A destinations-to-go instinct is behind the coolest hotel collaborations of 2022. “This is the first time in the history of the Ritz Paris that we have collaborated with a fashion brand,” Natalie Bader Messina tells Vogue of the iconic French hotel’s instinct to work with Frame on a line of luxury staples. A board member for the Ritz Paris, Messina describes the unisex collection as “chic streetwear” via straight-leg denim with gilded “Ritz” tags hovering over back pockets, logo cashmere pullovers embroidered with the hotel’s crest, and a pièce de résistance varsity jacket. And beyond the legendary Place Vendôme, fashion and fragrance pros are thinking beyond concierge desks.
“We were seeing so many of our customers wearing PatBO at Eden Rock that a collaboration was a natural decision,” says PatBO founder and designer Patricia Bonaldi of her Eden Rock St. Barths collection, which launches today. The six-piece capsule features the line’s now-infamous pajamas and swimwear in a hand-drawn print by artisans from Bonaldi’s hometown of Uberlandia, Brazil. According to the brand, it was Instagram that tipped them off that clients were as loyal to the location as their new designs. “Merch has always been a thing, but hotel merch is especially ‘in’ right now,” says Sporty & Rich founder Emily Oberg, who launched comfy sweats and basics with The Sunset Tower Hotel, her favorite “quintessential old Hollywood” spot in Los Angeles. “It’s really a way of telling the world who you are, what you’re into, and where you hang out,” Oberg says. “It’s cool to have memories that you wear.”
And, thanks to olfactory powers, that’s easily accomplished through scent: “When a person can’t make the trek to get out to Marfa, they can conjure a little memory of it wherever they are,” says El Cosmico Hotel owner Liz Lambert, who worked with D.S. & Durga perfumer David Seth Moltz on not one but two fragrances designed to capture the surrounding landscape’s high plains and monsoon rains. Moltz deems the results as “cult hits—you can take a piece of that magic from the desert home with you and go back with one spray.”
Here, the coolest hotel-inspired merch that’s already defining 2022:
Bonaldi counts travel and vacation as essential vignettes in life when dressing for your most memorable moments. “We have found that our customer looks to us for that bold print or cut-out beach dress, a special piece to complete her holiday wardrobe,” she says of the “organic” collaboration with Eden Rock. There are hints of the historic property, which has welcomed Hollywood screen stars like Princess Lee Radziwill and Greta Garbo since the ’50s, in the capsule’s print of cherry-colored sunbeds and ocean waves.
The socks are cashmere; the t-shirts are embroidered: A mix of Frame’s American aesthetic and the Ritz Paris’ reputation for French elegance, luxury dressing for every day was top of mind for this 22-piece, all-gender capsule. “We also included items in the collection to ensure our esteemed guests feel as though they can bring the Ritz Paris along with them as a piece of their home-away-from-home,” says Messina of including pieces like a gym bag and blanket in the mix.
“Marfa is a magical place that seems on the borderland between worlds: Isolation, timelessness, peculiar lights, flourishing artists,” says Moltz of creating El Cosmico, the original scent named for Lambert’s hotel, which bottles woody, green notes and a hint of white smoke. It’s a “real landscape in a bottle,” he says. Lambert says that scent has always been something she’s considered when building hotels: “When you travel, you tend to remember smells more than anything, and revisiting those aromas sort of transports you back through your experiences,” she says. For a second scent act surrounding the El Cosmico hotel, Sweet Do Nothing represents the idea that “sometimes the best use of your time is to do absolutely nothing.” Lambert calls its notes of Texas fig and cedar “a way to travel without having to leave home.”
“I love Sunset Tower’s color palette, and it’s very much in line with what we already do,” says Oberg of combining her favorite hotel’s chocolate, lilac, and cream hues with Sporty & Rich’s aesthetic for “the perfect backdrop for our co-branded graphics.” She wanted the pieces, like knit “disco” shorts that give off summer camp style and pool slides that look like they may have been snuck out of the room, to be “easy and cozy.” Simplicity begets versatility. “My idea was that you could lounge around the hotel in a sweatsuit and some slippers, or head down for dinner in a crewneck, a nice pair of vintage denim, some heels, and a chunky gold watch,” says Oberg. The result is pure vacation energy.
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