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Hotel gift shops go glam; High-end hotels collaborate with designers, offer exclusive fashion items for patrons

Posted on Jul 26, 2010 in Features

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The days when taking home a souvenir from your favorite hotel meant a bad logo T-shirt or golf visor are long gone.
How about a Rebecca Minkoff bag? The W Hotel’s stores have one in an exclusive shade of turquoise. A pair of Band of Outsiders pajamas? They were made especially for the Ace Hotel in New York. A pink Stephen Jones trilby hat? You have to hit the gift shop at the Beverly Hills Hotel to buy one.

Luxury hotel chains are upping the ante on their retail offerings by bringing in exclusive items and, in some cases, designing their own. In an era of global sameness, they have opted to offer unique, localized experiences.

The Standard hotels (including the property in downtown Los Angeles) are collaborating for the second year with surf lifestyle brand Quiksilver, selling board shorts ($75), bikinis and sunglasses (both $88) in poolside vending machines. The Morgans Hotel Group has hosted a series of curated retail stores, the newest in West Hollywood at the Mondrian, where Los Angeles-based retailer Ron Robinson has opened a pop-up shop with handpicked merchandise such as exclusive Pamela Love T-shirts ($25), as well as Stephen Webster jewelry and Apothia beauty products.

“As we get more design-oriented hotels, the idea will continue to percolate,” said Bruce Baltin, a hotel industry analyst and senior vice president of Colliers PKF Consulting USA, a management consulting firm in Los Angeles that covers the hospitality industry. “It’s a point of differentiation. And now that you have designers like Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani getting into the hotel business, they will pair that with retail opportunities as well.”

Historically, W Hotels have been innovators in hotel gift shops, with the first W store opening at the W Times Square in 2001. “From the beginning, the concept was designed to go beyond the basic idea of providing the same 400-thread-count sheets that are in the rooms,” said Eva Ziegler, W’s global brand leader (yes, that’s her title; she’s in charge of the chain’s growth strategy).

In the past, the resort chain has targeted Diane von Furstenberg to create a Fashion Emergency Kit (a black wrap dress and thong underwear) for its stores, and Michael Kors to design staff uniforms. But in February, Ziegler hired an expert, naming Amanda Ross, a stylist and designer consultant, to the newly created post of fashion director.
So far, Ross has attended fashion weeks on the hotel’s behalf, consulted on uniforms for new properties and helped select designers for the Global Glam collection of apparel created especially for the chain and sold in all 17 W Hotel stores.

The store at the W Times Square feels like a trendy Robertson Boulevard boutique, with $80 Melissa brand jelly shoes, $275 jeweled caftans and gift books with such cheeky titles as “Is Your Dog Gay?” If there were exclusive products, they weren’t obvious, but the merchandise is a far cry from garish costume jewelry and packages of dried fruit and nuts that one might associate with a hotel gift shop.

The quirky Ace Hotel chain (including properties in Palm Springs, Portland, Ore. and Seattle) was looking for a curator of a different sort for its newest property in the gritty NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan, just north of Madison Square Garden.

“Before we opened, there weren’t a lot of (retailers) who wanted to be on 29th and Broadway,” said Ace Hotel founder Alex Calderwell. “So we approached retailers who we thought would fit with our brand and would consider a location that was not an A location.” They chose No. 8 and Opening Ceremony, which operate edgy stores in downtown Manhattan.

No. 8a, as the store at the Ace is called, is a showcase for hipster ephemera, from $169 bags made out of soccer balls to $6 Wooly Willy magnetic faces.

Opening Ceremony is dedicated to apparel (and accessories), featuring the Rodarte sweaters and $365 Alexander Wang zipper-edged sunglasses you find at all Opening Ceremony stores, along with a few necessities for travelers, such as brightly colored $55 Tumi outlet adaptors exclusive to the Ace store and British snack food Walkers Prawn Cocktail flavored crisps. Both No. 8a and Opening Ceremony are open to the street and the Ace Hotel lobby.

“We could have done a store ourselves, but they are so much better at what they do. And part of the philosophy of our brand is not only to appeal to travelers but to locals too,” Calderwell said.