International retailers have flooded the city. There are more than fifty high-end Italian franchises alone, though some, like the Versace boutique, which opened in 1990, will not survive the year. (“Consumers are confused here,”the owner of the store said, “because there are too many options to be loyal to one store. [There’s] too much competition for me to stay in business.”)

Across the Gulf, competition has turned the region into a pan-cultural shopping paradise. Centres such as Bahrain, Beirut, Jeddah, and Riyadh are building more and ever bigger malls to attract enough tourists to support the exponential growth in retail development. When the Villa Moda shopping complex opened in Kuwait, in 2002, Botox bar and all, it was the international fashion event of the season.

But so far, Dubai is the only one to dedicate a month-long international festival to the pursuit. By late January, Week Two of the Dubai Shopping Festival, organizers were getting ready for the next event on the slate: Dubai Fashion 2004. Among the luminaries expected was John Galliano. The British designer’s spring/summer line for Dior, a Festival release noted, would recreate in Dubai the “opulence of the Nile,” focusing on “freedom of expression [and] strongly associating the designs with the magnificence of the Pharaohs.” Now, that’s cultural cross-pollination.