Chandelier Creative is a three-year-old, full-service creative agency based in New York City with a focus on fashion, beauty, retail, travel, and luxury lifestyle brands. Among Chandelier's clients are Coca Cola, Four Seasons, Parfums Givenchy, Landmark Mandarin Oriental, Old Navy,
Nanette Lepore, and
W Hotels. Though the agency's client list is certainly an impressive one, you know me: I find myself more taken with the interior design of its SoHo penthouse, designed by agency owner, Richard Christiansen.
In the past, my
Home Away From Home posts have highlighted designer boutique hotels, crave worthy modern resorts, and the like. But, New York's Guggenheim Museum has gone and played a round of Boggle with the meaning of the word hotel. As part of an exhibition called
theanyspacewhatever, the landmark museum will host guests in its "Revolving Hotel Room," a work of art created by Belgian artist Carsten Höller.
GiggleSugar recently traveled to Laos, where she snapped a ton of gorgeous photos of her
hotel, surrounding homes, Buddhist temples, and bountiful gardens. Take a look at this slideshow of her pictures from Luang Prabong, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. To take this tour, in GiggleSugar's own words, check out the slideshow.
I've brought you a number of
home away from home posts, from hip boutique hotels to wild beach getaways. I'm wondering, though, what's your ultimate, most crave worthy hotel experience? A beachfront resort?
If you're searching for modern, elegant accommodations in the super-hip Midwestern city of Minneapolis, then look no further than
Graves 601. The hotel prides itself on merging high technology and high fashion, and has won
numerous awards for its design and amenities.
Features such as back-lit photographs inspired by local culture; wall-mounted, 42-inch plasma screen televisions; flat screens in the bathroom; glass-etched, handcrafted headboards; and in-room entertainment systems that play music, video, and hotel information on demand are definitely selling points to chic geeks.
The world's first sand hotel was recently constructed on Weymouth Beach in Weymouth, England. This gritty hotel features twin and double bedrooms, but don't count on reservations — rooms are strictly booked on a first-come, first-served basis. You can book a stay for a mere 10 pounds a night, and cash is the only accepted method of payment.
Even if you're not sleeping in your own bed and eating out of your own fridge, you can still be an
eco chic guest when you're
home away from home — and that doesn't necessarily translate to skipping showers or toilet paper. I've outlined a few ways that you can be environmentally friendly when you're on vacation or a business trip:
- Stay in a green hotel. Environmentally friendly hotels initiate programs that save water and energy and reduce waste, while saving money, and engage in many of the same activities you do in your casa verde.
For all of those hipster, art-aficionado newlyweds out there, there's no cooler US stop than Marfa, TX. If you haven't heard about this destination yet, prepare to be surprised. The small, West Texas town has been a home to outsiders and artists for decades, and after minimalist artist
Donald Judd settled here in the 1970s, modern art and design mavens quickly followed.
When your Vera Wang wedding dress comes off, you and your hubby can ditch your designer duds for designer digs and check your newly married selves into the Christian Lacroix-designed
Hôtel du Petit Moulin in Paris. Housed in Paris's oldest bakery, dating back to 1900, the hotel, which has preserved its typical French boulangerie façade, is in Paris's trendy, fashion-centric Marais district — in other words, it's the hippest hotel since sliced bread. If a "haute-l" pun were ever appropriate, the time is now: The lodging looks to be one step off of the runway, filled with daring, devil-may-care creations, be it a heart-shaped Venetian mirror on glossy, scarlet-red tiles, a clash of rustic and Zen, or a vividly-hued Jacobsen Swan chair against old-fashioned toile de Jouy wallpaper.
If a
rustic beach honeymoon isn't your idea of a good time then prepare to be pampered at Berlin's
Grand Hotel Esplanade.
Situated in downtown Berlin, this stunning hotel was renovated in 2006, and is a top destination for honeymooners. Hotel accommodations include four different restaurants, bars, and lounges, a beauty salon, pool, sauna, and solarium, a state-of-the-art fitness center, and even a private yacht, the MS Esplanade.
