Amid a sea of traditional robes President McAleese looked businesslike in long-skirted cerise for her address to the Jeddah Economic Forum yesterday. Cherie Blair chose a figure-skimming beige trouser suit for hers.
After a Saturday sweltering around Jeddah under a veil and black abaya (long, black, neck-to-ankle robe, but nowhere near as confining as the heavy one-piece burqa with mesh covering the eyes), some of us who are not heads of state or otherwise elevated felt relaxed enough to show up in (modest) business suits, full hair on display, for yesterday's session in the Jeddah Hilton.
No one assailed our ankles with a silver-tipped stick.
In Jeddah, at a time when anger is racing across the Muslim world, our little group of westerners attracted no hostile stares or unwelcome attention. Even allowing for the fact that demonstrations are banned, Jeddah seemed relaxed, the people - most with a reasonable command of English - smiling and helpful.
Saudi society is cracking open, very slowly; very, very cautiously, but just enough to surprise visitors anticipating something darker, more tense and oppressive.
In this most conservative of Muslim countries, Saudi men shake the hands of western women without flinching. King Abdullah shook the hand of our woman President several times. In the forum's media centre, young male and female Saudis (men in traditional white robes, women veiled and wearing abayas) worked and laughed together.
At the forum, where some 600 of the 2,000 delegates were female, Saudi businesswomen proudly took their places, albeit in a sea of head-to-ankle black and arriving through a separate entrance to sit, unseen, behind a Perspex screen.
But the point is that they did take their place. Four have been elected or co-opted for the first time onto the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce, confident and articulate women, with plans to open up debates on maternity rights, childcare and the influence of religion on the education system.
But for a westerner, the pace of change seems tooth-grindingly slow. The right to vote, to drive, or sit at the front of the bus (women have to sit in a cage-like structure down the back), is still denied them.
Shop assistants are exclusively male (including Marks & Spencer's lingerie department and expensive French cosmetic counters). Try to collapse into a comfortable sofa in front of Starbucks' enormous windows - even in your enveloping veil and abaya - and you will be directed politely but firmly into a dim, inner "family room" with opaque windows where you will neither see nor be seen. Or you could sit at a table outside in full view of the rush-hour traffic - which, you might argue, seems a tad illogical. But no westerner comes here to start a revolution.
These canny Saudi women know that revolution must come slowly. In their meeting with the President, they talked about "melting" the obstacles rather than "charging at" them. In the end, they say, it's less about changing legislation than changing attitudes. It's really about what lies within.