escape
The f lamboyance of fashion seems an obvious bedfellow for the hotel trade – the drama, colour and f lair of the cat walk transposed into restaurants, bars and bedrooms. As more fashion-world names open destination stays across the world, we delve into their finer couture details
‘When I went to Parsons School of Design in New York in the late 1970s, I thought I was just going to be a lovely fashion student, have lots of fun and go to parties, but it was the most exacting course,’ remembers the British designer Jasper Conran. Learning the intricacy of couture methods – ‘how to pull the threads on the fabric, how to cut on the bias, how to do tiny, tiny little hand stitches,’ he recalls – taught Conran ‘to delve into the detail of things, right down into the minutiae of it’. It’s this intricate focus, the obsessive way afashion designer might fixate on the imperceptible importance of where a button sits or the way a swathe of fabric falls, that helps them bring the hotel experience to life in unique and intriguing ways. Take the LVMH-owned Cheval Blanc in Paris, for example. Designed by architect Peter Marino (a fashion-world favourite, having designed stores for Armani, Fendi, Chanel, Dior et al) it’s a paean to the luxurious stealth of tonal neutrals interjected with punches of colour from contemporary art and African textiles. Christian Louboutin’s Portuguese hotel Vermelho, meanwhile, oozes the same jewelled richness, sensuality, irreverence and craftsmanship as his shoes and handbags. Here, we speak to the maestros behind the continued rise of the fashion-founded hotel.
Drei Berge, Switzerland
After 10 years of spending at least 200 nights of the year away from home for work, ‘little by little, you start to know what you want from a hotel,’ says the fashion disruptor-turned-creative polymath and now hotelier Ramdane Touhami. So when it came to creating Drei Berge, a 19-room hotel in the high-altitude Swiss village of Mürren, Touhami knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Out went all the annoying details of a corporate hotel – ‘that make me totally mad’ – and in came everything with ‘a feeling of home,’ he says. ‘I wanted a super bed, amazingly soft embroidered sheets and towels, a very good breakfast. I love the idea that you go simply for the hotel because you know you’re going to spend a few days eating well, having fun and reading good books in the library,’ he grins. As a passionate hiker, Touhami was drawn to Mürren, 1,650 metres above sea level and only reached by cable car, for its location nestled on a cliffside, overlooking breathtaking Unescoprotected valleys and the magnificent Jungfrau, Eiger and Mönch peaks. ‘I had been all over the country, looking for 10 years, visiting so many hotels,’ he explains. Here, says Touhami, ‘the air is clear. The water is pure. There
