternoon traffic. Fountains gurgled next to a large Shake Shack, while the patrons at two adjacent Starbucks sat basking in the sunlight of a large patio.

That is, the men basked. They were the ones allowed to occupy most of the patio, and the front Starbucks. The women, some fully veiled and all covered in flowing black abayas, were restricted to a few tables in the back corner.

These women were the potential future customers of the upstairs fitness studio, where our spandex-clad bodies had moved on to pelvic thrusts. It was the inaugural friends-and-family class at the newest location of Physique 57, a 13-year-old New York City–based chain that specializes in ballet-style barre workouts and caters largely to wealthy, well-traveled women. And two of the women in this particular class, Physique 57 co-founders Jennifer Vaughan Maanavi and Tanya Becker, had traveled far indeed—from New York to Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

“We’ve opened 13 studios, and nothing is more exciting than this moment,” Maanavi, a former banker with a quick laugh and a quiet steeliness, said the next evening, at a lavish launch party for the new studio. “I have wanted to be in Riyadh for so long.”