The Journal

Opened in 2008 as the Atlantis brand’s Dubai outpost, the hotel has since become both a landmark and a work of architecture inseparable from Palm Jumeirah. Its paired pink towers and central arch are so closely associated with the island that even a partial view is enough to identify the setting.

Within a single day in Dubai, the background can shift from a pool above Palm Jumeirah to a Parisian dining room in DIFC and a low stone terrace beside a marina. This variety helps explain the city’s popularity on social media. Its most shared places offer either a view that identifies Dubai at once or an interior distinctive enough to be recognised without a caption.

In the world of collectible design, very few names carry the weight of Hermès, and within the Maison itself, fewer silhouettes carry the weight of the Birkin and the Kelly. Sotheby's London Handbags & Accessories auction — set to open on 28th August — places both at its centre, assembling a sale that offers a survey of what the brand has done best over four decades: take a single form and refuse to leave it alone.

It takes a particular kind of confidence for an investor to look beyond a city’s ready properties, or even those in the process of being built, to instead look at the land itself. They don’t see what stands on that bare patch of earth today, but what will be built on it tomorrow, and what that will be worth a decade from now. In Dubai, that breed of investor has been steadily multiplying.

Dubai’s short-term rental market has moved well beyond the early phase of holiday-home investment. What began as an alternative to hotel stays is now a mature part of the city’s residential landscape, shaped by tourism, business travel, relocation demand and a steady appetite for furnished homes.