BEST BRANDING
( for the year 2012 )
Armani Hotel, Milan
Giorgio Armani, still frisky in his eight decade, continues
to prove he knows more than most of us about branding. When launching his first
hotel in his home town, the Milanese fashion designer commandeered every square
inch of a city-centre block, building up on his three-level department store,
Nobu restaurant and Emporio Armani café. With the vertical add-on completed in
November, it feels possible to get arrested for not being well dressed on this
slice of real estate. The hotel itself, a greige-coloured sea of Armani-ness,
occupies the top eight floors, yielding exceptional views from every angle of
the reductive floor plan, including the top floor spa and gym, where the
treadmills are at eye level with the Duomo’s spire. From a suite with a
sweeping art deco-styled staircase (Armani’s favourite design moment) to the
mechanical shutters that line every window (taken from the design of his
superyatch), the hotel is a study in proprietary imprint. But the best branding
device actually comes 50ft up in the air, where the shape of the new hotel, a
giant ‘A’, looks as if it has been sizzled onto the city’s grey cement with a
livestock earning Mr A an A star on the project.
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