The Art of Hotel Merch and More

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1:12Happy Friday, everyone. I hope you had a great week. Line sheet was packed as usual. We had a bunch of Vogue succession news, four out of five, I believe, for maybe five out of five days in case something crazy happens. I don't know. I think it's going to be four out of five. A whole lot on the business of Kate from numbers to analysis from Sarah. It's really interesting what's happening over there. Rachel Strugatz dug into the Martha Stewart beauty launch, revealed many details behind it that had not been reported previously. I also address these nagging rumors about Jenna Lyons joining Gap, Inc.

1:53And in particular, Banana Republic. It's not true she's not going there, but it got me first of all, I don't know why people are so obsessed with her going there. It's crazy. Like I hear it from people internally. I hear it from outside. They just really want her to work there. So maybe the universe is telling Richard Dixon, the CEO, something. But it made me really think about Banana Republic in particular and what's happening there and Athleta, which is another company owned by Gap Inc. And in general, how it's going, I love to do a check-in with Richard Dixon every six months or so. And then there was lots of September issue cover conversation.

2:35So I hope you enjoy it. And let's get going with Marie. She is so fascinating. I love chatting with her. I love the, if you think of like Italy, Instagram, aesthetic vacation, Italy holiday, vacation aesthetic. It's because of Marie. So we kind of talk about what that means and how she grapples with it as a person who runs hotels for a living and owns hotels. So I hope you enjoy it. Marie Louise Shaw. Welcome to Fashion People. I did it. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to have you. What did you have for breakfast this morning? It's afternoon noun for you, but what was the first thing you put in your mouth today?

3:20Coffee. How do you take your coffee? They always say coffee is the best thing you can have on an empty stomach, isn't it? So coffee with oat milk and followed by some really good bread with fantastic honey from a friend's beehive. Where are you in the world right now? Currently in the office in Rome. so are you is that where you're based day to day or yeah so rome is uh rome is the headquarters and it's also where i live um when my with my son when he comes to see me um and then i'm i travel a lot during the summer i'm always in the car basically yeah i can imagine you you're probably visiting properties and hosting things yeah i live in the car that's where i reside basically.

4:12What kind of car do you drive? I'm curious. I drive a big Range Rover just because I spend so much time in it that I thought I might as well buy a couch on wheels. I'm into it. I became a driver just four years ago and I'm very proud of my Volvo and also I've looked at Range Rovers. They're good, but it's very funny. It's such a funny culture and driving in Italy, which I've never done, but I've been to Pantelleria and have been taken around by a, like a driver, the two drivers that drive everybody in there. And it is a very fun, fun experience. And my husband and I always talk about if we drove and went back to somewhere like that, if we could handle it, I don't think we could.

5:01Well, I mean, Italy is a really good place for a road trip, though, I have to say. It sounds really, I'm sure it's extremely beautiful. It's great. I mean, you can just get lost and wonder and always find something absolutely beautiful or great to eat. So it's a win-win pretty much. Well, I feel like you're also a person who your job is to create and make people's holidays really special. So you are always thinking in that way too. Like your life, your work is a holiday in some way. So it totally looks like it. I promise. But it really is not. No, I mean, I know, but I know it's a holiday, but it's a work holiday.

5:44It's a work. It's a holiday with put it this way. It's an office with a great view. I love that positive point of view on it. So you you are here to talk about your company and growing up in this business. And before we started chatting, I wanted to, everybody knows Del Pelicano. They know all your properties. They're very familiar with you. If, if they read magazines or if they travel in Italy, you have be, your business has become synonymous with travel in Italy, which is, which is remarkable over the past 10 years, especially. And then you have this deep connection with the fashion industry, But what was it like growing up in the hospitality business?

6:34And what made you decide to make it your business too? First of all, thank you for synonymous of Italian holidays, because that's exactly what I want. That's the goal. So I already have to say that. The yellow and white stripe. I mean, it's associated with you and it's associated with Italy and having a cocktail and it's amazing. oh thank you well you just made my day so there you go thanks for that um i yeah i so i grew up there because my dad was um he was a guest at the pelicano and um and then when he bought it i was i think i was two years old or something and that so i i you know i had no idea um for me it was our kind of beach house and then there was all these random people who would come in and out at this Beach House.

7:26So it was always, it always felt like home, yet a bizarre home where people would come in and out of it. And not, you know, many times the same people. So it really made it like a home. And then many times, obviously, different people. So it was definitely very formative to, to, to grow up there and I knew I was growing up in some funny world that wasn't regular and I always tried to I remember trying to make sense of it right because it's a home it's not a home what is it what are these people I'm maybe gonna see them again until then Slim Aaron showed up and and this is something I've been you know realizing with time but I used to spend a lot of time kind of following him taking pictures because I was very intrigued of what I was seeing, which was a world of beautiful and very stylish people, very elegant people.

8:26But I didn't, you know, I couldn't put two plus two together. It was kind of all intuition. So I was like, what is this man doing now? Someone's photographing all of this, right? and so I would kind of follow him and I remember this one time he took this fabulous picture of my parents lying down on the couch I don't know if you know that picture and my mom has this pile of books the rise and fall of the medici and everything very dramatic and I remember perfectly well when he took that picture and I stood behind that lens with him and I said oh now he's he's photographing kind of a film set and so I always thought I was really living in a fabulous film set.

9:04And him being there actually helped me. It was through his lens that I understood that there was kind of nearly a disconnect between what was home to me and what it meant for other people. And so I spent a lot of my childhood, you know, hiding in the bushes because children were not allowed in, to look at this fabulous world and these men in seersucker suits and women with these long gowns. And my mom used to go to dinner with cappuccino dresses. So it was very, so I think it was definitely very formative in terms of my relationship with fashion and style, I think, because that's where I saw it all happen.

9:42And my mom used to write for Harper's Bazaar Spain. So there was a lot of kind of style going on. The only thing I knew when I was a bit older was I didn't want to be in the hotel worlds. and I wanted to be in a creative world. So I studied architecture at Rhode Island School of Design and loved it and did every single course from glassblowing to painting to sculpture, you name it, and then didn't know exactly where I wanted to be in the art world, so I thought I'll choose architecture. It's probably a really good base. And it was actually a very good call because I started working in New York for a big developer doing all these huge apartment buildings where all the flats were the same.

10:32And I realized then what I didn't want to do, which is just as important as knowing what you do want to do, which I didn't want to do things that were the same. And so when I came back to Italy, I started working for an interior designer and then my dad wanted a return on his investment, I guess, and asked me to redesign a bathroom at the Pelicano. And so I thought, great, you know, great opportunity. So I did this bathroom and I remember very well saying to him, I think you need to redo this place for a younger crowd. Like it was, you know, it's been around at that point for quite some time, but it was getting tired.

11:14And he said, do it, whatever that meant. And I was like, okay. And he was like, just do it. Okay. So I'll interview some architects and I'll see who's the right one. And so I did. And I met all these great architects, but they were all going to put their ego on it. And it was about their design and it wasn't about the hotel. So I thought, I'll screw it up, but I can't get it that wrong. I know the DNA of the place. I know the style that's embedded in the walls. I know how this place should feel to people to preserve its DNA. and um and so i kind of you know closed my nose i was like okay i'll go for it and and i did and um the next year when we opened these two clients had been coming since the opening said to me oh something's changed but i don't know what so i thought oh mission accomplished in some way and so then i got into the graphic design because it it wasn't working with uh with interior design.

12:22And then I started getting into the uniforms and then the plates. And so I started pulling everything together to make it feel harmonious. Because a bit felt from the 70s, a bit felt from the 90s. It just wasn't. And so that's how I ended up getting involved in the hotel business. And that was like in the mid 2000s? Yeah. I mean, my son was born in 2002. I think I started like 2004 or something like that. Okay, so you redesigned this hotel. And at this point, your family only owned that hotel. No, so my dad owned also La Posta Vecchia, which he bought shortly after the Pelicano. So the other place where we grew up was very much at the Posta Vecchia as well, because that was our home home for some time until it became a hotel.

13:11Whilst the Pelicano was always a hotel, La Posta Vecchia became one. And so, you know, also there, there was a lot of, it was more intimate, clearly, because it wasn't a hotel, but it was very beautiful and stylish. And I think, you know, aesthetics and style is something that's been around my life a lot, especially growing up in a city like Rome, right, where you're surrounded by harmony and balance and color and beauty, really. And when did you, my first memory of Pelicano is sort of you bringing your crew around and have having a photography from the late 2000s there of your friends and really fabulous clothing and style and bringing it all together.

14:02When did you, I'm sure you were bringing friends there while you were growing up forever. But as you started to spend more time working on the business, did you start to pull people in? Like, how did the scene there develop? It was kind of quite natural because not coming from a hospitality background, I was really free to come up with any idea I wanted, really, right? And when I was doing the research for the interior design, I called Slim Aaron's and I said, you know, I want to see you. I want to see the pictures of how the Pelicano was back in the 80s and 90s. And he said, I sold everything to Getty Images.

14:41It's all in London. So I went to London and I went in this room and there was boxes and boxes of pictures of Pelicano. And so I thought, oh, my God, we have to do a book because the pictures were unbelievable. We already had, we owned the John Swope archive. He was a time photographer who had documented all the building of the hotel. And we had those pictures in the hotel. And so then when I saw all of these pictures of Slimarans, I was like, we have to do a book. So through someone who I know suggested Robert Beilet, who's an amazing editor. And I called him and we put this book together. And the first draft, it was only these kind of two chapters.

15:22And it felt nostalgic, right? It felt it stopped in the late 90s with Slimmer. And so Robert said to me, who would you want to work with? Like, who do you think is the right person to do the contemporary chapter? And I thought the only person who came to mind and who I really only wanted to work with was Jürgen. And I loved his work and I still do. But I thought he would be really great. And only now I see that the dissonance between Jürgen and Slim are so, they're so different. And I think that was quite, I didn't realize, but it was quite a choice because when the book came out, it was an immense success because Slim sadly had died.

16:08So his, you know, photography was everywhere. And then having Jürgen take that chapter of pictures, and there was a lot of my friends, because we had had a party, we always had parties. So he photographed a week there. And within that week, there was this party. And so then it started, I think that's how it opened up in the fashion world a bit, right? Because of Jürgen's connection to fashion and Pelicano always historically had a connection to fashion. And so that's when I think the new chapter for the hotel, not only for the book, but for the hotel happened. And that kind of was the start of when I really started and my era of bringing that along.

16:52You know, my, I would say my dad's a Slim Slyarans chapter and my chapter really starts with kind of the Jürgen, with that book. And then we did a cookbook together that was bonkers and absolutely fabulous. These books, I just looked up the original book and it's going for a lot of money on. I know. Have you ever thought of reissuing it? No, not yet. I do have a big box at home still. Oh my God, that's amazing. No, we haven't. We should probably. It was really amazing the success of that book. And I remember when my big goal was to be on Vanity Fair when Graydon Carter was the editor-in-chief.

17:42And we had this call and I was so emotional and so excited that I got this paid. I can't remember the name of the page, but there was a specific fabulous page with like, I don't know if it was new books or something. And I still have that cut out of that page because when it came out there and it was it was really exciting. That's awesome. And I mean, I feel like airmail owes you a lot. I'm sure they cover cover you all constantly. It's such a the interesting thing to me, like speaking of you wanted to be in Vanity Fair, how much your hotels have become part of the modern culture in the way they were back in the Slim Aaron's era as well.

18:28what do you think gave you is that an instinct you have or was it something about how your dad ran the business that you understood that it in order for it to be more than just a hotel you needed to ground it in the current culture somehow like the can you explain your thinking and how you managed to do that because bringing Juergen to do those photos like that's an art book. That's not just a book of pretty photos. And maybe if he had just done it himself, but combining it with John Swope and Slim Aarons, that creates something that like it needs to be on people's shelves. It's like a necessary.

19:14It's not just a complimentary. Is that just an instinct? Is that something you grew up observing and you absorbed it? How, How does your thought process work in that way? It's very instinctual. I mean, I also like non-obvious. I don't go for obvious. And I'm just not, my brain doesn't think in that direction in some way. And maybe it's more complicated. I think it's a bit how I was brought up. I think certainly how RISD taught. I loved, I think it was such a formative school to kind of have the apply critical thinking on everything. And also the fact that, again, I wasn't in hospitality. Because if you look at books on hotels today, they're kind of all, they're coffee table books, right?

19:58Like they're a great gift, but they're not talking about a place that was, has been culturally relevant or is, or, you know, and it's very different. so really instinctual anyway it always puts a smile on my face because I always think these projects are so they come from instinct and then I think oh it's going to be very too dissonant but then it worked out in some way so you know it's a bit like Birkenstocks I remember when we did the collaboration and my father basically passed out and I told him we were doing a thing with Birkenstocks and he was like what do they have to do with the Pelicanos like nothing And I said, believe me, it's going to be they're going to be really great elevated Birkenstocks.

20:44The best Birkenstocks to ever exist. Oh, thank you. I love them. I still have a little stash of those two. I have three, not many. but so tell me so you you do this project you reimagine the hotel you do this book project your friends are coming in and out you're creating a culture around this hotel when did you kind of say okay or you and your dad said I'm you're in the family business now and And when did you sort of like accept that this was your fate? And when did you get into the administrative part and start managing it? Well, I think after two years, like the next year that I got into everything else, like the graphics and things, I thought I saw a world of opportunity, right?

21:40Of opportunity of expressing myself as well, because for me, these hotels are really an extension of my interest. So Jürgen came around because I knew and liked his photography. So it's going back to your first question. It's not studied. It's something that is in my world. And I kind of express it then through the hotels. And so it became kind of in some way nearly a playground or a place to really be creative and expressive. And I think that was shortly after when I realized that, you know, there's so many departments in hotel, like there's the front office, there's the housekeeping, there's F &B, there's spa, there's retail.

22:18Well, there wasn't, but there now is. But there's all these different areas that are little microcosms of businesses, right? There's the restaurant, there's the bar. And so I thought all of those are places where I can contribute, come up with ideas, express myself, and put together there a whole harmony for then the guests to experience. So I think two years in, I was like, oh, God, I love this. This is what I want to do because I genuinely really love my job. It seems like a really fun job, a really hard job, but a really fun and complex job that never changes. And you mentioned the Birkenstocks collaboration, but when did you start?

23:01Because the hotel merch, that's like a whole industry now. Now it's huge. It's amazing.

23:11It's huge. like the the cool merchant i i can't think of another hotel i order your candle that you did with it's by rato that you did it with right god it's it's so good it's so good and i order that from you once a year or twice a year there's no other hotel or hotel group in the world that people are seeking out the the candle and ordering it online maybe cost in in paris yeah they've got a really great smell yes it's very good but um when did you start pulling in brands like Birkenstocks and saying hey I would like to make a specific product that we'll sell in the store and then that became a business in and of itself when did you start developing that and how did it all open up and so I think again that was kind of I saw an opportunity in the physical space of the hotel we had a shop and i and you know how hotel shops were always kind of a dead end right you'd go there you'd never buy anything and it was kind of a storage of space basically um and so we i started doing the buying for the shop i was like why why can't we like get stuff that people would want to buy anywhere else like in the city or in because they always had the you know the bad polos or the bad caps.

24:44And so I started doing the buying. And then every year we saw that the numbers were growing, right? The sales were really, and people were excited to get into a hotel. And one of their experiences was also to be able to get a great dress for the evening and, or hat for the day. So I started mixing in higher and lower brands. And I thought, this is so much fun. What great again and a bit of a bit of a plagiar and there my interest in fashion obviously came out a lot because i i knew a lot of brands and um then our hotel shop got bigger because it was getting into a real line of business um and then i think like 10 years ago something like that the first thing i ever did was with jean and judy tweetu the apc so i'd known them for a long time and I love them and I love what they do.

25:38And so they did our Pelicano merch. The first, you know, they did our caps and our T-shirts and they were amazing. And we didn't have an online, we just had it in the shop. And then Olympia Letan, when she was doing her bags, we did the cover, the bag of the book of the Peli. For the 50th anniversary, that was, we had that as one of the special things. Just an edition of 10. but all organic. I met Olympia at the hotel, and it was all kind of natural, and then slowly, slowly started building up more things, and Birkenstock really was out of necessity because I spent so much time at the hotels, and I loved Birkenstocks, but they were not that fanciest shoes, and I literally called them, and someone connected.

26:30I had already clear how I wanted the Birkenstocks. I wanted to do silk ones. I wanted raffia ones. And it was very, I knew exactly. So I remember talking to their head of marketing. And I said, you know, I have this hotel. And they're like, oh, yeah, I know the Philly kind of. Do you have any ideas in mind? I hit send and I sent them already exactly very clear. And so that's how that happened. And we started structuring, I guess. That was also a very different scale, right? Because the APC and Olympia and the other things we've done were small and just only available in the shops. But also there I saw an opportunity to do fun things and work with great people and great brands.

27:13And that's how then our e-commerce came around. E-Cmail was because we were doing all these collaborations. And I just wanted to extend online a bit because we have, as of now, we have only seasonal hotels. So we shut in the end of October and reopened in April. it the that raffia birkenstock in particular became i just googled it googled it and i remember it being on matches and selling out and it was my friend erica is a very big fan of your she she's been in the content and commerce business for a long time and she's a huge fan of Isamo and and does all her gifting shopping on on there. But also, I remember when she got them and it was like they have.

28:05The interesting thing is that that style is now I'm looking just I Googled Pelicano Raffia Birkenstock. And not only does Birkenstock do something similar to what you originally did. Yeah. There is a Miu Miu one. There is the Stodd Birkenstocks that have a similar thing. There is, um, Isabel Moran, Jimmy Chu. It really did. It was a big kind of aesthetic moment. And also I think for Birkenstock, they had done collaborations, but the Pro-Ins, the Schooler ones, Rick Owens, all of this, I think it was a real turning point in it's it feels like for me in your business but also in sort of how uh consumer culture like it just a change in how people buy things and and what they want and how something an idea can come about because it's not it's not obvious in any way yeah to be like cool let's do a collaboration with a hotel like yes no i have to say that their head of marketing was really was really great because yeah it doesn't come you wouldn't think that especially in 2000 i think now it's quite different right but in 2000 we did that 2017 and then we launched it in 2019 and we launched it with matches and that was another thing i think that was you know us doing something with an e-commerce brand was also um i guess unexpected but it was really a fun project and we did um it was really great and it was we did all these events one at pelicano one at pasta vecchia and then ended up all on a boat and then ended up at mezzatore which the year we just got it so we had this then massive party um so that year i have to i'll never forget 2019 in terms of workload because we launched Birkenstock and then we did this big collaboration with matches and then COVID arrived to the surface.

30:09It was like, oh no. I remember chatting with you about the commerce in particular during COVID. And I do think it was a real, in those early days, such a, I don't want to say escape, but it was, there was something about, because you launched the Isamo during in 2020, right? Right. At 10 days after lockdown. Oh my God. But, but I think what it did was it gave people and because we all thought, I thought, I remember I had a very nice vacation planned for May 31st. And I remember saying to my husband, well, we'll still be able to go to that. And we definitely weren't. It gave people an opportunity to sort of connect with this world that that they were missing when we were stuck at home did you feel like the fact that you launched the econ during that period that it was in some way I don't want to say fortunate but like a a good a lucky coincidence or whatever it it it yeah it was and I think um you know it I would I also didn't want to do it I was very nervous because I thought it was not a good idea I went what was happening in the world to launch something like that.

31:30And then I thought, what am I going to, you know, it actually could be good. It could be some sort of escapism. And Italy was, you know, the hardest hit at that point. So, you know, I literally was sitting on the couch doing, you know, social media with two friends, the imaginary road trip in Italy, you know, really trying to push the country and be of support. And so I thought that this is actually good timing and obviously the very disastrous situation. It was very good timing. It was good escapism, I think. And also people, we have a lot of repeat clients. They, you know, no one knew if we'd, you know, where we'd be, if we'd be.

32:13And so, you know, I think they're connected to the Pelicanos. So kind of having that, let's keep in touch in some way was important. And we got a lot of very encouraging kind of feedback when we launched it during COVID. And so, but yeah, we're a little nervous because it was, I mean, it was what it was, but it was, again, as you said, in some way, fortunate moment. Yeah, I think that connection is the right word. There is something very clear and real about what you do that makes it feel like talking about buying that candle. It's hard for someone like me to get to have a get a feeling from something from buying something at this point because I'm so overexposed to to commerce and and what people buy.