Dream maison: Margiela designs Parisian Hotel

Now the Belgian designer is to turn his hand to interiors, with the re-conceptualising of Parisian hotel Maison Champs-Elysées. Having previously worked on an Elle Decoration suite at the Paris hotel Palais de Chaillot, Margiela has some grounding in the art of hotel decoration, but the Maison Champs Elysées renovation will be on a much more grand and challenging scale.

"Together with Maison Martin Margiela, we are aiming at a luxurious yet relaxed place where purity of forms is matched with amazing detailing, in a corner of Paris which gathers all the most prestigious French couture houses”, Bernadette Chevallier, president of Exclusive Hotels for Maison Champs-Elysées, said yesterday. Indeed, the hotel is just a Birkin's throw from the Avenue Montaigne, which is home to the flagship boutiques of Celine, Vuitton and Dior.

Margiela gave some typically cerebral hints about his design plans for the hotel, which was originally created in the nineteenth century for the Duchess of Rivoli: "The Maison is happy to reinterpret another maison for its first hotel project in Paris. Maison Martin Margiela creates a theatrical environment where reality and trompe-l'œil are mixing together. The result is several sets with intertwined references giving an atypical ambiance harmoniously opposing past and present”. Whether or not we can picture quite what that means, we do know that the hotel will be aimed very much at the luxury sector, firmly positing it at the five star end of the market; and making weekend breaks to the French capital even more stylish.