What is an expat?” muses Sara Hamdan, editor, author, US transplant, UAE success story. “When I think of an expat, to me it means there is someplace else you could go home to – in my case, I don’t know if I have that. I lived in Greece, but I’m not Greek; I’m an American citizen, but I never built a life there. I don’t think of myself as an expat because I don’t have that other option. The UAE truly is home,” she concludes. 

The question, posed in turn to British fashion magazine editor-turned-sportswear-brand-co-founder Louise Nichol and Swedish media entrepreneur Nina Zandnia elicits similar responses. 

“I don’t think of myself as an expat. I just think, we live here and this is home.” says Nichol. “I never felt as if I was an expat,” adds Zandnia. “I am just from Dubai – I am part of here and it is a part of me. There’s nowhere else.”

For these women, labels have become meaningless – the applying, not the wearing of them – and just as the epicentres of their lives have shifted throughout their decades-long tenures in the UAE, so too have their perspectives. 

Over the years, careers have been forged, husbands met, children had, books published, and new businesses launched – life-defining moments that have become part of the wider story of the nation itself.

“The discos were fun, it was cheesy, and nothing was cool, and I mean that as a compliment,” says Nichol, talking of the Dubai of 2005, when she first arrived. “The feeling was very much like going to university but with a bit of spare cash. I remember, I really wanted a Cartier Tank Française and I was suddenly able to afford it. I was living in a flat share in Bur Dubai, but I had a Cartier watch!”

Zandnia has similar memories of her arrival in 2006. “We were out every night! I ask myself, how could I have a job and still be out every single night?” she laughs. “I still believe nobody had as much fun as us back then.” 

The UAE seems to shift forward seven years for the rest of the world’s one. And when a country evolves so fast, nostalgia can mean reflecting on a memory from 10 months or 10 years ago. “I feel like I grew up with the city,” says Hamdan. “I came here before the Mall of the Emirates, Atlantis, and Burj Khalifa were built – all of these landmarks that we know so well.” 

“The cool place to hang out was City Centre at Deira,” she remembers. For Nichol? “Being in fashion, Burjuman was my centre of gravity.”

As a young nation so firmly in the now, the UAE quickly infuses all who come here with the knack of being present while looking to the future. “You see that vision of ‘build it and they will come’ happening over and over again,” says Nichol. “That keeps replicating and coming true – it’s really inspiring.”

Hamdan agrees, continuing the thought. “There’s a sense of discoverability I find really exciting – a real buzz and energy,” she says. “That feeds a lot of my lifestyle, but there are also these beautiful pockets of quiet.” 

Has anything stayed the same? She smiles. “Traffic was crazy and still is – that’s been the one consistency.”

Multiculturalism, both the embracing and appreciation of, is key to the women’s enjoyment of the full and successful lives they have built in the Emirates.“What hooked me was meeting other Arabs like myself who had found a surrogate home here,” Hamdan says of her arrival in the country when she was 21. “There’d be people from Lebanon or Syrians from Germany.” 

“I found my tribe and that felt really nice,” she shares. “I never felt like I had a proper home until I came here and, because I come from an Arab and Western background, I found all these hybrids like me.”

For Zandnia, lifelong friendships were instantaneous. “The second day I was in Dubai, I got introduced to members of the royal family,” she says. “The women took me in as their best friend, and till today, they are like my family – we have been through everything together.”

All three women pay tribute to the UAE’s visionary leadership, and its promotion of diversity that feels neither contrived nor forced, but rather a natural foundation upon which a modern society thrives.

“I get goosebumps when I talk about it, because of what I have seen this nation accomplish,” Zandnia reveals. “It’s a country that’s built by vision, respect and tolerance. His Highness has made this country the safest in the whole world for families. I would never live anywhere else.”

“I feel like the UAE teaches you to have ambition and to dream big,” adds Hamdan. “There’s an infectious energy to do well and a sense of ambition – a true sense that you can do what you want and to go big. I find this place deeply soulful, a reflection of where you are in your own life.”

Befitting half a lifetime spent in the centre of now, personal highlights from the women’s years in the UAE range from the luxuriously sublime to the ridiculous. “I spent my 30^th birthday dressed as Super Girl at Chi at The Lodge,” recalls Nichol. “Oh, and there are photos of me playing chess with Justin Timberlake at the top of Atlantis.” 

She laughs, as if to say, y’know, Dubai stuff. And, whether you’ve been here 20 years or 20 minutes, you get it. After all, in a place where anything can happen, eventually, it usually does.