Château Voltaire, currently the undisputedly coolest (and loveliest) hotel in Paris—with the coolest (and loveliest) general manager, Emilie Perello-Lhermet—is launching its own small line of clothing. There’s a black hoodie, a tee, and some sports socks, all discreetly bearing the name of Château Voltaire or the initials CV, and an artist sketch of the exterior (like one of those vintage drawings you might see on the bouquinistes stands by the Seine) on the back of the clothes, and that’s about it. Small, but perfectly formed—just like the place itself.
“As I have a ready-to-wear brand, people kept asking me if I was going to do a collaboration,” says Thierry Gillier, owner of Château Voltaire and founder of the label Zadig et Voltaire. “The interest was rising, and I thought it was a fun thing to do, so I decided to create a capsule for the hotel on its own.” Given the louche rock and roll vibe of his fashion label, it’s unsurprising that the sketch of the hotel on the shirts and hoodies has a band-tour vibe to it. “I was always attracted,” he says, “to vintage t-shirts, which inspired me for the print.” Yet this small collection reflects the hotel in other ways, too: For all its exquisite design, the property is also pretty laid back and relaxed—and so are the clothes. “I wanted to focus on items which are unisex and easy to wear; casual and comfortable,” says Gillier.
Photo: Courtesy of Château Voltaire
Yet the ironic and playful branding is also reflective of fashion right now, and Château Voltaire’s capsule gets the hip du jour vibe right, too. The hotel, now three years old, is certainly where all rues lead to during the Paris shows. (I can vouch for this firsthand, as I stayed there not long after it opened—and wrote about it here—and have continued to do so on and off ever since.) On any given day—or night—you’ll see creative director Franck Durand (he also art directed the hotel), or stylist Suzanne Koller, or photographer Rafael Pavarotti, or designer Jonny Johansen of Acne Studios, or French Vogue’s global editor-at-large Claire Thomson-Jonville, or über-super PR Lucien Pages, or… well, let’s just say the list goes on.
There’s a sense here, too, of coolness by association—something which the likes of Frame tapped into when they launched, some time ago, a collection for The Ritz Paris and the Carlyle, while Emilia Wickstead did some dresses for Passalacqua, by Lake Como. Sometimes, though, you want to take away a physical memento from your stay that’s not even about clothes: When I stayed at the groovy Hotel Ulysses in Baltimore last year, I was contemplating getting one of the hotel’s 1970s-look patchwork bedspreads—I’d have used it at home, but the more enterprisingly stylish among you might have been able to whip it up into a kind of Bode-esque wrap. Regardless of whether it’s clothing or some home accouterments, the impulse is exactly what inspired Gillier to launch his Château Voltaire line.
“The hotel has become a place where people like to gather—they feel like they are at home here, ” he says. “People are looking for a sense of belonging with places they like, as if they were a member of a club; it’s like when you travel and bring back a souvenir t-shirt, or when you wear your university sweater. Perhaps it’s just a way of saying ‘I was there.’”
