Luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet has teamed with Bjarke Ingels Group for a 50-room hotel in Switzerland, the latest in a string of upscale resorts opened by fashion brands hoping to leverage their global prestige with a move into the hospitality space.
Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, a Copenhagen- and New York-based architecture firm, the Audemars Piguet Hotel de Horlogers in Le Brassus, Vallée de Joux, will feature five sloping, zigzagging slabs, with varying room sizes on each end. The hotel is designed to integrate the natural surroundings and will feature two restaurants, a bar, a spa, and a conference center.
The project was created along with Lausanne-based CCHE Architecture and will be situated next to the Audemars Piguet museum. (Bjarke Ingels Group is also designing an extension of the museum.) Construction on the hotel is underway for a 2020 opening.
Audemars Piguet’s move is part of a decade-long trend of luxury fashion brands opening hotels in the world’s glitziest destinations. The trend has ramped up in recent years, and looks to be continuing beyond 2018.
“The best way for Audemars Piguet to communicate with our clients is to invite them to visit us here, in the Vallée de Joux, where the company was born and still lives, and so they can see who we are and where we come from. It’s our way of opening the curtain on the people behind the brand,” Francois-Henry Bennahmias, CEO of Audemars Piguet, said in a statement to Penta.
“Right now we are not planning to open more hotels, but only time will tell,” he said.
A Fashion-Focused Trend Begins
The Palazzo Versace Queensland was the world’s first fashion-branded hotel, opening in Australia in 2000. Designers including Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, and Diane von Furstenberg all followed by creating suites for other hotel brands.
The world’s leading fashion companies soon saw opportunity in the hotel industry. Armani has a hotel in Milan, while Ferragamo’s Lungarno Collection owns the Portrait Firenze, a 34-suite hotel in Florence. Tommy Hilfiger bought the Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach and LVMH—owner of brands such as Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior— has hotels in the Maldives and West Indies. Versace, Baccarat, and Missoni all boast hotels under their brands.
“The hotels are very popular and do appeal to luxury travelers,” says Liv Gussing Burgess, owner of Luxury Hotel Consulting based in London. “These hotels are located in either key strategic locations—in terms of their key customer markets such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Tokyo for Bulgari, or key gateway cities such as London—and in exotic locations that help elevate the brand.”
Bulgari has been among the most aggressive fashion brands in the boutique hotel space. Last year, Bulgari Resort Dubai opened on Jumeirah Bay, a man-made island joined to the city by a 300-meter bridge.
Bulgari’s new Shanghai hotel opens this year, occupying eight top floors of a 40-floor tower, with a 400-square meter (4,300-square-foot) suite and a rooftop restaurant and bar. The Italian jeweler and luxury-goods brand currently has a resort in Bali and hotels in London, Beijing, and Milan, and has announced projects in Moscow, Paris, and downtown Tokyo.
“Hotels are a great way to showcase the design philosophy of a brand, to entertain its customers, and to project a lifestyle that goes beyond products,” a spokesperson for Bulgari said in a statement.
Meanwhile, popular lifestyle brands in the U.S. are moving into the hospitality space, leveraging their data and in-store retail experience to cater to their already existing customers. West Elm, Equinox, and Detroit-based watchmaker Shinola are all set to open hotels.
Dubai-Bound
Dubai has been a hot destination for fashion branded hotels. The Palazzo Versace Dubai opened in 2017, while the Armani Hotel Dubai occupies 11 floors in the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, and features seven restaurants.
Bulgari’s 158,000-square-meter Dubai property, designed by Italian architectural firm Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel, was named best new luxury hotel of 2017 by Luxury Travel Intelligence. It features a resort with 101 rooms and suites, six residential buildings with 173 sea-facing apartments, 15 private mansions, and a marina and yacht club.
For fashion brands, one of the main benefits of opening hotels is that they can promote and sell their own brand of products. Gussing Burgess has stayed in Bulgari Resort Bali and says that although the hotel and services are similar to other luxury boutique hotels, its “modern, sleek, and elegant” design reflect the Bulgari brand, and Bulgari products are available for sale.
It’s a trend she expects to continue.
“Marketing of luxury products will continue to be aspirational, but is also moving toward creating and providing lifestyle experiences to help build their stories and ultimately increase loyalty and sales,” Gussing Burgess says.
Let’s block ads! (Why?)