Dubai has certainly become the name to talk about in the world. The growing influence, emergence of talent, constant development, urbanism, art and culture and many are proving to be the stone for the city. The city has certainly created its own impact and becoming the Creative Capital of the world.
Success is not certain. The wealthy emirate is much better known as a trading and banking hub and luxury shopping destination than as a center for the arts. It lacks the established cities’ centuries of history and culture.
But Dubai has advantages which the old cities can find it hard to provide: security, cosmopolitan lifestyles and comprehensive travel links to the rest of the Arab world and fit enough to become Creative Capital of the World.
It is throwing hundreds of millions of dollars and the latest technology into its effort, using state-linked companies to develop the project in the same way that it’s successfully jump-started other industries.
Other cities have allowed neighborhoods of artists and designers to emerge over decades. Dubai is not leaving that to chance; TECOM is creating a purpose-built 21 million square foot (2 million square metre) area called the Dubai Design District in order to make the city Creative Capital of the World.
Tenants of the district are to include galleries, studios, workshops, boutique stores and museums, plus office and residential space. The first phase, to open this year, will cost 4 billion dirhams ($1.1 billion). TECOM says over 220 companies have agreed to take part.
The Dubai Design and Fashion Council, a state-funded body, plans to set up a design school with students from around the world. One of the school’s specialties will be Islamic design. It is to create Dubai the Creative Capital of the World.
The council intends to act as an incubator for new design businesses, providing technical support and advice. Eventually, Dubai state funds could be invested in some of the businesses, along with private sector money.
To some, Dubai’s top-down approach to culture may seem stifling or sterile. But executives see no contradiction; they argue that just as the emirate has attracted traders and bankers from the region by giving them an environment in which they can prosper, it can lure artists, designers and film makers.
One early design start-up in Dubai is Bil Arabi, a jewelery business opened in the emirate nine years ago by Nadine Kanso, a Beirut-born graphic designer.
Political stability and security were key to her decision to start the business in Dubai, as war and social tensions can make it hard to operate in Beirut, Kanso said.
Three British-Iranian brothers in their 20s and 30s, Haman, Babak and Farhan Golkar, said they founded their high-end clothing brand in Dubai five years ago partly because the city was younger than the established fashion capitals, meaning there was room for newcomers.
Emperor 1688‘s menswear sales, totaling $3.5 million in 2014, are growing at double-digit rates and a womenswear line was launched last year. Babak said Dubai was gradually developing its own fashion style, featuring opulent touches such as gold-plated suit buttons.
The brand is sold mostly in the Gulf and the Golkars plan to develop sales in Europe. Dubai’s tourism industry, which draws millions of visitors every year, may help the city develop global brands as the tourists spread recognition of them in their home countries, Babak said.
In film making, the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 pushed business toward Dubai; movies and television series that might previously have been made in Cairo or Damascus could more safely be shot on a Dubai sound stage, using computer graphics to generate backdrops.
Film makers in Dubai don’t always operate with quite the same artistic freedom as they would in their home countries – productions in the United Arab Emirates must respect local cultural and religious sensitivities. A proposal to film a Sex and the City movie in the UAE was rejected, and it was shot in more liberal Morocco instead.
If the entire conditions of the art and culture are considered then certainly Dubai has gone past other cities in Gulf. However, as far as the international stature is concerned, Dubai is rising the ladder pretty fast and soon would become the Creative Capital of the World.
Leave a Reply