Fashion designers hotel haunts

Alberta Ferretti, Christian Lacroix, Azzedine Alaïa, Giorgio Armani…Their names are inscribed in our clothing, eyewear, shoes and jewellery. When it comes to something to put on, theirs are the names we trust. But what about something outside the wearable realm? Something like ... a hotel?

All these designers, and many more, have come out of the closet -- literally -- and branched into the hotel business. Bvlgari, Ferragamo, Anna Molinari and Versace all have posh pads. It's branding logic-if you like the cut of their trousers, you'll probably love their rooms. And one thing's for sure: fashion hoteliers are fanatical about thread count.


What's great about fashion designer hotels is that there are no unpleasant surprises. After years of seeing Lacroix's maximalist clothes on the runway, his hotel is hardly going to have poured resin floors and white walls. Irish milliner Philip Treacy is in the middle of designing his first hotel, The G, in his native Galway. As this goes to press, management is giving nothing away, but should the hotel look like a hat (or his next series of hats look like
hotels), it will startle no one. Whether it's as easy to design a lobby as a cocktail dress is debatable. Here are three A-list fashion hotels to check out (and check into).

Palazzo Viviani
The name "Alberta Ferretti" has become synonymous with the sugarsweet frocks that Scarlett Johannson and Uma Thurman love to wear. What isn't so well-known is that Ferretti is something of a tycoon in the hotel business. THe Ferretti family hails from Le Marche, a less touristy region of Italy on the Adriatic coast where all the Ferretti hotel properties are concentrated. In the early '80s, Ferrett and her partners bought a crumbling 14th-century fortified hilltop village and set about restoring it. Now, tiny Catello di Montegridolfo boasts the Palazzo Viviani hotel, several gorgeous guest houses for longer stays, a tobacco shop, gelataria, post office, church and clock tower, and chic boutiques and restaurants. Besides the dazzling school of Giotto fresco hidden away in the Church of San Rocco, the town's crown jewel is the Palazzo Viviani. It has only eight rooms and is characterized by wonderful old beams, terr-acotta floors and romantic details like linen curtains, wrought-iron canopy beds and handpainted scrollwork on the walls.

The Affreschi room, in particular, with its angel frescoes, Aubusson-style tapestries and plush double French bed, is outstanding. Furnished by Ferretti in elegantly serene style, the Palazzo Viviani and apartments in the Castello di Montegridolfo all have the endearing simplicity of her clothes.
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Photo courtesy of Castello di Montegridolfo