For a wedding or other special occasion, the abaya must be as stylish as the dress underneath - and the shinier, the better.
But add to the abaya what you will, one thing remains sacred: it must be made of black fabric, with crepe the top choice in the United Arab Emirates.
"We here must wear abayas. So, much as [other] people like to show off their clothes, the only thing we can take pride in is our abayas," said Hana Mohsen, a 26-year-old Emirati broker picking a new outfit in a Dubai shopping mall.
"Since the abaya is black, they [designers] introduce novelties on it. If you go to a wedding, you will see abayas more expensive than the gowns," she said.
"I choose my abayas as I would choose a bag or a ring. I have a cupboard just for abayas. My relatives in Saudi Arabia do the same," said Mohsen, adding that she would spend up to 3,000 dirhams ($820) on a wedding abaya and half that amount on one meant for other outings.
The abaya, though, is only part of the story.
The shaila, or large scarf wrapped as head cover, must be matching. Alternatively, a fancy shaila will liven up a plain abaya worn at work or on daily errands.
A 19-year-old Emirati university student, who asked not to be named, explained why one of the patches on her head cover was in jeans fabric.
"It's because I'm wearing jeans," she said, slightly pushing back the front of her plain abaya to show her trousers.
"The cuts differ, too," said Amer Batah, a Syrian sales manager at an abaya boutique.
"You've got the French cut for instance, which fits the body and becomes wider at the bottom. And there's the butterfly, which is trendy at the moment," he said, showing off a sample of the "butterfly" with a wings-like cut under the sleeves.
"Kuwaiti women love the 'butterfly'," said Hassan Humaidi, another abaya salesman.
While classic black lace is still used, Swarovski crystal beads, single or multi-colored, are the hit for dressy abayas.
"They have a special sparkle. And they don't fall if you wash the abaya," said Humaidi, explaining why these particular crystal beads are so popular.
Saifullah Nouraei, an Iranian designer and branch manager at one of the leading abaya retailers, said that things had changed a great deal since women in the oil-rich region wore only plain abayas that came in a single piece covering them from head to toe.
"They now follow the fashion in everything. You can't be wearing a Giorgio Armani dress with a 100-dirham [$27] abaya on top," he argued.
"We can't change the black color of the abaya, so we work on the design," he said.
Nouraei, whose displays include dazzling handmade abayas fetching between $1,000 and $2,000 apiece, said that many customers choose their own designs, and the price depends on the load of precious metals that they want sown on their garment.
"Of course, not everyone wears crystal ... Not everyone drives a Rolls-Royce, right?," Nouraei said.
"Some ladies design abayas at home and sell them. It doesn't cost much that way," said Aysha Abdullah, an Emirati housewife who wore an abaya embroidered with thick thread in different shades of gray.
The simple traditional abaya, costing in the range of $55, is still holding its own even in liberal-minded Dubai, especially among the older generation.
But advocates of fancier versions are convinced that they can combine fashion and modesty.
"I cannot have my wife going around in a short dress while I am wearing a dishdasha," said Rashed Mohammed, a Kuwaiti man in the long white garment worn by men in the Gulf as he strolled with his Moroccan wife in a shopping mall.
Never mind that his elegant consort, sporting an abaya decorated with golden metal and matching head cover, could cause more heads to turn than a less attractive woman in a short skirt.
"Abayas are now both decent and fashionable. Everyone follows the fashion nowadays," Mohammed Said.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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