The Residents of Hôtel Arcidel
LOOK 1. The Bellboy
BELLBOY SHIRT (COL. 03)
A wool shirt with silk lining, featuring a double row of buttons inspired by traditional bellboy uniforms.
The first to be met at Hôtel Arcidel, he remains endlessly curious about new guests, and even those who simply pass by. Wide-eyed, he watches freedom unfold beyond the glass, longing for a world that has slowly become foreign to him. The same faces, the same rooms, the same passing days have grown tiresome, yet the unfamiliar frightens him more than repetition ever could. Still loyal to the hotel’s hungry walls, he welcomes each stranger tenderly, though there is something in the way he says it that suggests they should have kept walking.
LOOK 2. The Lampshade
LAMPSHADE CORSET (COL. 03)
A silk corset inspired by a 1920s lampshade, adorned with hand-dyed wallpaper motifs, hand-formed pleats and cascading fringe, layered over the Gathered Tank Top Dress.
She once sat behind the reception desk, handing keys to guests whose names she would eventually forget. As the years passed and the hotel grew more selective about its guests, the objects around her began to feel less like objects at all. She spoke to them, kept them close, and somewhere along the way stopped noticing where they ended and she began. She no longer keeps the desk. She has become part of what remains — neither woman nor object, but a light the hotel has forgotten to extinguish.
LOOK 3. The Countess
KIMONO DRESS (COL. 03)
A kimono dress crafted from silk jacquard with silk lining, featuring hand-painted wallpaper motifs, a double-layered silk train and a cape necklace hand-beaded with glass beads.
She was among the first to arrive at Hôtel Arcidel, taking the premier suite on the top floor as though it had always been waiting for her. Years passed, but she never found a reason to give it up. Somewhere along the way, the distinction between guest and resident disappeared, and the hotel began to feel as much hers as she was its. Crystals gathered down her back as dust gathers on everything here — slowly, quietly, until what began as decoration became armour. She carries the weight of the hotel’s history with an almost regal ease. She has stayed long enough to learn its ways, and perhaps long enough for the hotel to have learned hers.
LOOK 4. The Stranger
PLEATED TRENCH COAT (COL. 03)
A cotton gabardine trench coat inspired by the dropped waistlines of the 1920s, with a low-set belt gathering the silhouette into curtain-like pleats, finished with silk detailing and striped cotton lining.
He has spent so long in the hallways of Hôtel Arcidel that no one remembers when he first appeared. Always a few steps behind, he listens more than he speaks, collecting fragments of other lives while revealing very little of his own. Guests have complained of his presence for years, yet there is no name at the desk, no room belonging to him, no suitcase left behind. Only the peculiar feeling of having been observed. Perhaps a person can remain somewhere for so long that presence no longer requires proof. The hotel knows him, even if no one else does.
LOOK 5. The Gentleman
SMOKING JACKET (COL. 03)
A smoking jacket crafted from wallpaper-inspired jacquard with silk lining, finished with hand embroidery across the shoulder and back.
He keeps the curtains drawn, finding the world easier to consider when there is less of it to see. Everything in his room appears perfectly in place, particularly when company is expected. What cannot be made presentable is quietly returned to the closet. Inside are years of unfinished thoughts, sketches and ideas he was certain he would return to. He arrived with a trunk of empty notebooks and the intention of filling every page. They have filled steadily ever since, though nothing in them has ever quite reached an end. Perhaps some things are easier to continue than to finish. There is always tomorrow, after all.
LOOK 6. The Mistress
PLEATED DRESS (COL. 03)
A silk chiffon dress woven from two-tone threads, individually hand-pleated and constructed with a dropped 1920s-inspired waist and layered silk train.
She was given a room when she first arrived at Hôtel Arcidel, though she has rarely slept in it. The quiet never suited her. Instead, she wanders the corridors after dark, following voices through half-open doors and allowing the evening to decide where she will wake. Over time, she has left pieces of herself in almost every room — a forgotten earring, the trace of perfume, an impression beside someone in the sheets. Perhaps solitude becomes harder to return to once one has learned how easily it can be borrowed from another. There are now few rooms in the hotel she has not spent a night in. Her own remains untouched.
LOOK 7. The Darling
CUMMERBAND BLOUSE & DRAPED PENCIL SKIRT (COL. 03)
A fitted cotton gabardine pencil skirt inspired by the draped silhouettes of early 20th-century Butterick illustrations, with an extended silk panel that can be buttoned around the neck.
She has been getting ready for as long as anyone can remember. Powdering her face, filing her nails, changing her skirt, then returning to the mirror to begin again. There is always one last thing to do before she can leave. No one remembers where she was going, and she no longer seems concerned with getting there. Perhaps after long enough, anticipation becomes an occasion of its own. Still, she prepares as though tonight might finally be the night.
LOOK 8. The Chandelier
HALF BELT SUIT JACKET (COL. 03)
A off-black virgin wool jacket with cupro lining, featuring an integrated silk scarf that wraps around the body before extending from the back into a long train.
He arrived at Hôtel Arcidel drawn to its light, and has remained close to it ever since. Over the years, crystals began to gather around him, catching the glow of the lamps until it became difficult to tell whether he was following the light or carrying it with him. He spends his evenings wandering the corridors, appearing most often when someone has lost their way. He offers his hand without asking where they intended to go. Perhaps direction matters less when one has nowhere in particular to return to. Still, he always seems to know which way to turn.
Illustrations by: MariaVittoria Esposito