The illustrious French fashion house Maison Martin Margiela was recently commissioned by Hotel Maison Champs-Elysées in Paris to reconceptualize the interior design of the 5-star hotel. La Maison Champs-Elysées is located on 8 Rue Jean Goujon, in a corner of Paris that boasts all the most distinguished French couture houses, making it most fitting that Maison Martin Margiela would be chosen to redefine the image of such a lavish hotel.
This was a huge undertaking for La Maison Champs-Elysées, and I really would like to sing Margiela’s praises because the result of the redesign is a luxurious universe that completely transcends time. The space allows you to leave reality behind, to forget the worldwide economic crisis that has dominated each and every newspaper, to just sit back and bask in contemporary opulence.
Maison Martin Margiela’s goal was to create “a theatrical environment where reality and trompe-l’oeil blend into a surreal atmosphere,” and it is clear the design house has more than succeeded.
Mirrors abound throughout the rooms, producing hallucinatory spaces within spaces that simultaneously entice and confuse. Intricately designed wallpaper and carpeting depicts traditional French architectural techniques, tricking the eye yet delighting the mind.
This is a building of cool paradoxes, all done in a palette of silvers, whites, greys, golds, and blacks – shades that echo royalty but truly appeal to the modern and cosmopolitan nouveau riche. The highlight of the building is a hallway completely veiled in silver leaf, alluding to the golden pavilions of Edo Japan. This passage is punctuated by a floating white diamond chandelier, and it is here we are pushed completely into the dream world, floating past the most beautiful of diamond jewelry, off to bask in the luxury of Margiela’s desirous illusions.
