Aïshti by the Sea

Tony Salamé built Aïshti from a single Jal el Dib jeans shop in 1989 into Lebanon's defining luxury empire. The 2015 sea-front Antelias flagship, designed by David Adjaye, sits like a louvred red box on the Mediterranean and pairs more than seventy mono-brand boutiques - Gucci, Saint Laurent, Loro Piana, Loewe, Valentino, Fendi, Burberry, Dior - with the Aïshti Foundation's permanent display of Salamé's contemporary art collection. Through Lebanon's currency crisis and reconstruction cycles it has kept functioning as the central node of luxury fashion in the Levant, the place buyers from Amman, Damascus and the Gulf still come to assemble seasons.