The Americans – one in black-rimmed glasses and bow tie, the other tie-less with a smooth pate – were dazzled, and who could blame them?

You would have had to be a pillar of stone not to notice the raven-haired woman sitting across from them as our minibus inched its way back from dinner at Nobu to Dubai’s newest hotel next door. With sequined eye makeup and a tumbling gold necklace setting off her golden bustier gown (from the Lebanese couture house Georges Hobeika), she was shimmeringly beautiful.