There are few feelings that can match the spark of excitement felt when discovering a cheeky little brand collab while staying at a new hotel. Oh, they’ve got Byredo in the shower! And White Company robes! And, oh yes, a Dyson hair dryer in the bathroom. It elevates your stay in a way you don’t fully realise at the time, but makes you miss hotel living so much more when you return to your Body Shop shower gel and decade-old hair dryer at home.
Yet, these collabs are, by and large, small and subtle. You’re hardly going to snap a pic of the Diptyque miniature you stole from your hotel bathroom, or the inner label of your extra fluffy white towels. Enter the fashion brand. Keen for a slice of the pie and able to offer a more visible, photogenic partnership, this summer has seen the likes of Valentino, Dior, Fendi and Dolce & Gabbana partnering with luxury hotels to kit out their beach club and poolside set ups, making them even more Instagrammable. Take San Domenico Palace, the Four Seasons Hotel where season two of The White Lotus was filmed. While this Sicilian hotel’s poolside is typically laden with plain, navy blue sun loungers and simple striped towels, things are looking extra Italian this summer, with designer towels, pillows and coasters printed with Dolce & Gabbana’s Blu Mediterraneo motif.
Also utilising the power of stylish swim locations is Puente Romano Beach Resort in Marbella, which has partnered with Fendi to launch the first “Fendi beach club” at the resort’s seafront space, Chiringuito. Like San Domenico Palace, this means designer loungers, pillows and parasols — all emblazoned with the signature Fendi double-F monogram, of course — as well as a beachside Fendi pop-up store, so you can buy a Baguette bag and a glass of Tinto de Verano in one fell swoop.
Designer brands are coming out of the bathroom and taking centre stage at affluent hotels
Fashion and luxury travel are already well established bed fellows, from designer pyjamas in first class, to bougie toiletries, to brands strategically placing boutiques in hotel lobbies. But this latest trend is different. “Designer brands are coming out of the bathroom and onto centre stage,” says Nomi Kakoty, director of luxury travel PR firm Perowne International. “It’s creating this halo effect for an already well heeled group of ultra-high net worth individuals. It’s within a fashion brand’s interest to tap into this affluent group, and it’s within the hotel’s interest to take on that new way of marketing.”
The key to this collaboration, Kakoty notes, is the attention to detail in choosing these brand partnerships. She names Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, which recently hosted Sofia Richie’s wedding celebrations and has a long-standing relationship with Dior, as an example of this. “Christian Dior used to live very close by and spent a lot of time at the property,” Kakoty explains, “and the nose for Dior perfumes, François Demachy, created a Dior perfume in honour of Hotel du Cap’s 150th anniversary.” Back in Italy, on the Amalfi coast, there’s another high fashion beach club, this time kitted out by Valentino. It’s in partnership with Palazzo Avino, a five-star hotel in Ravello, on the cascading hills of the coastline, which has a separate beach club in nearby Marmorata. Both the hotel’s poolside area and the beach club are now bathed in Valentino red, including brollies, beach towels and yoga mats. Guests can also shop Valentino’s “Escape” 2023 capsule collection at a boutique in the grounds. But with Valentino sunglasses and keychains upon arrival, these collaborations can become rather expensive affairs — so what are the hotels and fashion houses hoping to recoup?
“It’s all about brand awareness,” says Ellie Turner, a luxury marketing expert and former head of events at Bulgari Hotels. “And elevating that luxury experience. And with luxury retail being so online based now, when guests do decide to interact with one of these brands in real life, it needs to really feel worth it.” There’s the added bonus that someone staying at a Valentino-themed hotel is much more likely to buy a Valentino skirt than, say, a regular visitor who wanders in off Bond Street.
“It’s an entry point,” says Turner. “These are the people you want to target consistently, instead of someone going into a store to buy a bag for a one-off birthday present.” Many brands appear to be banking on this guest-to-customer pipeline, with beach clubs all over the world sporting a more stylish get-up than previous summers. As well as the Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi and Valentino collabs, Dior is also offering the beach club experience at the One & Only Desaru Coast resort in Malaysia, Loro Piana recently took over La Réserve à La Plage’s beach club in St Tropez, and Louis Vuitton’s brand name is now emblazoned on the sun loungers of the Blue Beach Club & Bar in Bodrum, Turkey.
French fashion brand Jacquemus has also taken to following its wealthy travellers on their holidays, by setting up pop-ups shops in Como and Portofino, as well as its own beach club, also in St Tropez. Missoni has temporarily set up shop in Sardinia, at the Nikki Beach Costa Smeralda beach club, where the brand bathed parasols in their iconic graphic patterns.
The fashion houses get to position their brand in the ideal settings where they know their customers will be
Claire Abeille, a communications executive who has overseen previous hotel collaborations with Missoni, Louis Vuitton and Dior as part of her role at Kerzner (which owns One&Only hotel group), says the beach club is perfect for these partnerships because it becomes the ultimate place to be seen. “The fashion houses get the opportunity to position their brand in the ideal settings where they know their customers will be,” she explains.
“While luxury resorts use this as an opportunity to create engaging experiences for their guests while leveraging the elevated brand affinities.” You scratch my back, I scratch Dior’s.
But summer has to end, so what’s to say that these brand collaborations will just become fairweather friends? Ski season, that’s what. “It will certainly continue when it comes to winter with the Alpine aspect,” says Nomi Kakoty. “Skiing, winter sports, Val-d’Isère. The beach club is just the first platform.” So while it may well be the summer of the fashion hotel, don’t expect this stylish side to luxury travel to be going anywhere any time soon — except for further up the Alps.
