Hotelcore: Australian Fashion’s Hotel Era

For fellow travellers, we all are familiar with and love the experience of arriving at a hotel, smelling the fresh scent, slipping into some fuzzy slippers and tucking into the fluffy comforter in your room. Your temporary home away from home. But, what if this exact feeling has recently been transferred into fashion?

Hotelcore is a specific subgenre of fashion branding in which brands pose their products within the hotel luxury aesthetic. Common themes associated with this niche are crisp white linens, dim ambient lighting, marble bathrooms, plush robes and minimalist interiors to present a sense of quiet indulgence. Think about all the visual motifs often associated with when you stay at a hotel, elements that romanticise the transient yet intimate experience of hotel living.

More recently, it has been observed that a few Australian fashion brands have picked up this aesthetic and tweaked it to resonate with their personal images.

Hotel Mode Sydney

One extremely popular and relevant example being Mode Mischief’s Hotel Mode pop-ups in both Melbourne and Sydney. Mode Mischief brings Hotelcore to life through converting retail spaces into vintage-inspired hotel environments that invite customers to quite literally “check in” and experience the brand beyond just clothing (further explored in this article: https://communications7606.wixsite.com/the-uni-diaries/post/the-marketing-playbook-of-mode-mischief).

Sabelle photoshoot

Moreover, Dear Frankie has recently announced its rebrand launch into Sabelle with the reveal video being situated within a hotel. With the brand entering a new era, the Hotelcore aesthetic ties its new demure and refined image together to create a perfect sense of quiet luxury and cohesive brand identity.

My Mum Made It photoshoot

My Mum Made It is another Australian slow-fashion brand that curates nostalgic yet modern pieces that feature dream-like babydoll silhouettes and ruffled sets. Its style leans petite and almost angelic which is further emphasized through its photoshoots set in vintage, French-inspired hotel interiors and exteriors to highlight its soft, feminine and effortlessly romantic identity.

Overall, Hotelcore is a smart trend that fashion brands leverage on because it utilises the psychology of “liminal space”. The term “liminal space” is a transient environment that represents a complete departure from the mundane chores and clutter of daily life. People are more open to new identities when they are in “third spaces” meaning not at work or not at home but a hotel is an excellent environment for this.

In positioning fashion products within visual motifs often associated with hotels, the brands are selling the experience of both quiet luxury and main character escapism.

This aesthetic presents as special because it triggers tactile memories of softness and comfort which brings attention to the use of sensory marketing to imply high-quality craftsmanship without the need for loud logos.

With this trend still being fairly recent, it is yet to be fully defined or exhausted, however it does signal this generation’s growing favouritism for experiential, escapist branding in fashion.