La Maison – Champs Elysees

At La Maison – Champs Elysees, where the unexpected is eluding and exhilarating, has also become a rule.

Rue Jean Goujon 8: a Parisian fairytale has been reawakened from the slumber of clichèd grandiose hotels. La Maison Champs Elysees, unlike its sister concepts of fashion hotels around the world, is an astonishing fashion experiment in collaboration with Maison Martin Margiela.

The mysterious designer, who also designed 17 of the 57 rooms known as the Couture Collection, provokes tradition and the avantgarde, and thoughtfully plays with poetry and wit to keep you visually entertained throughout your stay.
From the moment you enter through the  glass entrance, the stunning French Mareuil flagstones have randomly scattered black marble cabochons- a little preamble for the experience you are about to exist in. Margiela funnels his talent and taste artfully through three ‘rules of the game’: irony, illusion and respect.

Irony, where everything is that is proposed is not as it seems – a Persian rug woven directly into the carpet, for example. Illusion, where your eye is bound to be mislead in every detail, like the hovering tables and chairs in the restaurant. Finally, respect for the structure’s historical heritage, where it’s true core is divulged from the moldings or the marble in the foyer, amongst other things.

Although the common areas allude to this ‘game’ the Maison is playing, the Couture rooms are unpretentiously extraordinary. The strikingly artistic Gilded Lounge Suite, covered in black and white pictures of the gilded lounge located on the second floor is surrounded by books.  The dark Curiosity Case Suite instead, has a bizarre glass closet filled with eccentric curiosities in a calm and undisturbed demeanor. Each suite has a different character and atypically untroubled styles.

La Maison ascertains a distinguishing articulation of luxury. One with a relaxed atmosphere, where the service is as attentive as the surroundings are lighthearted; and where generosity (seen in even the smallest of amenities) is offered  with the best intentions of welcome. Their “art of living” is centered around a bubble of poetry and illusion, fashionable and dreamlike.