Suit Up
Have a taste for the finer things? Here’s how to shop the Middle East’s most stylish city
The Emirate’s two main shopping malls – Mall of the Emirates and the Dubai Mall – have more than 1,700 stores between them, so whatever it is you’re looking for, you’ll probably find it in Dubai. All the major players are represented, from Brioni and Brunello Cucinelli to Hermès. If the sheer volume of stores seems overwhelming (it should), you might consider enlisting the help of an expert, like celebrity stylist Kelly Lundberg, who offers personal shopping services to her high-end clientele. Lundberg estimates she’s clocked more than 10,000 hours of shopping with clients while helping them navigate the luxury fashion landscape in Dubai. If you choose to go at it alone, one spot you shouldn’t miss while you’re in town is Parmar Tailors, a bespoke suiting shop that puts Savile Row to shame. Their team of 135 craftsmen creates custom suits for Dubai’s elite, using gold buttons and rare wools. (Each suit takes around 50 hours to produce.) Once you buy yourself a bespoke suit, you’ll want to break it out for the second annual Dubai Watch Week, which takes place November 15-19. It’s all watches, all day: seminars about the art of horology, watchmaking classes, round-table discussions, exhibitions and more. Last year’s event featured 76 speakers, 55 different watch brands and no shortage of horological hobbyists.
Future Perfect
Forward-thinking design is transforming Dubai’s skyline
On the gusty 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa, you can dangle your toes from a shin-high gap in the glass protective barrier – with nothing but wind whistling between you and the aquamarine pools some 1.820 feet below. It’s the world’s tallest open-air observation deck, in the world’s tallest building. But true to form, Dubai is already planning to shatter that record, announcing an even tidier (“by a notch”) building, this time from Spanish neofuturist Santiago Calatrava (who dreamed up the wing-shaped Oculus transit hub of NYC’s World Trade Center). His new $1 billion supertower is set to debut ahead of Dubai’s 2020 World Expo, a massive international extravaganza that’s expected to lure 25 million visitors to the City of Gold.
Arriving even sooner are the city’s magnificent, ark-shaped opera house (opening August 31 with a performance by Plácido Domingo) and the Museum of the Future (coming in 2018), an apropos attraction for a city whose favorite day always seems to be tomorrow. That new mecca of innovation – a $135 million gleaming-steel ovaloid that looks a bit like a hollow eye – will showcase cutting-edge prototypes and serve as an incubator for inventors and technological breakthroughs.
It’s not just that everything’s bigger in Dubai – it’s also engineered to boggle the mind, with otherworldly shapes and astonishing architectural feats. “The city is constantly growing and building the future,” notes Cyril Zammit, director of Design Days Dubai. “Design is often the result of collaborations between a maker and a doer, and there is fertile ground here – it’s uniquely positioned as a place of convergence and creativity.”
That striking blend is evident in the city’s buzzy cultural scene. The Emirate just hosted the fifth annual Design Days Dubai, which remains the most diverse design fair in the world. It’s putting final touches on a sprawling, design- focused mini-city, d3, and is home to Art Dubai, the region’s most illustrious art fair. Meanwhile, in the cool-kid warehouse district of Alserkal Avenue, prominent painters and sculptors from around the globe, as well as emerging local superstars, unveil provocative pieces.
“The world meets in Dubai.” Zammit points out. “And there is no better place to create, build and exchange.”
