Miami: the Capital of Latin America

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Miami has already become a chic hangout for the international set. Foreign photographers have turned Miami into the third busiest fashion spot, after Paris and New York. Italian designer Gianni Versace became so enamored during a brief stopover that he is spending millions to renovate a $2.95 million villa on touristy Ocean Drive in South Beach. "It was really love at first sight," he says. At the dinner hour one evening, Maguy Le Coze, co-owner of Miami's chic Brasserie Le Coze, was recounting tales of European friends who are investing in Miami, including a jet-set residential club on South Beach. "I don't know if the Americans believe in Miami," muses the French-born Maguy, "but the foreigners do. By the time the Americans wake up, perhaps it will be too late." Multiethnic Miami, tomorrow's business capital of the Americas, may well have the last laugh on its doubters.