Designer Hotels

Fashionably hospitable

Hotels are a lifestyle product with an identity of their own. Some, however, are truly designer. By Neeti Mehra

This is a story of a brand. A super luxe brand. A brand possessed by the elite and coveted by multitudes, usually found walking down hallowed catwalks in Paris and Milan. This brand has grown beyond its domain of pure fashion. The name wields power and exerts influence, beyond the designer form.

It has waltzed from the catwalk and pirouetted into hospitality, and how - not in the luxe retail section of the hotel, but right through the latter's veins, making the hotel its own with its logo and stamp. Temperamental designers have substituted sashaying down the catwalk with supermodels to doodling designs for architects. The result is superlative - a hotel that reflects their design philosophy and style. It thrives and throbs with a life of its own.

Having taken this quantum leap, designer hotels do have their place in the design-heavy sun. They are multifaceted as compared to designer togs. Designer hotels have a longer shelf life than the former. In some cases, the experience is more accessible. They enable a captive and a loyal audience to extend their brand preference. After all, it is the same brand you wear, whose toiletries you use, and whose sheets adorn your four-poster bed. A traveller would be attracted to its inherent service philosophy and style. It's about creating an experience which would lure in the moneyed classes, be it old or nouveau.

Today, the choices facing the customer in brands are innumerable. With a hotel in the fray, the designer can create one more area to build brand loyalty, or better yet convert its casual fashion clientele into a regular through the love of this hotel and lure them to the designer's core business - fashion. It's an attempt to break through the logjam of logos. By leveraging their brand equity globally through partnerships, couturiers highlight their USP to create new worlds of reach beyond their own.

And it is true - travel scales the peak as the ultimate lifestyle experience provider. Serge Dive, executive director of Asia Luxury Travel Mart, giving a presentation to its elite audience at the mart last year, pointed out that travel is best equipped to export lifestyle values since it is a journey of self-discovery. Dive also pointed out that travel is the only luxury purchase that cannot be produced cheaply - it is the ultimate lifestyle product. It is all about 'you are where you stay'.

But the question to address is the one which shakes the foundation of a brand architect: will such a proposition dilute a brand, or will it strengthen its foundations stronger than titanium?

The Versace brand

Donatella Versace, sister of the iconic designer late Gianni Versace, took over the creative side of the couture business after he was slain. The brand, synonymous with the Grecian Medusa, has scaled the aspiration levels of every fashionista. In 2000, Palazzo Versace threw its doors open to guests. Described as a multi-faceted brand, it combined culture and heritage with innovation and creation.

Located at Gold Cost in Queensland, Australia, one can see the coast stretching from one end of the horizon to the other from the hotel, a fitting tribute to the designer who lived in Miami, Florida. An avant-garde hotel concept, the Palazzo is reminiscent of opulent European Palaces and classical Roman architecture, splashed with glitzy décor and an ambience created by Versace.

The entire hotel screams of the Versace brand. The hotel's foyer is a blend of marble and mosaic, touched with Italian craftsmanship. The lobby is encased in glass from the floor to the ceiling. The rooms have Versace furniture, linen and bath products. In the restaurants, every morsel brought to the table is on Versace crockery and cutlery. It claims to have the second largest pebble mosaic outside of Parliament House in Rome, created by five Italian master tilers using hand-picked pebbles from their local regions, taking nearly six weeks to complete.

The walkways of the halls are perhaps closest to the Versace core. They have framed photographs of past collections with models gazing at passersby under their luminescent eyes. Gianni's brother, Santo Versace, who had taken the reins of managing the business, said of the hotel, "Everywhere the eye looks, it must see a feature." Features throughout the hotel are mirror-imaged on the floor and ceilings. There is no escape and no respite. Versace is all over. To feed a shopping frenzy, there is the Versace boutique. Could there ever have been a better branding?

Starwood Capital group

While to some designers, hotels are a one-off indulgence, to some it's the birth of chain. Starwood Capital Group, Barry Sternlicht's international real estate investment and development firm, whose portfolio includes brands such as Crillon and 1 Hotels & Resorts, announced earlier this year the Baccarat Hotels & Resorts, a five-star luxury hotel brand. Baccarat, established way back in 1764, is an inimitable creator of handcrafted crystal. Incidentally, Starwood Capital Group's controlled affiliate owns 86 per cent of Baccarat shares. The synergies of this alliance are evident. Each Baccarat Hotel will be intricately detailed, à la Baccarat style. Refined, aesthetic and luxury would be its hallmark. It would also feature the brand's signature Baccarat chandeliers. The first Baccarat Hotel will open in 2010 and will consist of condominium homes in Wailea, Hawaii followed by properties in the Caribbean, Europe and the Far East.

Sternlicht said at the time of making these announcements that these hotels would serve as living innovation labs for the Baccarat brand as it brings the parent company into today's fashion and design world. An interesting proposition indeed. For Baccarat, the fact that they would be supported by a brand, which would uphold its luxe standards with impeccable services was important. Marc Leclerc, managing director of Baccarat, said that the group looked forward to creating a new luxury-living experience for sophisticated travellers.

What are the compelling reasons for such brand associations? Firstly, the scale of the project and the associated hoopla which will attract scores of more people. Plus, it is unlikely to go out of fashion as fast as the season's collection threatens too. It is a natural brand diversification too from the luxury end, as most designers of scale do have collections that can fit to a T in a home. So why not a hotel which is to their specifications?

Giorgio Armani

In 2005, Giorgio Armani inked a deal with Dubai-based Emaar Group for the development of Armani Hotels & Resorts. The work is clear-cut. While Emaar will be responsible for real estate, construction, management and operations, Armani will oversee all aspects of content, design and style, including interiors and amenities, incorporating the various Armani fashion, furnishings and beauty collections.

Managing the brand will be Emaar's hospitality wing, Emaar Hotels & Resorts and a separate management company exclusively dedicated to the management. The plans are ambitious. In 10 years, they plan to build at least seven luxury hotels and three vacation resorts, with the development company investing over US$ 1 billion. The first hotel will open early this year in Burj Dubai, slated to be the world's tallest residential and commercial building.

Armani, at the time of signing, said that this marked the beginning of a new chapter in the Armani story. It was its thirtieth anniversary, and the time to innovate. This enabled the designer to bring his philosophy of style and design to a collection of hotels and resorts. "Today, more than ever, fashion has expanded to encompass our way of life, not just how we dress, but where we live, which restaurants we eat at, which car we drive, where we go on holidays and which hotels we stay in. I strongly believe that for those who enjoy Armani fashion and home furnishings collections, there will be a real enthusiasm for the possibility to now stay at an Armani hotel or a resort."

He concluded, "This continues our ongoing strategy of building the Armani universe into a comprehensive lifestyle brand." As the line between hotels and lifestyle blurs, it narrows the separation of the two. Brand management is a delicate exercise. It's about creating an aspiration value and then upholding it on its pedestal. It's about building a connect with valuable customers and keeping that emotional bond intact across various extensions. It's the decade of luxurious decadence. It's about wielding power and harnessing it and extending it to the customer. Only now it's moved beyond clothes and linen to hotels.