MADRAS HOTEL ASHOKA

Getaway in Madras is the concept behind our SS23 collection. Of course “Getaway in Madras” comes with the double entendre of our hand woven Madras cloth and the historical city of Madras, our home in Southern India, now renamed Chennai. Madras cloth has always had a strong association with any getaway involving sun, sand, cocktails and warm weather from Nantucket to the Caribbean, to the Mediterranean to our Coromandel Coast.

The Madras Hotel Ashoka in the old part of Madras is the backdrop for much of this season’s photography. Opened in 1974 the Ashoka is a perfect example of the incredibly free, uninhibited and optimistic design of that time and aligns well with the ethos of Madras. Spread over two and half acres in the center of the city the hotel was built a bit too early to be postmodern but it can be described with many of the adjectives related to postmodernism, including eclectic, irreverent, colorful and rule breaking.

The best rooms are found in the Round Block where the rooms are built into a spiral and each room is slightly higher than the other. It has a unique winding stairwell that with every two steps you climb will bring you to the next room. This is quite pointless, pretty weird, a little impractical and really awe inspiring.