En Vogue

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When the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel opens next year, the employees there may be dressed in garments as chic as those worn by the high-end clientele.


In a move seldom made, SBE Hotel Group, which is developing the SLS project, has enlisted French designer Pascal Humbert to fashion uniforms for the hotel employees.


“Every employee on the property will be outfitted in the uniforms,” said Theresa Fatino, chief creative officer of Sam Nazarian’s SBE Entertainment Group, the parent company.


She is working closely with Humbert on the project. “It’s important that people feel good in what they wear so they exude a sense of confidence and a spirit of vivaciousness and vitality. It has a direct effect on the guests’ experience.”


The SLS Beverly Hills Hotel is the first in a line of hotels SBE plans to build in the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. The former Meridien Hotel on La Cienega Boulevard is being refurbished and transformed into an SLS Hotel.


Humbert will create 80 styles for the chain. The designs, in grey, black, white and blush tones, will be split into seven distinct categories so that employees’ positions can be recognized by what they wear.


For example, phone operators will get modern pantsuits, waiters’ uniforms will have built-in aprons and the limo drivers’ jackets will have calf-skin sleeves.


Fatino has a background in apparel. She had worked as a buyer for a startup company called Pastille, a division of Neiman Marcus that made women’s clothing akin to styles at Ann Taylor.


She was introduced to Humbert by French design architect Philippe Starck, who is designing the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel project and has played a part in the creation of other SBE ventures, including the Katsuya restaurant line.


“Philippe was raving about this guy,” Fatino said. “I looked at Pascal’s work when I was in Paris. I knew he would be able to make an innovative, stylish uniform program with the sophistication and functionality we need.”


SBE enlisted Los Angeles-based designer and manufacturer Emiliano Moreno to produce and deliver the finished product.


Other fashion-hospitality collaborations are in the works. Designer Nicole Miller is collaborating with suit maker Bagir on a plan to sell washable suits to the hotel industry.


Although it’s fairly rare, hotels and airlines have enlisted name designers in the past, said Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association. Pierre Cardin designed outfits for Air France in the 1960s. Morgans Hotel in New York City dressed its workers in Calvin Klein in the 1980s.


“It isn’t a trend, but every once in a while you have designers doing this,” Metchek said.

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