(As published in Fashiontrend Australia).
The Hotel Du Petit Moulin is a dream realised for fashion designer Christian Lacroix who was personally invited to bring his flamboyant aesthetic to the historic Parisian hotel. As a theatre enthusiast, Lacroix’s approach to the design of the hotel is inevitably dramatic. Each room presents an explosion of possibilities and a backdrop for each guest to act out their stories.
The rooms which are all personalised, are a delicious medley of colours, furnishings and textures; gaudy wallpaper with velvet drapes, wooden floor boards with chrome mirrors, contemporary lighting with antique chandeliers, lacquered black doors with teak wood, and bright geometric shapes with somber tones.
Lacroix also designed with the vibrant Marais district in mind. As he explains, “I endeavoured to translate seventeen ambiences corresponding to each of the seventeen rooms, like seventeen ways of experiencing the Haut-Marais.” The Marais district (French for ‘the marsh’), is home to bohemian artists, creative eccentrics and a thriving Jewish and gay population. Catering especially for lovers of art and culture, a myriad of original shops line the surrounding cobbled streets.
The Paris History museum, the Picasso museum and the European House of Photography are all within convenient walking distance of the hotel. For antique shopping venture to the Village Saint-Paul, then take a walk to the rue Saint-Antoine to try an award winning Red- label baguette at Miss Manon, one of Paris’s most famous bakeries. Romanticising the past and devouring the present, the hotel shares an intimate history with its surroundings. Part of the hotel used to house the oldest bakery in Paris; the local legend is that French poet and writer Victor Hugo use to buy his bread there. The reception still maintains the Venetian-style setting, preserved from the original exterior, and the 1900 frontage and the shop signboard is heritage listed, ensuring that its historic grandeur is preserved for all time.
words LIEU PHAM
