One of the trends coming off the haute couture runways is high fashion’s big brands moving into luxury hospitality. Ferragamo, Versace, Armani, Fendi: more and more renowned fashion designers have opened hotels.
Obviously these brands know how to do great interior design. Regardless of your opinion on the different fashion brands, we know that not all hotels are created the same. And we think that Fendi Private Suites in Rome is the ultimate hotel for fashionistas.
The Most Boutique of all the Fashionista Hotels?
Firstly, size sets Fendi apart. Fendi has just seven suites. In comparison, Armani has a Dubai hotel in the world’s tallest building, with 160 guest rooms and eight restaurants. Armani Hotel Milano has 85 rooms and suites.
Bulgari’s hotels in Milan and Dubai are magnificent, as is the new Bulgari Paris we recently reported on. But they are also big properties.
The Ferragamo family opened the world’s first “fashion hotel” in 1995, with their 64-suite Hotel Lungarno in Florence. Visit for the private art collection and Michelin-starred restaurant, stay to experience a Michele Bonan-designed suite.
Experience Fendi Suites
But with only seven suites, Fendi in Rome is naturally more exclusive. And isn’t rarity the key to fashion? The only comparable property we know is Hotel du Petit Moulin in Paris. Officially it’s only a four-star hotel, but all 17 rooms were individually designed by Christian Lacroix.
Fendi Hotel is Part of Fendi’s History
Who doesn’t want to stay in Gianni Versace’s mansion? To experience the place where he lived and worked? Except Versace operates palace hotels in Dubai and Gold Coast, Australia. They sold the Versace Mansion in South Beach Florida three years after Gianni’s death, removing most of the signature relics (it’s now The Villa Casa Casuarina At The Former Versace Mansion).
This highlights another key difference in Fendi’s approach. Other fashion brands have constructed new properties, usually in new and expanding markets, like Dubai. The Fendi Private Suites are on the third floor of Palazzo Fendi, the home, headquarters and flagship boutique of the Fendi brand.
Fashion brands create hotels to reflect their fashion brand. You expect an Armani hotel to be sleek. You want to see the Medusa logo when staying at a Versace palace. You stay at Manhattan’s Baccarat Hotel to be blown away by shimmering crystals.
But Fendi Hotel is more than just an extension of the brand. This is an invitation into the Fendi World. They turned an entire floor of their headquarters into a seven-suite hotel.
The designers are working in the building, not on the other side of the world. So you really experience the Fendi aesthetics, the strong contrasts and surprising juxtapositions synonymous with the brand. Immersive is an understatement here.
Staying at the Fendi Hotel
This is only a hotel experience for fashionistas.
The suites are relatively small and you can get a lot more space for your money elsewhere in Rome. But where else do you want to be other than overlooking Via dei Condotti, Rome’s luxury shopping district? There are better locations if you want to do the classic sightseeing, not if you’re coming to shop.
You stay here to experience the Fendi world in all its details, to sleep amid the elegant dialogue between old and new, history and imagination.
