One hundred and sixty rooms and suites and 144 private residences, five restaurants, a spa, grand reception rooms: the first Armani hotel was inaugurated on Tuesday the world's tallest tower (828 meters), Khalifa Burj, Dubai. "After five years of working with photos and drawings, I finally discover the culmination of this project", rejoiced Giorgio Armani, who came to attend the opening ceremonies of this first school bearing his name. From a distance, the designer has personally supervised every detail, soft curves of the design of rooms, choice of fabrics or utensils, mainly originating from the Armani Casa collection. "In my idea, Dubai was the Las Vegas of the Middle East, the opposite of minimalism, which I am a follower," he added.I wanted to create something you can remember. "

After several months of backlogs – and one more week because of the chaos associated with the air of the Icelandic volcano eruption – the event has high symbolic figure for the Emirate of Dubai in a financial crisis. For Emaar Properties, developer of the hotel, the Burj Khalifa and the whole new area called Downtown, where it is located, is also a way to show a positive face of setbacks experienced by the competitor Nakheel, overburdened, and the origin of the famous palm-shaped islands created from scratch in the Persian Gulf. Debt Nakheel, owned by the state, has led Dubai to seek help from its neighbor Abu Dhabi and to refinance its debt with its creditors last month.

Emaar has invested over one billion euros in the construction of the tower.Having suffered a halving in two years of its turnover (1.76 billion euros in 2009) and a slump in its profits, delivery of the 1,000 apartments and 50 floors of offices in recent months will boost the results of the firm. "Crises come and go. Projects like this are built for centuries, "said Mohammed Alabar, chairman of Emaar, which expects a return on investment of 9%. It was he who persuaded Mr. Armani to sign an agreement with him to develop a chain of hotels plans to open a dozen locations around the world in ten years. The next is planned for Milan in 2011. Follow residences in Marrakesh and Marassi, Egypt.

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