LONDON — When Irish milliner Philip Treacy applied his couture sensibilities to designing his first hotel, minimalism was not an option.
As design director of the g hotel in the coastal city of Galway in western Ireland, Treacy decorated one room entirely in hot pink, named the penthouse suite after Linda Evangelista and scattered Swarovski crystals with abandon.
“It was about challenging people’s perceptions of what a hotel in the west of Ireland looked like,” said Treacy, who was brought up near Galway. “I couldn’t imagine designing a hotel that was souvenir Ireland — this is 21st-century Irish design.”
Treacy was first approached by the g’s owners, the Irish boutique hotel group Monogram Hotels, in 2004. He collaborated with architects Douglas Wallace on the 101-room hotel, which opened late last year.
“At first, it was quite daunting. I thought, ‘This isn’t what I do,’” said Treacy, who has also recently branched into sports-inspired apparel with a collection for Umbro. “Then I quickly realized that, as hat design is about everything you can see, so are interiors — every detail is important.”
Treacy has applied his experience creating outlandish hats and head pieces to every part of the hotel’s interior. The backdrop to the concierge desk is a Venetian plaster scroll sculpture, while the mirrors in the cream-colored grand salon boast metal frames shaped like sprays of feathers. Near the opulent pink salon is the jet black reception room, and the blue lounge, a bar with a gentleman’s club feel. Treacy also has worked memories of his upbringing near Galway into the hotel, with door handles in the shape of seashells and an aquarium full of locally bred sea horses in the hotel’s reception.
The designer has even displayed a photograph that he discovered of Marilyn Monroe in Galway, taken when she came to visit the late film director John Huston, who used to live in the city. “When people here saw her, it must have been like Marilyn Monroe being on Mars!” said Treacy with a laugh.