THEY partied like it was 2007. Giorgio Armani flew in with half the blonde models in Ukraine. Guests wore couture dresses that cost up to £60,000. There was Bollinger on tap. The event? The opening last week of the first Armani hotel. The location? Don’t laugh — Dubai.
No matter how mired in debt you may be, if you have spent £1billion building the world’s tallest skyscraper and hundreds of millions more persuading Italy’s wealthiest designer to use it to make his first foray into the haute hotel business, you cannot back out.
Sitting in the majlis — formal Arab meeting room — of his hotel in the 2,700ft tall Burj Khalifa in downtown Dubai, Armani praised the “strong nerves” of Mohammed Alabbar, the boss of Emaar, the developer. He pushed through the completion of the Burj in spite of a financial crisis that has left Dubai sinking under the weight of $150billion (£100billion) of debt.
Armani has good reason to be relieved. His deal with Emaar is molto bello.
Alabbar has agreed to build or lease properties around the world and to run up to a dozen hotels for Armani at a cost of up to £1billion. Work is already under way on hotels in Milan, Marrakech and Marassi in Egypt. Properties in London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai and the Caribbean will follow. [Read More]
