Last Thursday, when the Miss World contestants wore couture designs as part of the Vietnam Beauty Fashion Fest’s 17th edition, “Soul of Heritage”, Miss World Uganda appeared on the stage with a special gown celebrating motherhood.

Titled “The Layers of Life,” Elle Muhoza’s custom look was inspired by the seven layers of a C-section. The designer, Keesha Abdallah, explained that the gown represented the seven layers that doctors cut through to perform a C-section.

Abdallah modeled the gown’s layers of white, yellow, pink and red fabrics after an illustration Abdallah found of the C-section layers — skin, fat, fascia, rectus muscles, peritoneum, uterus muscle, and the amniotic sac.

“The concept was inspired by the layers encountered during a C-section and, more broadly, by the extraordinary journey of bringing life into the world,” the designer said on Instagram. “Each color and layer was chosen to represent a stage, a texture, or a transition within that story — not to represent a particular race.”

“And that is precisely why we called it ‘The Layers of Life.’ Because life itself does not belong to one race, one country, or one colour. Life has no colour. Life is universal,” she went on, adding that “This gown was created to celebrate womanhood, the human body and the miracle of life — something that connects us all.”

Abdallah mentioned in another post that the look was also inspired by her own experience as a new mother. She gave birth to her first child over a year ago, and she is now pregnant with her second child. Even though she has not had a C-section, she spoke to several moms who have.

“When you interview a lot of moms around, you learn the sacrifice that goes in the C-section,” she told Today.com.

“Our main inspiration was maternal birth in Uganda,” Abdallah said. “We realized that there’s a lot of stigma around C-section moms. Most people think it’s the ‘easier’ way to go. They think the pushing is what’s hard.”

It took Abdalla’s team of five about one month to create the dress. The gown has sparked a lot of conversations as social media can’t get over the design.

“I love it when art brings so much soul to life. As a c-section mom myself, thank you so much @k.e.e.sha for your beautiful vision,” one wrote on Abdallah’s post.

“This dress is an absolutely stunning work of art and brought tears to my eyes,” another stated.

“WOW… This dress is an absolute masterpiece!! I am in awe of how you honored the profound reality of childbirth, transforming the physical and emotional layers of the C-section journey into literal art ????,” a third commented.

In designing the gown, Abdallah also paired art and history, as she believes that C-sections may have originated in Uganda.

Bunyoro, a kingdom in Western Uganda, was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Central and East Africa from the 13th century to the 19th century.

Long before the arrival of the European missionary doctors, the kingdom performed a highly developed surgical procedure: a cesarean section that saved mother and child in pre-hospital days.

In 1879, Robert W. Felkin, a Scottish medical anthropologist, witnessed the cesarean section being performed by a native surgeon on a young woman in her 20s in Bunyoro.