The UAE has long lived with an uneasy proximity to Iran. Just 55km of water separates the two coastlines – a narrow stretch known as the Strait of Hormuz that has always carried strategic weight. But in the current conflict, that geography seems more acute. 

In the first 11 days of hostilities alone, more than 1,700 Iranian missiles and drones were launched toward the UAE: far more than at any other Gulf state and several times the number fired at Qatar. By some estimates, about 58 per cent of Iran’s attacks on Gulf Cooperation Council countries have been directed at the Emirates.

The scale raises an obvious question: why the UAE?

Part of the answer lies in geopolitics. The Emirates sits at the intersection of several alliances that Tehran distrusts, namely its deep security ties with the US and the diplomatic opening with Israel through the Abraham Accords. “From Tehran’s perspective, the UAE is enemy number one in terms of Arab states in the Gulf,” says Brendon J Cannon, a fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Abu Dhabi. “It’s also, frankly, a victim of its own success.”

Success in this case means visibility. Over the past two decades the UAE – and Dubai in particular – has positioned itself as a crossroads for global business, finance and travel. Its airports are among the busiest on earth, its airlines connect continents and its ports move goods throughout the world economy. For Iran, hitting the UAE carries symbolic and practical weight. “Everybody around the world knows about Dubai,” says Cannon. “So there is an effect of attempting to cut the UAE down to size, and to shake that ironclad view for investors and tourists around the world that the UAE is this oasis of calm.”

That calculation helps explain why Iranian strikes have not been limited to military targets. While US bases in the Emirates have been hit, so too have major civilian sites, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai airports and infrastructure around Jebel Ali port. Debris from one intercepted drone even struck a luxury hotel on The Palm. In other words the objective appears to go beyond battlefield retaliation. It is also about creating disruption in one of the world’s most visible economic hubs.

Proximity matters too. The UAE lies well within range of Iran’s large arsenal of less costly short-range missiles and drones. Unlike Israel or more distant Gulf states, the Emirates can be reached quickly and cheaply by weapons that Tehran already has in abundance. That logistical advantage makes it an obvious pressure point.

At the same time, Iran appears intent on demonstrating that its retaliation can ripple beyond the immediate theatre of war. If Tehran sees the conflict as existential – a struggle for the survival of the regime itself – the logic is to widen the impact as much as possible. “This is an all-or-nothing struggle for the Iranian regime right now,” Cannon says. “The strikes by the US and Israel have led the Iranians to take the gloves off.” Yet there might be another reason that the UAE has remained a central target: it refuses to shut down.

Despite repeated alerts and missile interceptions, life in the Emirates has continued with surprising normality. Offices remain open and the country’s commercial machine has largely kept running. The message from Abu Dhabi and Dubai has been one of resilience rather than retreat. For Tehran that normality might be provocative in and of itself. These continued attacks test whether the UAE’s reputation as a safe haven can withstand sustained pressure. “Part of the aim is to shake that perception,” Cannon adds. But the real disruption is not entirely visible. Flight schedules have faced periodic interruptions as airspace warnings trigger temporary diversions, and some hotels have closed entire floors while quietly trimming prices as bookings soften. Oil markets have also reacted to the region’s instability. The UAE’s economic cogs continue to turn but the conflict proves that insulation from geopolitical turbulence is impossible.

So far the country’s defence systems have limited the damage. Officials say that the UAE has intercepted roughly 93 per cent of incoming missiles and drones, with fighter jets and air-defence batteries knocking down projectiles before they reach urban areas. Footage released by authorities shows air-to-air interceptions followed by the blunt confirmation: “Target destroyed.” The display is both a military and a political message – reassurance to residents, investors and visitors that the country can defend itself.

Privately, however, Emirati officials are angry. The UAE had made clear that it would not allow its territory or airspace to be used by the US to launch attacks on Iran. The hope was that this stance might limit retaliation. It did not. “They’re justifiably furious,” Cannon says. “Iran is a problem – it’s an existential threat to the UAE.”

That displeasure is unlikely to alter the Emirates’ strategic direction. If anything, the conflict might reinforce it. Closer defence ties with technologically advanced partners – including Israel – and greater investment in domestic military capability are likely outcomes. At the same time, geography ensures that the UAE and Iran cannot simply disengage. Trade links, shared waterways and economic realities mean that the two neighbours will eventually have to return to some form of pragmatic coexistence. But the trust deficit has widened dramatically.

For Tehran, striking the UAE might serve multiple strategic goals at once: retaliation against the US and Israel, pressure on a key Gulf adversary and disruption of a global economic hub. For the Emirates the lesson is stark: success, visibility and openness make a country influential – but they can also make it a target.

Imagine yourself in a queue. It’s one-hour long and stretches as far behind you as it stretches ahead. It’s also composed almost exclusively of men wearing the same outfit, the products of a recognisable brand, whose clothes you have admired in the past. The queue winds its way into an indeterminate space where examples of these clothes hang from wobbly rails in large numbers. Cardboard boxes are filled with brand-new scarves and ties. 
 
The atmosphere is competitive. You look at what the men are wearing, as well as what’s on the hangers. The clothes, you think, as a tall man elbows his way between you and an unsteady rack, don’t look very nice anymore. And the tall man has extremely sharp elbows.

Popping into a sample sale might sound like an agreeable way to pass an idle hour between lunch and your next meeting. It might even seem like an interesting opportunity to get a handle on the locals as you stroll around a foreign fashion capital and snag a bargain at the same time. Buyer, beware.
 
A label’s carefully constructed identity and the logic of manufactured scarcity – desire piqued through limitation – go out the window at a sample sale. The true value of visual merchandising is thrown into sharp relief. The odd gem nestles among a case study in bad inventory planning. Over-ordered seasonal misfires, the stuff that didn’t sell at the time, is given a second, cut-price chance. Despite the atmosphere and the sharp elbows, the approach seems to work. With prices lowered, the question “Why buy?” gives way to “Why not?”
 
It’s not hard to find an unpleasant shopping experience in 2026. And it’s not difficult to learn why – and how – the culture of sales is contributing to an environment of overconsumption and unrealistic consumer expectations. Smaller brands and businesses that try to do interesting things struggle to compete in a market where someone, somewhere, is always knocking two-digit per cent reductions off the price.
 
What’s trickier is tracking down the boutiques where expertise and dedication are given free rein to present a thoughtful selection of garments in their best light. Where people passionate about their work, who know more than you do and are prepared to spend the time sharing the benefits of their knowledge with you – and your wardrobe. A good retail experience, after all, treads a fine line between deliberation and impulsiveness: a long-considered purchase can layer very nicely over a shirt bought on a whim. At a sample sale, value collapses like a cardboard box overstuffed with last year’s T-shirts. 
 
Not every sample sale is the same. Some truly live up to their name; there are unique pieces and bargains to be found. For the rest, well, there’s no doubt that selling surplus stock to fanboys is a better alternative than sending it straight to landfill. But better yet would be to mitigate the risk of that surplus. The challenge for brands is finding the sweet spot by limiting production runs, not to manufacture scarcity but instead to manufacture responsibility. Customers can make it easier by short-circuiting discount hysteria to ensure that impulse is informed, reflecting critically on the thoughtless desire that prompts men to queue for an hour in the rain, for example. In doing so we might find ourselves prepared to spend a little more and buy a little less. 
 
Augustin Macellari is a Paris-based journalist and regular Monocle contributor. If you’re after a good place to shop, why not check out our City Guides? 

And for more on boutiques and well-considered retail…
– Amid retail-sector uncertainty, boutiques and catalogues are making a comeback
 
– Best boutiques in the world: Neighbour, Vancouver 
 
– Brooklyn boutique L’Ensemble proves that privacy and intimacy are the new luxury

Missile alerts have become a grim new soundtrack in parts of the Gulf. As the US and Israel-led war with Iran stretches into a third week, the UAE finds itself on the front line of a conflict that has rattled aviation routes, shaken global supply chains and transformed the Strait of Hormuz – one of the world’s most vital maritime corridors – into dangerous waters.

More than 2,000 threats, including missiles and drones, have been launched towards the region; with the UAE absorbing a large share of the attacks. Yet Abu Dhabi insists that escalation is not the answer. Speaking to Monocle, Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, the UAE’s minister of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says the country remains focused on defence, diplomacy and maintaining stability at home, even as warning alerts continue to flash across residents’ phones.

Al Kaabi argues that the UAE’s openness and economic model have made it a target for Tehran but insists that the country will not be drawn into a wider war. Instead, she points to the resilience of the UAE’s diverse population, the success of its missile-defence systems and a diplomatic push at the United Nations to condemn the attacks.

“The UAE did not seek this conflict,” she says. “But we will always take the necessary actions to protect our sovereignty and our people.” Here, Al Kaabi speaks to Monocle about the conflict’s impact on the UAE, the risks to global trade and why the country believes that de-escalation remains the only viable path forward.

We’re now entering the third week of this conflict. What effect has it had on the country and the wider Gulf?
Just minutes ago our alert system went off again. Shortly afterwards the authorities reassured us that the threat had been intercepted. What I can say is that the UAE’s state of defence is strong and precise. There have been more than 2,000 threats – missiles and drones – targeting the region. These attacks affect everything: the economy, logistics, airspace and, most importantly, civilians. We have been very clear: the UAE did not seek this conflict. But we will always take the necessary actions to protect our sovereignty and the safety of everyone who calls the UAE home.

About 60 per cent of Iran’s attacks on the GCC have been directed at the UAE. What issue has Iran got with the UAE that made it target you like this?
Iran claims that it is attacking military interests but what it is quite the opposite. The UAE model makes Iran uncomfortable. We are a country that shows the world it can be open and that people from different cultures can live together in harmony. This stands in contrast to the ideology that the Iranian regime promotes. In difficult times you see people’s true colours – you see who your friends really are.

Some might argue that Iran resents the UAE’s success over the past few decades.
We have a large Iranian community in the UAE – people who have built businesses and families here. That’s why it raises a deeper question: if you are launching attacks in this region, do you not care about the safety of your own citizens who live here? We have had injuries and casualties and we consider every victim as one of ours, regardless of nationality. Responsible leadership should care about the safety of its citizens wherever they are in the world.

The number of attacks has dropped slightly in recent days. Do you believe that Iran is recalibrating and are you prepared for that?
It’s difficult to predict. What matters is not a temporary drop in numbers but whether the attacks stop entirely. We remember when the UAE was targeted by the Houthis in 2022. Even though there were only a few missiles, we still remember that day. Our focus now is keeping the country safe. The Ministry of Defence has done remarkable work intercepting drones and missiles, often using innovative methods.

The UAE has intercepted most incoming attacks but why hasn’t it responded militarily?
Because we understand the consequences. Escalation would bring a much wider war to our doorstep and that is something we want to avoid. The UAE is acting responsibly. We are pursuing diplomatic channels, including efforts at the United Nations, and we are working with our partners to condemn these attacks through international law.

The conflict is also affecting global trade. What concerns do you have about the Strait of Hormuz?
Any disruption to the Strait of Hormuz affects global supply chains. It is not only a Gulf issue – it is a global concern. This is why there is such strong international interest in de-escalation. Countries around the world understand that instability in this corridor affects everyone.

This conflict has damaged the UAE’s reputation for safety and stability. How will you rebuild it?
Quite the opposite. This moment is proving those qualities. Look at the response from people living here – the UAE community comes from every corner of the world and it has shown extraordinary resilience. That unity is a powerful signal of what the UAE stands for.

Tourism has taken a huge hit during the conflict. Is that recoverable?
The impact has actually been less than we expected. More than 1,200 hotels remain open and some 40,000 tourism-linked businesses are still operating. We supported travellers affected by disruptions, issuing emergency visas and covering accommodation when needed. When the situation stabilises, tourism will rebound very quickly.

A UN Security Council resolution condemning Iran’s actions is being discussed. How significant is that?
International legitimacy matters. When organisations such as the United Nations clearly condemn attacks such as these, it reinforces the integrity of the international order. For the UAE and the GCC, it’s about ensuring that aggression against sovereign nations cannot be normalised.

When the conflict ends, how might the UAE reposition itself diplomatically? Does it distance itself from the US and Israel? Does co-operation between GCC nations strengthen? Are you more wary of Iran than before?
The UAE will always seek partnerships with countries that respect its sovereignty and share a vision for a prosperous future. We are not a large country, so we must be agile and build strong relationships around the world. Initiatives such as the Abraham Accords reflect our belief in moving beyond historical divisions and building bridges. Our focus remains on the future – technology, innovation and co-operation.

Madrid has many things going for it – clement weather, inspiring museums and patatas bravas on every restaurant menu. Despite being home to studios such as Jorge Penadés and Alvaro Catalan de Ocon, the Spanish capital has never been an essential stop on the design industry’s annual circuit. But with the city’s first collectable design fair having just wrapped up, is that about to change?

On the opening day of Forma Design Fair Madrid, founder Álvaro Matías declared that his aim was “to create the most beautiful design shop that you could see in Spain.” It’s an ambition that he delivered on at the Matadero Madrid cultural centre, where booths were occupied by a mix of independent designers, group shows and galleries. Highlights included Arturo Álvarez’s sculptural lighting designs, which use wire to create playful, mesmeric shadows, and La Ebanistería, where a crowd “oohed” and “aahed” when a series of wall-mounted black boxes were opened one by one. The sculpture revealed itself to be one giant cabinet and, in doing so, a piece that blurred the boundaries between art and design.

Forma artistic directors Antonio Jesús Luna and Emerio Arena are well known on the international design scene as the co-editors of Room Diseño magazine. It’s a position that helped them to attract a mix of international participants, from French firm Maison Parisienne to Colombia’s Tu Taller Design. 

As Luna and Arena walked me through the fair, they stressed how many of the designers on show apply traditional Spanish craft techniques to contemporary designs. It chimes with a broader, global shift towards work dubbed “collectable”, which celebrates artisanship and limited-edition works. At the booth of Guadalix-de-la-Sierra-based Van den Heede you could see the ethos reflected in sleek, handmade wooden tables and chairs. So too at Alfombras Peña’s booth, a benchmark demonstration of traditional weaving techniques used to create large, elegant rugs. In a similar vein, material specialist Cosentino presented a table, lamp and counter made from natural stone and minerals (pictured above) while Barcelona-based Joshua Linacisoro showcased a collection of lighting forged from the Basque landscape (pictured below, right).The message was that Spain has been doing this type of work for a long time – it just might not have been calling it collectable design.

Indeed, Forma is a shiny new ending to the almost-decade-old Madrid Design Festival, which takes place over a month and draws in headline acts such as Spanish fashion house Loewe. The festival is more experiential, with talks, open showrooms, workshops, exhibitions and pop-up shops. This year Manera magazine joined up with Spanish furniture and lifestyle brands The Maisie and Santa Living to stage an exhibition at the Museo San Isidro. The institution is home to Roman mosaics and terracotta artefacts that tell the long history of Madrid. The contemporary designs – chairs, vases and a giant lamp on spidery legs that swayed and wobbled – were exhibited in the museum’s courtyard. There, brought alive by bright natural light and hidden among mythic sculptures of Hercules and Prometheus, the objects began to tell a new story about the evolution of craft and humanity. These are more than just pieces that you’d quite like in your living room.

Madrid’s entry into the design-fair space is overdue but unsurprising – the designers have been here quietly creating the scene for years. As Matías told me, they have stuck around in the city because they feel like it’s on the brink of something. “This is about to begin,” he says. Watch this space.

Sophie Monaghan-Coombs is Monocle’s associate editor of culture. For more on Spanish design, read our report on the evolution of brands such as Zara Home and Kave.

Fashion weeks have suffered from remarkably poor timing in recent years. From news of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years later, the latest edition of the womenswear fashion month, which concluded in Paris yesterday, was overshadowed by reports of the US-Israel war on Iran, ships being sunk off the coast of Sri Lanka and the price of oil skyrocketing as a result. To shift from these headlines to the latest collections being unveiled on the runway requires acknowledging that the fashion industry represents the livelihood of millions of people worldwide – from garment workers and publicists clutching iPads outside of shows to casting agents, caterers, choreographers, set designers and more. While the spectacle of a fashion week feels frivolous at times, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode estimates that Paris Fashion Week generates about €1.2bn in economic revenue for the host city. 

Fashion, when executed to the levels seen in recent weeks, holds up a mirror to the times we live in or, at the very least, provides some needed escapism. In Paris, luxury houses continued to raise the bar following a year of creative-director switch-ups and executive reshuffles. As the dust settles, we can now gauge which pairing of designer and maison is emerging as the winning formula. Take, for example, Dior (pictured, above). The label’s Northern Irish creative director, Jonathan Anderson, honed in on the elements of the house codes that resonate with his own sensibility, most notably a love for botany and playing with complex silhouettes. A closer look reveals the perfectly executed details – from buttons running down the seams of trousers to silvery tulle peeping out of a Bar jacket.

Dior isn’t the only label in the LVMH stable to come careening out the gates this season. The French luxury conglomerate is sustaining momentum across the board with a portfolio of brands that are carving out different niches. Celine, Givenchy and Loewe all presented womenswear collections, each with distinct feels. From neoprene scuba-diving-derived shoes at Loewe by Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez to Sarah Burton’s sharp suiting and flattering eveningwear at Givenchy, the luxury-goods group is casting a wide net, offering something for everyone.

But is Chanel’s Matthieu Blazy the ultimate winner? The debut collection by the Franco-Belgian creative director hit the racks of the French house’s boutiques over the weekend and reports of a shopping frenzy on Rue Cambon quickly became the talk of the town. On Monday evening, showgoers paraded into the Grand Palais sporting the latest square-toe pumps and iterations of Chanel flap bags (pictured, above). On the runway, models came out in iridescent tweed sets, belted drop-waist skirts and monochromatic coats. As Blazy took his bow, the room erupted into applause. And as excitement for Chanel’s new era translates into real in-shop sales, it offers wider hope for the industry at large, even in the most uncertain of times.

Grace Charlton is Monocle’s associate editor for design and fashion. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

More style from Paris? You’re in luck
• Paris Fashion Week Men’s celebrated everyday life amid geopolitical uncertainty

• How curator Olivier Gabet brought fashion back into focus at the Louvre

• Interview: Bruno Pavlovsky on Chanel’s Matthieu Blazy chapter: ‘The brand is back’

Iran has a new supreme leader in Mojtaba Khamenei, second son of his late father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in late February as the war between the US, Israel and Iran broke out. Though the 56-year-old Mojtaba has long been suspected of being influential behind the scenes, he has generally been circumspect, verging on reclusive.

Amid the ongoing war, Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment is a direct rebuttal of US president Donald Trump, who said the “worst case” scenario was that the elder Khamenei’s successor would be “as bad as the previous person”. Though regime change in Tehran has never been expressly part of the US war effort’s goals, Trump has said that he would expect his country to have a role in the appointment of Iran’s next supreme leader, and has repeatedly pushed Iranians to rise up against their government.

To get a better picture of Mojtaba Khamenei, the ways in which his appointment will impact the war and how he is viewed by Iranians, Monocle spoke with Laura James, deputy director of analysis and a senior Middle East analyst at Oxford Analytica. 

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Mojtaba Khamenei has long been suspected of having strong influence behind the scenes but he’s not known to have ever made a major public appearance. What do we know about him?
We know that he was very close to his father, that he was seen as a gatekeeper. We know rumours about him, which are that [his beliefs] are very much on the hardline side, that he has strong military connections. We know that he doesn’t tick all the boxes for a peacetime supreme leader, and that he hasn’t had senior clerical posts or even senior political posts that you would expect. [His appointment] is a wartime decision and the symbolism is an important part of it.

Does it seem more likely that this is Iran’s leadership – or whatever remains of it – sending a signal of both defiance and continuity, rather than anointing somebody who is actually going to be making big decisions?
Both can be true. He might not have succeeded in peacetime but appointing him now says there is continuity, there is resistance, there is revenge on the US. That doesn’t mean that he won’t step forward and take on that role and make it his own, as his father did more than 30 years ago. Much depends on whether he survives; there were rumours that he had been hit by earlier strikes. So there are a lot of unknowns there but what has become clear is that the hardliners are making the dominant decisions at the moment in Tehran. 

After more than a week of war, can we discern the chain of command? There have been suggestions that what we are seeing is a pre-war plan enacted by Iran – that power, command and control would be diffused and decentralised. We’ve had mixed messages from president Masoud Pezeshkian, who last week apologised to Iran’s Arab neighbours for the strikes and said they would stop, only for them to continue.
That was definitely a strange mix up. It followed earlier comments by the [Iranian] foreign minister that strikes on Oman hadn’t been intended, and there were warnings even before the conflict that Iran had plans to devolve command and control [to allow] individual commanders to make independent decisions. That is certainly happening but I don’t think that necessarily means a full loss of command and control. We’re not looking at a collapsing state. The leadership has decided that it makes sense to increase the threat that it’s posing to the region and the implicit threat to the global economy as leverage on the US president.

We are talking about a regime that has long been fond of the idea of martyrdom. Is it a reach to suggest that might be a factor underpinning its strategy? Do they care whether this goes well for them?
There’s a possible case that the former supreme leader himself didn’t hide away because he was prepared to accept martyrdom. For the regime it’s not so much martyrdom as an existential struggle. The idea is that if they surrender now, they will be picked off later. They’re absolutely convinced of that. They don’t trust Trump, they don’t trust Israel. They’re worried about popular pressure from the protests in January. Hence why this conflict turned out so differently from the war in June 2025. It’s not: ‘we must destroy ourselves as martyrs’. It’s: ‘if we don’t fight now, we will be destroyed anyway, without a way to push back’.

The US is likely [feeling] disheartened that the populist revolt they envisioned didn’t materialise. Do we know how Iranian public opinion, with all due acknowledgement that it is not a monolith, will respond to a hereditary supreme leader, given that the revolution of 1979 was waged to overthrow a dynasty?
We know very little about Iranian public opinion at this point, simply because anybody who takes the initiative to reach out past the internet blackout is already expressing some kind of ideological view. What we can say is that there will probably be some pushback among the base against the hereditary principle but not as much as would have been the case before the war. This pushes back at the US, and particularly against Donald Trump’s statement that he didn’t want [Mojtaba Khamenei] to succeed. The hereditary principle will be something else to push back at them with but it won’t fundamentally change their views.

Listen to the full conversation on ‘The Briefing’ on Monocle Radio.

More stories about the war in Iran:
– Meet the Kurdish peshmerga fighters waiting to enter the war against Iran

– The view from the Strait of Hormuz: Ground zero for Iran’s war on global commerce

– With Bahrain and Dubai under fire, Riyadh has emerged as the Gulf’s unlikely refuge

Paris Fashion Week’s autumn/winter 2026 edition saw a cohort of new creative directors present their visions and settle into their brands. The most talked about sophomore ready-to-wear collections came courtesy of Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel. Elsewhere, stalwart houses such as Hermès demonstrated why the French capital still reigns over fashion month. Finally, Belgian designers including newcomer Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, Alaïa’s Pieter Mulier and Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten showed up in force. Here are our top-10 picks from the runways. 

1.
Marie Adam-Leenaerdt

The latest rising star to come out of Belgium is Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, whose fiercely independent and pleasingly off-kilter spirit was on full display this Paris Fashion Week. Before the show, guests were invited to pick their own foldable stool and position themselves in the room – a way of eschewing the traditional (and hierarchical) fashion-week method of allocated seating. What followed was a tableau of suburban domesticity with apron dresses, bubblegum-pink velour tracksuits and handwear pulled up to the elbows like Marigold kitchen gloves. Then, outfits for going out on the town: fur coats, a zebra-print dress and even a lace ballgown.  

Adam-Leenaerdt’s ability to push the conventions of good taste – be it through proportion or pattern – has fast become a trademark of the designer since she founded her brand three years ago. It begs the question: might Adam-Leenaerdt be the next Belgian to helm a major house? After all, the European kingdom has given the fashion industry names such as Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Pieter Mulier, Martin Margiela and Raf Simons.
marieadamleenaerdt.com

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2.
Dior

When the Jardin des Tuileries first opened to the public in 1667, access to the park came with acquiescence to a strict dress code, making it an important shared space for Parisian social life to be performed – a place to see and be seen. It’s this socio-historical context that provided the starting point for Jonathan Anderson’s second womenswear collection for Dior, which was unveiled in a temporary greenhouse by French design studio Bureau Betak, built atop the garden’s Bassin Octagonal. In the water floated supersized recreations of waterlilies.

Shrunken bar jackets featured layers of silvery scalloped tulle (a reference to the 1949 Junon ball gown designed by Christian Dior himself) and were paired with jeans. A longstanding love for botany – both by the maison and Anderson – shined throughout: the weighted hem of a butter-yellow dress resembled the silhouette of a trumpet flower. Waterlilies featured on shoes and the raffia embellishments on bags and dresses. The clothes represented a pleasing evolution of Anderson’s vision for Dior – one that finds common ground between the codes of the French house and the Northern Irish designer’s ambitions for the brand’s next chapter.  
dior.com

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3.
Dries Van Noten

Julian Klausner, who was appointed creative director of Dries Van Noten in late 2024, continues his exploration of what it means to come of age. Following the January presentation of his menswear collection that captured the feeling of flying the nest and packing your bags for the big city, his womenswear line featured elements of the school uniform – think toggle coats, shirts with ties and tailored blazers – mixed in with pieces that might have been picked up on gap-year travels to Southeast Asia. 

Bronze belts, embellished golden cuffs and embroidered ribbons added texture to outfits that already featured an abundance of patterns and material depth, something of a calling card for the Antwerp-based brand. Still-life paintings of fruit and flowers, reminiscent of the Dutch Golden Age, were screen-printed (and sometimes pixelated) onto skirts and coats. Overall, what pervaded was a sense of nostalgic yearning for a time of self-discovery and dressing for expression of identity.
driesvannoten.com

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4.
Chloé 

What role does devotion play in fashion? For Chloé’s creative director, Chemena Kamali, the answer lies in the maker’s hand as observed in folkloric clothing, be it an embroidery, a stitched seam or a piece of knitwear with irregularities. “It’s about exploring what folk means – all that is shared within a community,” said Kamali before the show. “Folk, for me, is about togetherness. It’s about empathy, humanity and a connection to the past; the symbolic and spiritual threads that bind people together. 

Inspired by these traditions, and specifically the origins of Dutch folk costumes, the creative director sent models down a misty runway in prairie dresses, clogs and voluminous quilted skirts. And references to the hippy counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s – think mirrored, round sunglasses styled with long, freeflowing hair – are Kamali’s call to put down arms. A signpost for utopian idealism and the value of finding strength in pacifism.
chloe.com 

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5. 
Carven

“Composed, instinctive and self-assured” is how Mark Thomas, director of design at Carven since 2025, described the women he designs for before the show. “We’ve drawn on influences from 1950s couture to bring a sculptural presence: curved shoulder seams that create a spherical shape, controlled waists and a reverence for craft,” he said. These silhouettes were then abstracted to suit contemporary tastes and a modern lifestyle. 

The show opened with a model styled in near-floor-length, deep-burgundy leather. A series of loosely tailored sets were followed by more expressive pieces, including diaphanous organza slip dresses, cream trousers with tufted tiers of fil coupé and ruched silk. It was a masterclass in considered minimalism – the kind that is generous in its materiality and exacting in its proportions. 
carven.com 

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6.
Celine

The act of dressing intuitively rather than through deliberate calculation was the starting point for Michael Rider’s autumn/winter 2026 womenswear collection for Celine. “I love when messy, complex, layered inner lives come through underneath great clothes,” he shared in his show notes. “Putting on clothes, a look, can change the day. Change how we walk and feel. I love that.”

Statement pieces from leopard-print coats and wide-brim hats were spliced into an otherwise restrained collection that featured slimmed-down silhouettes. But, as was with his previous collections for the French brand, the key to decoding the new Celine sensibility is how outfits are styled, from a jacket carried over the arm or a shirt peaking out from under a jacket to grey trousers tucked into knee-high leather boots.  
celine.com 

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7. 
Hermès

The opportunity to either conceal or reveal with a zipper was the unifying theme for Hermès artistic director Nadège Vanhée-Cybulski’s latest collection. Zipped dresses, jumpsuits and jackets took on streamlined silhouettes that allowed for a sense of agility and dynamism. Unzipped, longline coats with sheepskin collars swooped dramatically as models made their way down the runway.

Elsewhere, jodhpurs, over-the-knee boots and quilted-leather pieces were clear nods to the maison’s equestrian heritage. The collection’s moody palette was inspired by nightfall: oxblood reds, forest greens and deep, almost-grey blues looked particularly seductive when applied to leather. New accessories included a series of ostrich-leather chapka hats and bags with small timepieces disguised in their handles.
hermes.com

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8.
Alaïa

As Pieter Mulier’s five-year tenure at Alaïa comes to an end, the Belgian designer’s final collection for the brand was an ode to the art of editing – a skill that he claims to have perfected in the ateliers of the French house. As such, the line-up featured neither bags nor jewellery. (Could he be saving his ideas for his next appointment as the creative director of Versace?) Instead, a series of body-hugging dresses in muted tones, leather coats and velvet pantsuits made their way down the runway. “Minimal, pure, essential. There is no distraction. The focus here is on the body within the clothes, clothes that always celebrate women,” shared Mulier in his show notes. 

“There are eternal totems of Alaïa that I had to address, to pay homage to – dresses of chiffon and transparent jersey, inlaid with crocodile,” he added. “There are Alaïa proportions, timeless yet reconsidered for today. Even the timeless must reflect its time.” While what comes next for Mulier and Alaïa is highly anticipated, the celebration of the designer’s remarkable time at the label (and the way in which he doubled its revenue in five years) is worth celebrating until then.  
alaia.com 

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9.
Chanel

For his sophomore ready-to-wear collection as Chanel’s creative director, Franco-Belgian designer Matthieu Blazy turned Paris’s Grand Palais into something of a construction site, with colourful cranes illuminated by spotlights. Could it have been a gentle riposte to the impatience of the industry and the pace at which change is expected? Though Blazy might consider his work at Chanel still in progress, the results from his first collection are already in: a few days before the show, a shopping frenzy took over Paris as it hit the racks of the maison’s shops.

Buoyed by this momentum, models made their way down the runway to the tune of Lady Gaga and Brazilian bossa nova. In the collection notes, a quote by Gabrielle Chanel emphasised the duality that is expected of women. “Fashion is both caterpillar and butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly. The butterfly doesn’t go to the market and the caterpillar doesn’t go to the ball.” In practice, this looked like a series of practical sets, ribbed knits, belted drop-waist skirts and monochromatic coats that gave way to iridescent tweeds (paired with hairstyles held together by glitter glue) and embellished slip dresses with cascading cuts. “Chanel is function, Chanel is fiction,” said Blazy. “It represents the freedom to choose between the caterpillar and the butterfly whenever you want.” 
chanel.com 

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10.
Givenchy

Sarah Burton’s ability to cut and tailor suits is one that commands respect in the fashion industry. Though the British designer never trained on Savile Row, she learned her craft as the right-hand woman of the late Alexander McQueen. This season, her reputation for meticulous fittings was on full display. Suit jackets featured lapels turned inwards, double-pleated trousers offered a ballooned fit and velvet tunics sublimated the curves of their wearers. Elsewhere, a poppy print from the Givenchy archive mingled with leopard and silk jacquard. 

At the show, models wore silk T-shirts draped over their heads like 17th-century Flemish milkmaids. This touch of fantasy came from the mind of British milliner Stephen Jones. Sculptural jewellery made from wood and leather also brought an organic, sinuous feel to the collection, while elbow-length gloves pooled around wrists. It was the type of collection that could only come out of experience – the kind Burton boasts – as well as a confident demonstration of a craft honed over time.  
givenchy.com

He might have made his name as a real-estate player but Donald Trump has once again made some attendees nervous at Mipim, the world’s largest event for the sector. Last year they were cautiously readying themselves for his “Liberation Day” and its barrage of trade tariffs. This time everyone from hotel operators to investors are wondering how much the conflict with Iran will affect their businesses – and profits.

“A few weeks ago, preparing for Mipim, we were feeling upbeat: we could see some clarity in the direction of interest rates and debt,” says Anthony Duggan, chair of Knight Frank Europe, one of the world’s biggest independent real-estate consultancies. “But everything that has happened in recent days has just added an air of confusion into the market.”

This industry, however, is used to dealing with life’s ups and downs, economic cycles and even the occasional pandemic. It can sit out short market shocks and seek new opportunities. And Trump, along with his rupturing of the old US-Europe relationship, has had one positive impact.

“The German government has realised that it needs to step into the space created by the US moving away from Europe,” says Duggan. “It’s considering what that looks like from an infrastructure and investment perspective. Is Germany the future of automotive manufacturing? Maybe it isn’t,” he adds. “But some of those automotive sites are now being transformed into defence sites because the skill sets are the same. It has been coming. In the first quarter of this year, Germany will be the top destination for investment capital.”

There are many others at Mipim who are still looking at the world with a sunny (or sunny-ish) outlook. Felicity Black-Roberts, senior vice-president of development for Hyatt EAME, says that tourism oversaturation in places such as Barcelona and Amsterdam is making second and third-tier cities such as Seville increasingly popular with astute travellers. That’s where Hyatt is investing hard, with some 70 projects in the pipeline in her region.

Hubert Rhomberg, the fourth-generation director of his family’s Austrian property business, is excited about the potential of AI to transform development, predicting that drones will be able to record a site’s construction work in real time and detect anywhere that the project is going astray – in costs or time management.

But perhaps the biggest dreamer is Emin Agalarov, an Azerbaijani pop singer and developer who is overseeing the construction of Sea Breeze on the Caspian Sea. He describes the complex as the largest construction site in Europe, which is set to include a new F1 track, casino, luxury hotels and residences. With its gleaming towers, marina and man-made island, it looks as though it has taken inspiration from Dubai. “There’s no need to try to invent a bicycle,” says Agalarov. “My job as the master developer of this project is to find the best-case scenarios and adapt them to my market.” Indeed he’s also opening a ski-resort modelled on Badrutt’s Palace in St Moritz as part of his Mountain Breeze portfolio. 

At the end of the interview, we ask Agalarov to recommend one of his songs for us to listen to and he chooses a track that speaks to the long-term – perhaps a good Mipim anthem for 2026. “I have been building Sea Breeze for exactly 20 years and it has been the same amount of time since I released my first album. It’s called ‘Still’. [The song of the same name] is one of the best that I have ever written. Check it out.”

Monocle is at Mipim all week. We have a Monocle Radio booth at P-1, D51. Please visit the team if you are in town.

Andrew Tuck is Monocle’s editor in chief. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe today.

Monocle’s editorial director and chairman, Tyler Brûlé, interviews Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, at the Embassy of Canada to Japan in Tokyo. Carney outlines how investments into defence not only protect Canadians from growing threats in the Arctic but also benefit the country’s economy at large. Plus: how to cultivate the appeal of brand Canada.

Subscribers can get the full story here.

It’s a sunny March morning when Monocle’s editorial director and chairman, Tyler Brûlé, sits down with the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, at his country’s Tokyo embassy. Designed by Japanese-Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama and opened in 1991, the embassy and residence is one of Canada’s finest diplomatic missions and is a fitting setting for an interview focusing on Carney’s reset of his nation’s presence on the world stage. 

This is the final stop on a tour that has taken him to India and Australia, and comes less than two months after he made a widely lauded speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in which he spoke of the need for “middle powers” to work more closely together. It has been a decade since a Canadian prime minister has made a bilateral visit to Japan and Carney, who worked in Tokyo in the early 1990s for Goldman Sachs, spoke a few lines of Japanese during a speech in which he announced co-operation agreements in areas such as defence, trade and energy. He is the first world leader to visit Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, since her landslide election victory in February.

Carney tells us about that Davos speech, how to navigate the new world order, resetting relationships and more. During a 40-minute sit down, he does not once discuss the United States. Surprising? Read on.

Prime Minister, we’re two months on from Davos. How is the message getting through? How are you feeling?
I feel good about it because the message did get through – and more broadly than I would have anticipated. It’s the popular take-up of it. Whether it’s on the streets of Japan, Australia or Canada, a number of people will come up to me and will have heard the speech and agreed with the message. That tells me one thing: that people were already there; they had already figured it out themselves. It just hadn’t been expressed by someone like me – as usual, politicians being behind the people.

The second thing is that at the core of that speech, the pivot in the middle was towards a positive agenda. We face these challenges; integration is being weaponised. What do you do about it? Well, you find countries that share your values on specific issues, even if they don’t agree on everything. Then you build together. At the same time, you must recognise that you can’t be truly sovereign or independent just by yourself. If you pair up with somebody who will use that relationship against you, then, of course, you’re not truly sovereign or independent. Two months on, there has been a lot of engagement – like-minded nations in the Nordics on specific issues, for example. There’s a range of aspects to this: Arctic security, co-operation with what’s called the Nordic-Baltic Eight. We’ll be doing more with them under the broader umbrella of Nato; specifically, co-operation with Australia on critical minerals, for example, and a variety of other areas as well as defence. It’s about diversifying your partnerships at a time when the nature of defence is changing pretty rapidly. Crucially, what you do on defence can also help to build peacetime capabilities. Artificial intelligence and quantum computing are two of many examples. So there’s very intense engagement. Obviously, you need to prioritise and you need to execute.

How much does that need to be formalised, this notion of an M10 (middle 10)? Does it need a framework?
I don’t think so. And that’s not what we are pursuing. This is not “Middle powers of the world unite”, with a T-shirt. You won’t agree with everybody on everything or with the same intensity and prioritisation. The Coalition of the Willing, which is backstopping Ukraine, is quite broad. But it’s not everybody. And that’s different from who will come together on critical minerals, for example. And it’s different from what we are working on with the Australians and others, which is to bring together the CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership] and the EU as one connected trading bloc of one and a half billion people. It would be far and away the biggest trading bloc in the world. And that’s what you can do when you search for issues where you have common ground.

A last point, if I may, Tyler. One of the things that I think is necessary is speed. We’re in what we have called a “rupture”, a big shift in the way that the world operates. To use an old analogy, the kaleidoscope has been shaken. How will the pieces come together? Now is the time to be engaged, to put together a web of connections – a group of these coalitions that will help to improve the situation.

Here we are in Tokyo. From an Ottawa perspective, there’s a lot of looking across the Atlantic – but should there be a bigger focus across the Pacific?
Without question, there is now a bigger focus on them. It started with repairing relations that were deeply damaged. We needed to re-establish our engagement with China and India and we have accomplished that. 

There is a bigger overlap in terms of shared interests and values between two democracies in the case of Canada and India, of course, than there is with Canada and China. The Chinese understand that. It was an element of the early discussions I had with president Xi Jinping about where the guardrails are in this relationship, where would we develop, where would we not necessarily and where we would agree to disagree. And so we start there.

More broadly, there are a host of deep relationships. With South Korea, for example, the overlap between our two countries is enormous. The areas for our co-operation include everything from defence – we’re talking with them, alongside the Germans and the Norwegians, trying to decide on submarine perspectives – to space, satellite communications and critical minerals. They have some of the most important automotive companies in Canada and there are the cultural connections between roughly similar-sized economies: K-pop and, of course, the culture beyond it. South Korea is one of many examples. I’m going to throw out a few others, if I may. We’re negotiating a free-trade agreement with the Philippines. We have launched negotiations with Thailand. The Asean group of countries are in what we hope this year will be the final stages of that free-trade negotiation.

I’m coming here from Australia, where we have really stepped up our relationship. Canada and Australia have deep ties but it could be far deeper. That’s something that we, prime minister Anthony Albanese and I, and our cabinets have agreed on.

Our relationship with India is also deepening. And we have deep ties with Europe, deep institutional ties. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement [Ceta] is one example – the free-trade agreement with the EU. We’re taking that to another level through a broad strategic-partnership arrangement that is being negotiated. We are basically treated as a domestic producer, as part of the European defence-procurement process. So all of that is there. I think that you can sense, maybe from my list, the importance of this region in relative terms.

Let’s talk about Japan within all of this.
Japan is one of Canada’s biggest foreign investors. The auto sector is a great place to start: 70 per cent of the vehicles produced in Canada are by Japanese companies. We provide 10 per cent of the calories to Japan in terms of our food and agrifood but at both levels, we have CA$40bn [€25.6bn] worth of two-way trade every year. There is a huge opportunity for that to deepen across these strategic sectors.

Even defence?
Yes. In fact, what we have with this visit is a deepening in defence co-operation, information sharing, joint exercises – those elements. Canada is the second most present of the G7 in defence. It’s not quite 365 days a year but it’s pretty close in terms of maritime exercises, air exercises and the physical presence of troops because the security of the Indo-Pacific is fundamental. We’re a Pacific nation and Japan is one of our deepest allies here. And so, the co-operation is there. I expect it to continue to build. Related to that, we’re both increasing our defence spend. 

To put some numbers to it, over the next decade, Canada will invest about CA$500bn [€319bn]. It’s a huge number. A significant proportion of that, as you would expect, is in defence – submarines, aircraft, drones and materiel that are necessary, particularly to protect the Arctic, which is where the threats are rising. But just as much, if not more, is spent on what is called “dual use”. Think new ports, AI, quantum computing – all of which are necessary to move forward. Some of the developments on the resource side are directly tied to the military side but have broader economic benefits for the country.

How do you make joining the Canadian  forces attractive?
Obviously, salaries are important. Let me give you an example of our shift in focus. Since June, when we began to put in place our new defence strategy, recruitment has gone up 13 per cent. People want to join the Canadian forces because they know that they will be well-resourced. They believe in the mission of protecting Canadians and the combination of those two things attracts the best and brightest women and men. 

But what does well-resourced mean in the Canadian forces? What does it mean in the media? What does it mean in government? It will increasingly mean that you are technologically empowered, that you’re using unmanned systems, machine learning, AI, robots and other things, so that you’re doing the higher-value add, the more interesting parts of your job. The key is to build the skills to get the most out of that and this will be the case with the forces. And it’s part of the reason, Tyler, why that scale of spend is necessary to ensure that we are protecting Canadians. That’s our job with the forces.

Big change in the world necessitates a big response. As technology is changing, I would rather have it in that order, all coming together, because it means that we’re not locked into old systems and we’re just pouring money into tanks, because that’s what we did in the Second World War. It made sense then but it doesn’t make sense now. 

And just remind our readers: what is that CA$500bn in GDP terms?
Right now, it’s about a sixth of our GDP – 16 per cent or so. But this is half a trillion spread over a decade. So, it’s 1.6 per cent – that is the full multiplier. We have got our defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP this year. So we have reached our Nato commitment. 

Is it morally important?
It’s important, first and foremost, to protect Canadians. When we came into government, we were in a situation where our ships and planes were functioning less than 50 per cent of the time. You can’t have that. You never get them to 100 per cent because you want to constantly be retooling them and repairing them but we didn’t have enough basic equipment, including ammunition for troops. We weren’t paying our women and men properly.

The basics had to be done. Almost in and of itself, righting that started to move us towards that 2 per cent. But then, on top of that, we have much bigger threats – and this is the downside of technological change – from interballistic and hypersonic missiles. So one of the things that we were doing in Australia, one of the first decisions we took as a government, was to start to build what is called an over-the-horizon radar system. The Australians are world leaders in this. Basically, what it means for Canadians is that we will have a system that can see over the North Pole before missiles and hypersonic missiles come in. The fact that we can defend ourselves against that makes it less likely to happen. Now those are big systems; the first phase of that costs more than CA$6bn [€3.8bn].

First and foremost, our job is to protect Canadians. It is also important to support our allies in the defence of freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity. That is what being a member of Nato means. And the need to do that with a more aggressive Russia, with persistent state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and with the risks of nuclear proliferation means that we need to do more collectively.

If I can make two points, one is this: what we and our Nordic partners have been arguing is that Nato needs to spend more time on its western flank, meaning the Arctic. We have to spend money to defend Canadians and defend the Canadian Arctic. Even a few years ago, that would have been totally discounted by Nato, which was fixated on the eastern front. Risks come more broadly and [Canada’s] Article 5 and other obligations extend there. 

And then the other point that I want to make concerns the commitments for Nato. The new commitments go beyond 2 per cent, so we’ll continue to build. We’re not going to spend more money than we need to in order to protect ourselves but we can see that this would be consistent with further increasing the defence spend and that’s what we’re planning to do. That’s where that CA$500bn [€320bn] comes from. But at the same time, under Nato commitments, there is something called the Defence Industrial Pledge. What that means is you should spend about 1.5 per cent of GDP on your resilience. That can mean your ports, your AI systems, cyber defences – those aspects. 

Canada is one of the world’s leaders in cyber. One of the important agreements that we struck yesterday with Japan is about further cyber co-operation. We need to continue to invest in that. Quantum computing is very relevant to the future of cyber protection and information protection, so we will invest heavily in that. Canada will continue to have a lead and we’re going to build those industries as a consequence. 

I’m curious about presence. You have been out on the road. We’re at this amazing mission here. How does Canada show up? It’s great that you’re flying around but how do you sustain this?
The first thing is engagement in the run-up to my arrival. Let me take the example of India. We had five ministers who had a series of meetings since the time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and I met at the G7 last June, which was when we restarted the relationship. We had five separate ministerial meetings with Canadians going to India. There was some reciprocation with Indian ministers coming to Canada and that’s apart from meeting on the sidelines of Apec and elsewhere. So that begins to establish the groundwork and the engagement. There has been more engagement in the past year than in the previous 20 years put together.

The next thing is to ensure that our stakeholders are engaged. So, again, in India, our business groups have now reformed and are re-energised. So you get that cross-pollination. Importantly, we had two sets of visits from our universities. We had 20 show up and there was a series of partnerships being struck with Indian universities. When I was there last week, another four of our top universities showed up again, reinforcing these partnership scholarships. You have to establish these connections at multiple levels and have very clear deliverables and timetables. In the example of India, Prime Minister Modi and I have set the deadline of the end of this year to complete the cepa [comprehensive economic partnership agreement] between the two of us. It’s hard to overstate the importance of people-to-people cultural ties and getting that going too.

What about the importance of proper embassies and having proper representation? A lot of people have said that Canada became ‘Canada by Marriott’ for a while: ‘Let’s meet the ambassador at the hotel because the embassy is not so great.’
I’ll give you an example about this embassy. I was visiting when I was a central bank governor in 2010 or 2011; it was a G7 or G20 in Tokyo. And the emperor and the empress were planning to go to Canada. Prior to their visit, they were coming to visit the ambassador but his hospitality budget had run out in the first three months. The ambassador at the time wasn’t flamboyant; the budget was just so small. But he was going to host the emperor of Japan! So, I was helping them with our funds so that they could buy some tea and so on.

That is a false economy so there has been a reset. You have to be prudent because it’s taxpayers’ money but you also have to be effective. 

And let me give you another example from the past 24 hours. Last night was the eve of Prime Minister Takaichi’s birthday. So, with the embassy, we arranged for a Canadian cake, which featured elements of the country. Yes, it had some maple but it had Canadian strawberries too – it was a unique concoction. And it had a beautiful sakura with a maple leaf in the middle of it. I thought that it was beautiful. And to her surprise, we presented this cake. These things matter. It matters that you remember somebody’s birthday, that the connection has something to do with both countries. It’s an element of diplomacy but I put it deeper than that. It’s friendship, right? 

From a brand perspective, what would you like to reset about Canada’s image? What needs fixing? 
“Canada Strong” – that’s our brand. We are a strong, confident, ambitious country. We’re taking control of our destiny. We are known not just for the strength of our values but the value of our strength. There is an understanding that we are in control of our destiny, that we have big ambitions. We’re building – and we’ll build with partners. 

The other element of the Canadian character is that we’re generous people. We care about the vulnerable and support them, and we’re reliable in a world that’s anything but. When I was proposed as the governor of the Bank of England, [the British prime minister at the time] David Cameron told me that when he went to see the Queen [Elizabeth II] to inform her that one of her subjects, albeit from a different country, would be governor, she said, “Oh good, a Canadian. They’re very reliable.” It had nothing to do with me. It was the reputation of the country. 

So, on Canada Strong, I’m curious. We’re in this time of specific interests – everybody has their own week, their own month, because they represent a community. Does Canada need to come together more as a nation?
The nation is very much united. We’re united not because of blood, soil, specific ethnicity or religion. In fact, it’s very much the contrary. We’re a country that recognises differences, celebrates those differences and has allowed a diverse public square. We don’t seek unity in uniformity. That diversity is a fundamental strength of Canada. It’s something that has been built gradually. You think of our history: it was two cultures ignoring the Indigenous culture that was there and, over time, that structure became more formal, then became multiculturalism.

Now we’re really in this process of reconciliation but it’s with a common set of values, with responsibilities to each other alongside the rights of individuals. Our civic nationalism – because that’s what it is – is very strong. I don’t want to say that it’s unique because others are moving in that direction but it’s relatively rare in this world.

A country is built on great infrastructure. What’s happening right now in terms of connectivity?
A lot needs investing in. Let me take rail. We are building, finally. In Europe, certainly during my whole adult life, high-speed rail has been discussed. We are one of the pioneers of the technology. For a while, we were one of the largest builders, just not in Canada. We have now started the process for establishing high-speed rail from Québec City all the way through to Windsor. When we came into government, we chopped four years off the timeline for that process. So that’s tremendously exciting – that is core connectivity, not just for the big urban centres but a series of the rural areas in between. 

We flagged in our most recent budget that we’ll look for strategic options for airports. That will require additional capital. As we go around the world, we hear a lot from airport operators about what they could help to do with our major airports and serve Canadians better and get better value for money.

We’re also talking people-to-people connectivity. One of the crucial things is that we have what the world wants. We need to build out some new ports. Some will be in the Arctic. Some will be dual use with the military and some will be expansion of our existing ports. And for connectivity, we need to build from where the product or the commodity is being developed, to those ports with strategic trade corridors. You have seen components of that and we’re about to see a lot more over the next year.

Are enough people coming to Canada? Is Canada attractive from an education point of view but also for a long weekend? 
From an education point of view, four times as many Indians study in Canada compared to the UK and twice as many as in the US. We have a lot of people coming to Canada to study. In fact, and not surprisingly, on most metrics, we have the most educated population in the world. But we only have so much capacity, so one of the things that we need to do – and are beginning to do – is have satellite campuses and better hybrid connectivity.

As for people coming for a long weekend: every country that I go to wants more flights into Canada, whether it’s in the Gulf, Asia or elsewhere. We’re starting a process of granting those requests more quickly. Obviously, that will lead to follow-on in terms of tourism and hospitality. I will take this opportunity to reinforce that we are co-hosts of the Fifa World Cup in June and we look forward to welcoming the world to Canada.

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