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Hotel Venture
Betting on design
Some go for the ‘homely’ feel, others take the ‘new generation’ angle, but what all these hotels have in common is their candy-box size, their Zen and purified style and a firm emphasis on extreme personalization.
Fibre optique et parfums
With only 11 rooms, the Placide, facing Paris’s Bon Marché, aims to offer the discreet charm of luxury and the refinement of a ‘luxury guest house’. An angle intentionally chosen by the owner (the Cible Group) in contrast to large, ‘too impersonal’ international hotels. Here, all the charm of this four-star world focuses on design (entrusted to a colleague of Philippe Starck), high-tech and the personalization of each room. A unique color forms the focus of each floor... mauve, black and white, green etc. and each suite is equipped with white leather seating, a glass, chrome and crystal pedestal table, a flat screen, and a bathroom with a view over a patio.
Fiber optics and perfumes
Nearby, the Five Hotel (24 rooms), Rue Flatters, plays on sensory exploration and extreme personalization. Play on colors, original use of metal, inventive lighting effects with the use of fiber optic lights embedded in bathroom tiling and room ceilings, a choice of five ‘signature’ scents: everything combining to bring about ‘a well-being of the senses’. Nine designer ‘feels’ are oriented around a chosen color – white, black, turquoise, pistachio, mauve, red, gold, chestnut – and lovingly coordinated with the materials, prints, fabrics, and furniture to create very original geometric arrangements in each room. Regular stripes that turn to asymmetrical, leather-look murals, floral carpets, polka dot patterns. ‘It is an invitation to dream. The fiber optics are there to bring a touch of the fun and decorative,’ explain Vincent Bastie and Marie-Paule Clout, who carried out the ‘trendy’ refit and renovations. Clients have a choice between the tranquility of the black bedroom, the energy of the orange room, the discretion of the beige room, and so on. And on top of this, a fragrance will be diffused from among five available ‘signature scents’: Delicious, Zest, Relaxing, Natural or Sensual. The Five Hotel’s philosophy is to be ‘accessible to everyone’. Double rooms are priced between €180 and 270, and suites at €320.
Black and white
Le Standard Hotel (30 rooms), nestled in the heart of the very ‘in’ Quarter of the Bastille, has marketed itself as a hotel that is ‘designer’, ‘new generation’, ‘atypical’ and ‘accessible’, as defined by its founder, Jean Marc Galabert, who also likes to qualify the Standard as a ‘home-hotel’. Here, the emphasis is set firmly on aesthetics and black and white contrasts, a foundation that provides a uniting theme around the communal areas, the bedrooms and the breakfast room, in harmony with the black floors and white walls. The furniture is of unique white lacquer and is complemented by colorful veils and Japanese lamps with printed tattoo figures on their shades.
Every detail counts... At the Standard, the design will set you back, on average, by €150 the night. Paris seems to be rediscovering creative charm and the fact that ‘small is beautiful’.
So much the better!