5 of the best Paris Fashion Week hotels
This week, Paris will fill to bursting point with the international fashion pack – take in the stylish sights at these five glamorous hotspots
LE BRISTOL PARIS
The palatial Le Bristol on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré has long been top of most editors’ favorite stays. For the most stylish pick-me-up between shows, try the fabulous ritual of a Russian banya at the hotel’s rooftop spa; a somewhat transformative experience that combines birch-twig beatings with plunges into icy water. Afterwards, enjoy the perfect vodka martini in the restaurant Epicure, where the attention to detail is legendary – just like its five-times Michelin-starred chef Éric Fréchon, whose potato mousseline and caviar is worth the trip alone. Delilah Khomo
HÔTEL LUTETIA
Guest roll calls surely don’t get more illustrious than the Hotel Lutetia’s: Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Serge Gainsbourg and Josephine Baker have all checked into this seven-storey Left Bank spot, once owned by the Tattinger champagne family. Both Matisse and Picasso even called it home for a while, and James Joyce wrote part of Ulysses here. Having undergone a four-year, $234m refurbishment – now featuring penthouse suites with 360º panoramas of Paris, restored 1910 frescoes, a brasserie run by Michelin-star chef Gérald Passédat and a huge holistic wellness center – it continues to attract the glitterati, including David Lynch, Catherine Deneuve and Brad Pitt. Natalie Evans-Harding
LA RÉSERVE PARIS
With its extraordinary levels of service and discretion, this 19th-century mansion (formerly belonging to Napoleon III’s half-brother and then Pierre Cardin) operates almost like a private members’ club, conjuring all the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie. Built around a charming courtyard garden, La Pagode de Cos offers simple seasonal menus created by Michelin chef Jérôme Banctel, while the south-facing terraces of Le Gabriel offer elegant yet relaxed white-linen-table dining. The spa is the secret trump card, where guests can take a dip in the swimming pool behind drawn curtains. Catherine Fairweather
HÔTEL PROVIDENCE
Opulent, elegant and irreverent – no, we’re not describing the runways at PFW, but Hôtel Providence, a boutique pied-à-terre in haute hipster ’hood Le Marais. Created by Pierre Moussié, the founder of fashion-favorite restaurant Brasserie Barbés, the rooms are a riot of retro palm-tree prints offset with ’70s-style sofas and drinks trolleys. This is the spot in which to hole up with a quiet glass of champagne and avoid the masses – preferably in one of the in-room free-standing bathtubs. Olive Wakefield
L’HÔTEL
There’s something wonderfully wanton about the Left Bank’s L’Hotel, a former pavillon d'amour (for titillating tête-à-têtes) where Oscar Wilde lived out his last days “above his means”, now where the fashion week crowd go to let their hair down. There’s a Michelin-starred restaurant serving hearty Gallic fare (the duck with fig leaves and Loire Valley eel in chive butter is a highlight) plus the lure of the boudoirs upstairs, bedecked in velvet chinoiserie. Even during the glamour of fashion week, it doesn’t get much more decadent than this. Olive Wakefield