This is the Montcalm Marble Arch Hotel. It's tucked away just behind London's Marble Arch in one of those sweeping white Georgian terraces. Just an apple's throw from the hectic heart of Oxford Street, this newly refurbished project it is a complete haven of calm and peace.
From a design perspective, this calm is achieved through a combination of oak, marble, rattan and brass and a warm, natural colour scheme, alongside the natural grandeur of the old building. It's a true retreat from the city which feels at once peaceful, quiet and deeply luxurious.
It is also full of bespoke Kalinko items.
We do a lot of this behind the scenes. We work closely with hotels, hotel designers and architects to make furniture and accessories to fit specific spaces, before rolling them out at scale.
In this instance, we worked closely with the hotel team, who in turn were working with the clever people at Holland Harvey, Studio Mica and Studio Est. We sampled white marble trays, marble trays with a pinky-orange tinge, brass trays and rattan trays. We toyed with amber glassware, reclaimed teak vases and hammered brass jugs over the course of almost two years.
In the end, we settled on chic brown rattan trays, adorable mini versions of our classic ice buckets, branded tissue boxes and waste paper baskets which fit precisely between the bedside tables and the wardrobes. We also made branded versions of our bestselling shoe-horns which are hanging very elegantly inside the wardrobes in each room.
It's projects like these which help us make a really significant impact in the craft communities back in Burma. Here are a few stats from this one:
If you're a hotel designer, or know anybody who is, send 'em our way! We love projects like these and love the impact they have even more.
