8 of the best fashion hotels
Join the fashion glitterati and indulge in the high life at these glamorous city hotspots
Soho Warehouse, LA
In LA – as in fashion cities Milan, Paris and London – the fashion set and movie moguls tend to circulate season after season around the same watering holes, with familiar maître d’s and a glamorous clientele. This explains the continuing popularity of the Soho House brand, especially the group’s Little Beach House in Malibu, which has a new city-center clubhouse hotel in the burgeoning, achingly cool Downtown area of LA, close to art-gallery and restaurant hotspot Hauser & Wirth. It is the first actual ‘hotel’ from the Soho House stable on the west coast. Set in an 80,000 square-foot former 1917 warehouse, with 48 bedrooms, it once served as a musician’s rehearsal space. The interior design channels this gritty industrial heritage, with exposed pipes, open ceilings and graffiti-splashed brick walls. There is the signature rooftop pool, of course, plus both a members’ and a garden restaurant – which is a rarity in the neighborhood. The Soho Active gym, which is as much a brand fixture as the rooftop pool, draws bodies beautiful, while the Soho Works, a co-working space in the city that practically invented hot-desking, looks set to become a veritable community hub. sohowarehouse.com
The Belmond Cadogan Hotel, London
The reopening of this historic neighborhood establishment by the Belmond group reclaims for the area something of the cultural, artistic spirit of old Chelsea, which has been eclipsed by the new money and bling lining the streets of adjacent Mayfair. Once the haunt of the city’s original influencer, Oscar Wilde, it now also incorporates the former lodging of Wilde’s friend the actress Lillie Langtry next door; her house forms part of the hotel’s outstanding Adam Handling restaurant, while her ornate floral ceiling rose is a striking feature in a signature suite. The Cadogan’s original whiff of sin and naughtiness may have been diluted over the ensuing decades, but the playful edge remains in the Mary Quant-inspired uniforms, the chairs upholstered in Wilde’s favorite purple suede and the peacock statue decorated with Swarovski crystals. Specially commissioned artworks by young British artists fill the communal rooms – appropriately chic backdrops for the happy hum of the smart set, who gather for elaborate teas and cocktails. belmond.com
The Hotel de la Ville, Rome
Romans do not tend to patronize their own city hotels in the way that a New Yorker might take a first date to the bar at the Carlyle or the Mercer, or a Londoner enjoying a business tea at Brown’s. Hotel de Russie is the exception. The garden and its location in the heart of the city has always been a lure for the locals, but the younger fashion crowds have now also taken to hanging out at the newest Forte hotel, just down the road, in the 18th-century palazzo, Hotel de la Ville. Located in the nerve center of Rome, beside the Spanish steps, a handbag’s throw away from the Valentino HQ, this is the new place to be for its rooftop bar, Cielo, with 360-degree views of the city and fusion dim-sum eats. The second-floor geranium-lined courtyard restaurant is also beloved for its sharing plates, which are a novel concept in the Eternal City.
Chateau Marmont, LA
The beloved original Hollywood clubhouse hotel, this Disney-like turreted castle rises above Sunset Strip like a leviathan of gothic glamour, and in 2018, to celebrate its 90th birthday, the celebrity haunt was decorated in the latest Gucci prints. Famously the home of celebrated photographer Helmut Newton, who lived four months of the year here, the Chateau really is a living slice of Hollywood history. Book one of the bungalows dotted around the subtropical grounds (if you can: they get snapped up quickly) and sit in the pretty Moorish courtyard to people-watch over a plate of the hotel’s much-loved spaghetti bolognese. chateaumarmont.com
The Mark, New York
A favorite of Ms. Wintour, this is the place to watch the beautiful people come and go; those Oscar de la Renta-attired, Manolo-heeled matriarchs of the Upper East Side who descend on the Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant for its popular power breakfast, discrete service and gluten-free menu options. The whole place oozes high-octane Francophone glamour: from the soft lighting in the marbled bathrooms to the complimentary plate of Ladurée macaroons left at the bedside and the special shoe-shine counter on the mezzanine level, the attention to detail is remarkable. themarkhotel.com
The Ritz, Paris
Old-world glamour drips from every crevice of this Parisian icon. Appealing both to the old school and the new guard, Bar Hemingway – and its famous French 75 cocktail – has drawn a fashionable crowd ever since they were first concocted here in 1916; today, master barman Colin Field oversees their creation. The famous palatial pink rooms boast former guests including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Maria Callas and Mlle. Chanel, who loved to practice tarot readings in her very own apartment here, which was decked in gilded mirrors, velvet banquettes and rock crystal chandeliers. And with the world’s only Chanel spa, continuing the link between the two brands, the style set have picked up where they left off since the hotel’s epic four-year intensive museum-worthy restoration process was finally completed in 2016. Everyone should stay here at least once. ritzparis.com
Portobello Hotel, London
It is impossible not to be captivated by the rock ’n’ roll backstory and glamour of this 21-room Notting Hill townhouse hotel: the place where Alice Cooper holed up with his boa constrictor (in the bath), Tina Turner jammed in the basement and Johnny Depp cavorted with Kate Moss in room 16, overfilling the freestanding bath with champagne. These days it’s a little more sedate – like a club offering a sense and illusion of belonging to the neighborhood, even for those migrating birds of fashion passing through. portobellohotel.com
10 Corso Como, Milan
Since 1991, the Italian taste-maker extraordinaire, magazine editor and all-round fashion visionary Carla Sozzani’s pioneering concept store has set the bar for stylish, generous-spirited hospitality in the capital’s tiniest boutique hotel with three insanely elegant bedrooms. This Milanese hybrid of megastore, art gallery, roof terrace and party space epitomizes the understated luxury that is at the heart of the Corcso Como brand. Here, you can inhabit your own private world filled with mid-century antiques, floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with monographs and near-complete back catalogues of Italian fashion and interiors magazines. There is always a crowd congregating in the romantic courtyard garden over a signature Corso Como spritz or creatives leafing through the huge collection of oversized art books on display in the shop, plus a gallery space that always draws visiting creatives. 10corsocomo.com
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