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What’s your favorite part about a luxe hotel stay? The comfy bed? A relaxing shower after a long flight? How about indulging in some room service or raiding the minibar?
Or, would you rather have a totally immersive experience that starts with the room key and ends with taking you completely out of your standard stay (and world)?
The latter is the goal of a unique collaboration between Andaz, the luxe hotel brand with a gorgeous outpost on the Sunset Strip, and artist Hebru Brantley, whose narrative-driven, pop-Afro-futurist style has been both critically acclaimed and featured in the collections of A-listers of all stripes.
The limited-time room design, which premiered on Thursday with Brantley in attendance, is a unique collaboration that will transform not only the West Hollywood location, but hotels in Amsterdam and Tokyo as well.
Entitled “Away We Go,” the capsule – part art takeover and part personal journey – features Brantley’s reimagining and reworking of the hotel experience that defies norms while offering a joyful updending of the entire experience.
(Photos by Ava Tichenor)
“As a visual artist, it’s an easy yes,” said Brantley on the collaboration. “It was a cool concept and allowed me to extend my practice and see how I could potentially transform a hotel space.”
Booking the special rooms created by Brantley during this limited-time event next month (Mar. 24 through Apr. 3) starts with a keepsake room key featuring his “Away We Go” characters, a sailor boy and his trusty canine companion, and continues upon room entry, with everything – from sheets to lighting and accessories to the art on the walls – all modded and themed by the artist.
Guests will find bespoke touches everywhere, including on the bathrobes, stationery and pens, and spy Brantley’s signature pop vinyl sculptures as they explore the space.
For Brantley, the fun in the collaboration is the freedom to create in a unique space.
“We all wanted it to look good, but there wasn’t much pushback in terms of my intention or direction, which always makes for a good situation,” he said. “[Andaz] trusted me as the artist and they trusted me to do what they brought me in to do.”
The completeness of the experience, with no detail overlooked, is evident in the artist’s intentions as well. “I want it to be a bit of a feast and not just sort of a small meal or a snack,” he said.
At the collaboration’s core, said Brantley, is the emotion and spirit of adventure that comes with travel. “I hope that travelers, whether young or young at heart, step into the spaces we’ve uniquely crafted at participating Andaz hotels and experience the transformative power of travel.”
While a “staycation” in one’s own city isn’t unheard of, more good news for Angelenos who want to experience the stay as part of a bigger trip is that Andaz and Brantley’s collaboration will hit the other two hotels soon: Amsterdam from April 3 to 13 and Tokyo from April 13 to 23, offering global destinations to those who want to take the collaboration’s theme literally.
(Photos by Mazhar Badani)
To make the stay even more exclusive, Andaz and Brantley are offering a keepsake capsule collection available exclusively through select qualifying room bookings, including the aforementioned bathrobe, a hoodie, a candle, mug and postcard, all in a branded tote and available while supplies last.
When asked where he wanted to go himself, Brantley, an avid traveler, said the list was almost never-ending, but that his favorite thing in travel was to drill down and examine a destination.
“In terms of places that I know and still want to explore more would definitely be hopping on a plane, going to Japan, getting there and then hopping on a train, hitting Osaka, Kyoto, and coming on back to Tokyo.”
