World's first fashion hotel set for city opening

Published on Friday 6 March 2009 09:16

IT is so exclusive, even the staff will be wearing Italian designer outfits.

Edinburgh's first "fashion hotel" is set to open this summer as part of a multi-million-pound development on the site of the former council offices on the corner of the Royal Mile and George IV Bridge.

It has been created through a partnership between the renowned Italian fashion and homewares brand Missoni and Belgian hotel giant Rezidor.

It has been revealed that the 100-plus staff are to wear uniforms from the Missoni range, with some key staff to wear outfits worth several hundred pounds.

The hotel owners also want to make an impact on the street outside and passers-by will get a hint of the glamour within the building with two handmade four-foot mosaic vases marking the entrance to the building.

The economic downturn and recent decline in hotel occupancy figures in Edinburgh have not put Rezidor off the project. It expects fans of the designer label to converge on the city from around the globe – especially from Italy – to catch a glimpse of the Missoni-designed hotel.

Gordon McKinnon, executive vice-president of brands at Rezidor, said that bookings for the summer were already going well – even although the 136-room hotel does not open its doors until late May.

"We don't want this to be elitist," he said. "It will be high quality but we hope it will be fully accessible to a lot of people.

"The restaurant and bars will play a part and you'll be able to get a bowl of pasta and a bottle of wine for 30 or 40, although you could easily spend three or four times that if you wanted to."

Mr McKinnon and Ms Missoni first started working on their partnership three years ago and then set about finding a location from Rezidor's development pipeline.

They settled on the 34 million Bank of Scotland project on the site of the former Lothian Regional Council offices. A second hotel is also to be created in Kuwait and it is expected that up to 30 will be open or in development by 2012.

It is just the latest stage of the ongoing development of the Missoni brand, which started as just a fashion label but has since branched out into homewares, fragrances and even garden furniture.

"It is one of the few brands that is truly unique," said Mr McKinnon.

"When you see Missoni you know it is Missoni.

"I think there will be a lot of people throughout the world who will want to come and see this. The hotel industry throughout the world will want to see it as well.

"We do expect a lot of interest from Italy as well.

"Italians will always be loyal to their own country and for them what better combination could you get than Missoni and whisky?"

As well as the hotel, the project will also see the creation of a flagship Bank of Scotland branch – which will become the first bank branch with a Royal Mile address – as well as retail space.

A Bank of Scotland spokesman confirmed that the company remained committed to the site.

He said: "It's always been part of our plans to improve our branch presence in that part of Edinburgh.

"We don't expect to open until the autumn."