Flowers and art – what delights spring to mind. At FOUR SEASONS HOTEL THE WESTCLIFF in Johannesburg, a local-flower arrangement in front of a glass etching – above – provides contrast of colour, a symbiotic imbalance of hard with natural forms. Most of the art in the hotel is traditional, local or historical. A favourite suite, 301 – looking out over the zoo – has numerous etchings of details of Lutyens’ masterplans.
Flowers sometimes bring their artists into hotels. FOUR SEASONS HOTEL SEOUL has displays of Danish artist Nicolai Bergmann’s flower boxes. THE CORINTHIA LONDON has a walk-through flower studio as part of its lobby concept store.
ONE&ONLY LE ST GERAN in Mauritius has taken floral art to high fashion. There are exquisite displays in public areas of soft apricot and green floribunda, the kind of Indian Ocean species where you are not quite sure when flower ends and leaf begins. Well, all these displays are created publicly, in a dedicated area of the resort’s superb boutique, Neo.
Neo Mauritius was always pretty good, but then the resort realised that whereas when travellers go, say, to Dubai there are more than plenty of boutiques to go spend all their money, in Mauritius there are – none. Ergo, One&Only Le St Geran brought fashion in house. By swallowing up former meeting space it was an easy task to double the size of Neo, and by talking with brands direct good names could be enticed.
Neo now offers, exquisitely displayed to standards worth of Madison Avenue or Bond Street, such labels as Brunello Cucinelli, Tom Ford and Valentino. A few metres away are flowers, which need no labels. The whole constitutes one of the world’s best luxury hospitality fashion boutiques.
