NOMAD Abu Dhabi has recently announced its return: the second edition of the travelling design fair will take place from November 18 to 22, 2026, once again inside Terminal 1 of the Old Abu Dhabi Airport.

NOMAD first arrived in Abu Dhabi last year, taking over a terminal that had welcomed passengers for more than four decades before closing in 2023. But instead of trying to hide the building’s former life, the fair used it as part of the experience. Visitors entered through the old check-in area, received boarding passes and walked past departure gates that had been transformed into exhibition spaces.

Waiting areas were suddenly filled with collectable design. Artworks appeared beneath the terminal’s vast mosaic-covered dome. The corridors still looked as though they might lead to a flight, except now there were no suitcases, no security queues, and no one anxiously checking the departure board.

For many visitors, especially those who had travelled through Terminal 1 before, the experience came with a strange feeling of recognition. The building was familiar, but its rhythm had completely changed. A place designed to move people through as quickly as possible was suddenly asking them to slow down.

Which brings us to the obvious question: why do airports work so well as spaces for art and fashion?

On paper, the combination seems slightly odd. Airports are practical places. They are built around schedules, instructions and movement. You arrive, check in, find your gate and leave. Ideally, you do not spend any more time there than necessary.

An art fair or fashion show asks for the exact opposite. You are supposed to stay, pay attention and look at things properly. But perhaps that contrast is precisely what makes airports so appealing.

They are already highly choreographed environments. Corridors guide you in a particular direction. Signs tell you where to look. Gates divide one part of the journey from another. Even without a performance, there is a certain drama to walking through an airport: the waiting, the anticipation, the feeling that something is about to happen.

Airports also carry more emotions than their neutral interiors might suggest. They are places of arrivals and departures, rushed goodbyes, long-awaited reunions and flights that may take someone somewhere entirely new. Even an airport that is no longer in use still holds onto that feeling.

For designers and artists, it is almost an ideal ready-made stage. And, of course, NOMAD was not the first to see its potential. Long before Terminal 1 became a design fair, fashion houses had already turned terminals, hangars and runways into settings for some of their most memorable shows. So, who got there before them?

In 2019, Louis Vuitton presented its Cruise 2020 collection at the TWA Flight Centre at New York’s JFK Airport.

The venue already looked like something Nicolas Ghesquière might have commissioned specifically for the show. Designed by Eero Saarinen and opened in 1962, the terminal is made up of dramatic white curves, sweeping staircases and long corridors that seem permanently ready for take-off.

For decades, it represented the fantasy of the jet age — a time when flying was still associated with glamour, optimism and beautifully dressed travellers carrying suspiciously small amounts of luggage.

By the time Louis Vuitton arrived, the terminal had been closed for years and was preparing to reopen as part of the TWA Hotel. For one evening, however, it returned to its original role as a gateway to somewhere else — only this time, the destination was a fashion show.

Models moved through its curved passageways and sunken lounges while guests sat beneath old flight-information boards. The collection mixed futuristic details with references to New York’s past: sharp silhouettes, glittering surfaces, exaggerated prints and handbags fitted with working digital screens.

The location did most of the storytelling before the first look had even appeared.

It also made sense for a Cruise collection, a category historically designed for clients travelling somewhere warm between seasons. Instead of building an imaginary world around the idea of travel, Louis Vuitton simply went to one of the most iconic travel spaces ever created.

A year earlier, Giorgio Armani had approached the airport theme much more directly.

For the Emporio Armani Spring/Summer 2019 show, around 2,300 guests were invited to a working hangar at Milan’s Linate Airport. The event was called Emporio Armani Boarding.

Guests reportedly passed through airport-style security before entering the hangar. Inside, they found a huge runway, a combined menswear and womenswear show and, later in the evening, a live performance by Robbie Williams.

Linate was not a random choice. Since 1996, the hangar had carried the enormous Emporio Armani name and its eagle logo, greeting passengers as they arrived in Milan and seeing them off as they left.

For its Spring/Summer 2022 show, Hermès invited guests to a hangar at Le Bourget Airport outside Paris.

At first, the airport itself was hidden. The audience sat inside a circular structure surrounded by warm bronze-coloured panels, while models walked around the space in soft leather, fitted dresses and fluid trousers. Robotic cameras moved above them, capturing the collection from multiple angles.

The setting felt controlled, intimate and almost sealed off from the outside world. Then the panels opened.

Behind the models was the real airport runway. As the finale began, an aeroplane appeared and landed directly in front of the audience.

It was a carefully planned spectacle, of course, but it also carried a particular weight at the time. The show took place in October 2021, when international travel was only beginning to feel possible again after long periods of restrictions and cancelled plans.

Suddenly, the plane was more than an impressive backdrop. It represented movement returning, the possibility of departure, the idea that the world might finally be opening again.