DUBAI: British-Moroccan model Nora Attal hit the dunes in the UAE last week and took to Instagram to show off her trip to the country. Attal, who has walked the runway for some of the world’s leading high-end labels, enjoyed an afternoon of sandboarding in the emirate of Sharjah and even posted a snap on Instagram. “Apparently sandboarding is a thing,” she captioned the sunset shot.A few days later, Attal posted a photo of a shark in an aquarium, captioning it “buddy,” which could well have been snapped at one of Dubai’s underwater zoos — both The Dubai Mall and Atlantis, The Palm hotel are famous for their sea creature enclosures. Earlier in December, the teenage model — who was first scouted when she was just 12 years old — walked the runway in an Ancient Egypt-inspired show by Chanel in New York. Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld took his traveling fashion show to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and sent models down the runway in an array of glittering looks, with Attal donning a gold tweed jacket-and-skirt ensemble. The model also wore heavy, Cleopatra-inspired makeup and dangling earrings to complete the look.It’s been a busy year for Attal, who also took to the catwalk for Elie Saab, Loewe and Dior during Paris Fashion Week in September and starred in Italian fashion label Versace’s summer advert campaign. In May, luxury e-retailer Farfetch launched in the Middle East with a little help from Attal. She starred in a photoshoot wearing pieces from collections on sale on the platform. The colorful photographs were accompanied by a snappy, chatty interview with the young model. Readers got the chance to gain insight into her earliest fashion memories and learn some off-the-cuff facts about the star. “Recently I’ve been obsessed with noughties trends. Everyone was so cool and effortless back then. Now I go out in a full Juicy Couture tracksuit with no shame,” she told Farfetch at the time. “If I wasn’t a model, I’d probably be at university, studying to get into something like criminal investigations, profiling or law,” she added. She finished off 2018 by attending the British Fashion Awards in London on Dec. 10, wearing a hot pink pantsuit by Spanish luxury fashion house Loewe.