Design Hills Dolce
“It is a very special project, it is the new lifestyle of our exclusive design in Marbella,” explains Domenico Dolce himself in one of the promotional videos of the project, which should be completed in 2026.
The figures demonstrate it with crystal clarity. According to the latest report from The Business of Fashion Insights, The Lifestyle Era: Luxury’s Opportunity in Home and Hospitality, at the end of this year the lifestyle sector, mainly in its hotel and residential aspects, will grow a total of 4.3 trillion dollars.
“It all started with the design of home collections, with Aquazzura, Fendi or names in the sector like Missoni. Pieces that have a higher cost than the garments from the latest collection. Given that even this sector was influenced by the economic recession that is affecting the world of haute couture, brands such as Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, Armani and Versace have succeeded in their new formula to continue growing: creating exclusive spaces where one not only You stay or surround yourself with beautiful objects, but you live, work and socialize there. It all started with exclusive cafes and pastry shops with a waiting list. Now the queue to reserve some of the most select villas is much longer than that desired call to get a Birkin. What’s more, 30% of high-net-worth individuals see the offer of luxury residences as the driving force behind purchasing home products from a certain brand,” explains Jeremy Peackon, from the London Business School.
This new trend that has as its epicenters some of the new luxury meccas such as Dubai or Abu Dhabi, and that also extends to paradisiacal destinations such as the Riviera Maya, Jamaica or Bali, is also present in capitals such as London, Miami, Barcelona or Berlin, where all these brands, alone or together with large hotel chains, create their own residential creations. It is the last frontier of luxury, where the iconic reference brands have found a new resource of great benefit to grow in high-end tourism and real estate, which until now lacked references.
“This is a trend in full development that should still bring surprising and attractive proposals. The changes in habits that this post-pandemic period has brought, especially with regard to a new hybrid work model and a growing interest in so-called experiential goods, fit perfectly with the exclusive proposals of the fashion giants, which are returning to emerge as the market winners with the latest of their reinventions,” adds Peakon.
The formula for success is as simple as it is attractive: connect with the most select customer by offering a unique luxury experience and, at the same time, closely associated with the values and essence of the brand, not only following, but surpassing, historical precedents of the suites that Coco Chanel herself decorated at the Ritz Hotel in Paris or the most recent Les Grands Appartements that Karl Lagerfeld designed at the also Parisian Hotel Crillon to enjoy an exclusive stay.
In the same way, whoever now stays in the sumptuous Palazzo Versace in Dubai, with its opulent architecture, or in its headquarters in Macau and the Australian Golden Coast, will be able to feel as if they were on the sofa in the lavish Milanese home of Donatella Versace , who has exclusively decorated the entire hotel with exclusive pieces of the brand and works of art, and has added unique gastronomic options, together creating an unrepeatable and different experience, truly genuine and that we could even call immersive. “In the end, creator and buyer or guest share the same feeling of wanting to belong to a certain world,” explains Anna Masello, Real Estate Branding Director of The One Atelier, the consulting firm used by the main real estate developers around the world.
Designed by Giorgio Armani himself, the Armani Hotels
They are also experiences similar to silent luxury, authentically connecting with the environment and immersing yourself in the local culture. “The same thing happens with the activities of villas or hotels such as the Mandarin Oriental Lago di Como or the Imperial in Vienna, where one can sleep in the bed in which the late Queen Elizabeth of England rested during a week’s stay in the Austrian capital. . Establishments that offer unique experiences for a privileged sector of the population that also prefers small spaces on the Mediterranean islands where no one can know they have been unless they want to share it on their Instagram,” adds French trend analyst Marie Launceon.
In the urban area, Louis Vuitton acquired the headquarters of the HSBC bank on the Champs-Elysées avenue in Paris last year and, confirming the general trend in the sector, refused to open its main Dior store there in the French capital to prioritize its first hotel, which will open in 2026 with an estimated price per night of around 10,000 euros.
The Bulgari Hotels and Resorts, for their part, suggest different and complementary experiences to boutique hotels with the help of two leading firms in the most exclusive hotel sector: Marriott International and Ritz-Carlton in the main European and Asian capitals, where the main consumers of luxury products, and soon Miami and Los Angeles.