Designer digs

It used to be that they only opened boutiques. Now, fashion designers from Karl Lagerfeld to Christian Lacroix are going into the boutique hotel business, reports KEE HUA CHEE.

Designer hotels are all the rage now, as fashion icons set up their own boutique hotels.

Not too long ago, all a designer dreamed of was a chain of boutiques: first in his city, then country, then across the globe. Then, it became obligatory to have handbags, shoes, accessories, perfumes, toiletries and even make-up in your name. A few ventured into watches and jewellery, and one or two designed the interiors of cars, yachts and private jets.

Now, most are lining up to establish their own hotels. They may not actually own the building or even manage it themselves, but these are hotels in their name all the same.

Designer hotels often reflect the lifestyle of the designer and those of his customers – from the unapologetic extravagance of Palazzo Versace in Australia to the understated luxurious style of the Ralph Lauren Round Hill Hotels and Villas in Jamaica.

PALAZZO VERSACE
Queensland, Australia
www.palazzoversace.com
From RM1,500 per night

With a name like palazzo (palace), the Palazzo Versace lives up to Versace’s penchant for over-the-top details. Beds are big enough for three to romp in, with even the entry-level rooms being worthy of a latter-day Roman emperor.

The Palazzo Versace in the Gold Coast, Australia is the first Versace hotel in the world.

It is glitz, glitter and glamour here, and, if you run out of clothes, the Versace boutique is just by the lobby. Oh, and everything in your room is for sale.

Palazzo Versace offers 205 extravagant rooms and 72 condominium units with private marina which allow you to live out the Versace life. Plebeians will have to make do with admiring the opulent Italianate architecture from a distance.

KARL LAGERFELD, THE SCHLOSSHOTEL
Berlin, Germany
www.schlosshotelberlin.com
From RM750 per night

Unlike the purpose-built Palazzo Versace, Berlin’s Schlosshotel (schloss means “palace” in German) is housed in a real palace. German designer Karl Lagerfeld has transformed the Pannwitz Palace into a luxurious home away from home in the heart of Berlin’s swankiest residential district, Grunewald.

Karl Lagerfeld’s The Schlosshotel.

It is not exactly Chanel but perfect for those in dire need of accommodation à la classical European palaces. The place reeks of history, and chances are high that your room was once slept in by some high-ranking nobility.

The pampering continues at the spa and golfing is available. The digs are near-imperial. This designer should know since his nickname is Kaiser Karl.

HOTEL DU PETIT MOULIN
Paris, France
www.paris-hotel-petitmoulin.com
o From RM800 per night

Its location at Marais is more hip than classy, and its origins more plebeian than patrician, but Christian Lacroix’s Hotel du Petit Moulin is as sweet, pretty and charming as a couture gown. Marais, once derided as Paris’ Gay Ghetto, is now a hotbed of stylish restaurants, boutiques and cafés.

The 17th century building that houses the hotel used to be a bakery but it is listed as a Historic Site, and cannot be altered, not even its signboard.

The rooms are like a confectioner’s beribboned box, while the drapes and curtains could be cut into a couture gown. Many fixtures are tied with adorable bows, crosses or hearts, all signatures of Lacroix, which incidentally means “cross” in French.

The asymmetrical proportions of the ancient bakery appealed to Lacroix, whose clothes are often cut likewise.

“I love the slightly twisted perspectives, the maze-like passageways and odd room sizes with beams and strange corners. I treated the design like a harmony of jigsaw pieces where modernity lives on in the traditions of the present!” explains the designer enigmatically.

“The hotel is like a dollhouse or cut-out found in early 20th century books.”

Du Petit Moulin (Little Windmill) is rated four-star and its neighbours include the Picasso and Carnavalet Museums, Place Vosges and Paris’ celebrated Town Hall.

The 17 rooms are a discovery, each totally different, ranging from kitsch and flowery to modern and baroque. Many feel like a milady’s boudoir, but there is one that mimics sleeping in outer space replete with Milky Way wallpaper.

RALPH LAUREN, ROUND HILL HOTEL & VILLAS
Montego Bay, Jamaica
www.roundhilljamaica.com
From RM2,000 per night

Round Hill is like a Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater – exquisite and luxurious, but not showy. Formerly a 40ha pineapple and coconut plantation in the 18th century, the resort bespeaks Old Money.

A view of Ralph Lauren’s Round Hill Hotel & Villas.

Wake up to a traditional Jamaican breakfast and the aroma of Blue Mountain coffee. Pineapple House offers 36 rooms overlooking the azure Caribbean Sea while each of the 27 villas has a private swimming pool and magnificent ocean views.

What’s on offer here is easy, lazy, tropical living with furnishings from the Ralph Lauren Home Collection. Colours are white with splashes of pink and blue. Days are for slouching, but, this being a fashion-forward hotel (which is why you go there), glamorous evening wear is obligatory after 7pm.

TODD OLDHAM, THE HOTEL
South Miami Beach, Florida
www.thehotelofsouthbeach.com
From RM1,200 per night

South Beach is where the rich, famous or merely gorgeous come to pose and party. This art deco hotel is where High Camp meets Glitzy Glamour. The linens and towels are by Frette of Paris, the world’s most expensive supplier of bathroom necessities while room products are from The White House of London.

Bright, happy colours fill the 53 rooms, loaded with Todd Oldham furnishings, like tie-dyed robes that we call batik.

The rooftop pool isn’t big but serious swimmers go to the sea while posers congregate to show off gym-fit bodies. And when no one’s watching you, the whole place has free wireless Internet.

JOHN ROCHA, MORRISON HOTEL
Dublin, Ireland
www.morrisonhotel.ie
From RM1,200 per night

Touted as Dublin’s hippest and coolest dig, the Morrison has 138 rooms with free broadband access, Frette linens, Aveda toiletries, Apple Mac LCD screens, iPod docking stations and surround-sound.

The location is ideal, even if you are not visiting your undergrad kids at nearby Temple Bar or Trinity College. The higher floors overlook Liffey River and Ireland’s premier shopping districts are 10 minutes away by foot.

OSCAR DE LA RENTA, TORTUGA BAY HOTEL
The Dominican Republic
www.puntacana.com
From RM2,300 per night

Tortuga Bay Hotel is the jewel of a 6,070ha, gated community where the rich and famous keep holiday homes. Stay in the 15 supremely luxurious villas and you might just bump into Julio Iglesias, Mikhail Baryshnikov and, of course, Oscar de la Renta, who all have second homes here.

The villas overlook the Caribbean Sea and five miles of pristine beach. The Six Senses Spa is a haven of calm and luxury offering reiki, tai chi and all bodily comforts.

The La Cana Golf Course, designed by legendary golfer P.B. Dye, is both scenic and challenging.

Meanwhile . . .

The Ferragamo family, owner of the Salvatore Ferragamo label, already has seven hotels in Florence under their Lungarno hotel chain (www.lungarnohotels.com). This summer, they will open a 14-suite hotel in Rome.

Giorgio Armani, whose Casa Armani home furnishing stores are doing so well he even has a florist chain, will open his first hotel in Dubai in 2008.

Oh well, it looks like the supermodels are guaranteed accommodation when they go on holiday.

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