What do you get when you put the names Aman, designer Jean-Michel Gathy, landscape genius Thomas Heatherwick (he of New York’s High Line), and Argentinian-American skyscraper architect César Pelli into the proverbial magician’s hat? The answer is Janu Tokyo, Aman’s trendy new brand that opens in March 2024 as the only hotel in Mori Building’s new Azabudai Hills village.

Janu’s pillars, says Vlad Doronin, are connection, exploration, and inspiration, which all indicate more customer interaction than at an Aman (it’s possible to stay at an Aman—say, Aman Tokyo, atop the 38-floor Otemachi Tower—and barely see any other guests, let alone chat to them).

By contrast, the 122-room Janu Tokyo anticipates networking, with a communal lounge pool as part of its considerable wellness facilities, which will have a members’ club offering programming and a members-only lounge. There’s also plenty of opportunity for socialising in the signature Janu Suite which, depending on the number of bedrooms required, can expand, as if by magic, from 284 square metres to 519 square metres.

Seoul is emerging as a vibrant arts hub, says Francis Belin, president of Christie’s Asia-Pacific. One reason could be South Korea’s lack of import tax on art; another is the fact that real estate is so expensive that art offers alternative investment. Add to this influencer pressure: Kim Nam-joon, 29, better known as RM of BTS, is probably the best-known K-pop star who is seriously into collecting. Apparently, RM was bored in his Chicago hotel room during a BTS tour, popped into the Chicago Museum of Art, and had a eureka moment. He has since been actively buying works by such key names as Japanese legend Takashi Murakami. His Korean pieces feature Joung Young-ju and Lee Seung-hyun. Showing how social media is so interlinked with contemporary art, those whose works are bought by RM then typically thank him on X, increasing their standing.

There’s certainly always something to pique art lovers’ interests in the Korean capital. There’s currently, until mid-February 2024, an avant-garde exhibition of works by 87-year-old Kim Kulim, and followers are already looking forward to the next edition of Frieze Seoul, taking place from 4 to 7 September 2024.

From art to fashion, the big dress houses seem determined to outdo competitors on the entertaining side to get awareness of a label. Judging by Louis Vuitton’s presentation on 30 November 2023, the showcases will be spectacular. That evening was organised by Adrian Cheng’s K11 Group. Avenue of the Stars turned into a catwalk as male models, who included Hawaiian surfers, strutted along as if in Waikiki rather than sophisticated Victoria Harbour. Louis Vuitton’s menswear creative director, the singer-entrepreneur Pharrell Williams, looking like an extra from Guys and Dolls in sailor hat and loose-flared trousers, had dressed his models in a hotchpotch of unusual items—tropical floral prints here, marine shows there. (There is a hyper focus on dandy, Williams admitted to a CNN writer.)

The Cheng family also owns Rosewood Hong Kong, adjacent to the K11 Musea mall. Perhaps the more avant-garde visitors there might roll up to Rosewood in Williams-fashionable surfing gear but don’t necessarily believe what you purportedly see. This is the hotel that also, at times, employs metahumans, three-dimensional avatars designed and programmed by Gusto’s brilliant mastermind Aaron Lau.