In a sundrenched corner of the Rocky Mountains, a slice of the French Riviera landed in Aspen, Colorado, last summer. There at the bottom of Ajax peak, splashes of Dior's cheery aquamarine Jouy Soleil toile adorned the pool deck of the Little Nell hotel, while lavender and white roses surrounded the pool, emulating the gardens at Christian Dior’s beloved Provencal chateau, La Colle Noire. Under a Dior logo, brought to life with sunpatiens and apple blossoms, well-heeled guests sipped Krug bubbly and nibbled Regis Ova caviar from a Dior-inspired pool menu—all of this signaling a partnership between the five-star property and the iconic fashion house, which took over the Little Nell for the summer of 2024, complete with the poolside Dioriviera and Dior’s first fully-branded U.S. spa residency.

With its sensory activation, the Dior takeover was one of the most sumptuous incarnations of a trend that’s seen the worlds of fashion and travel increasingly converge in recent years. As brands search for novel ways to reach consumers and drive sales, luxury retailers from Dior and Tory Burch to Valentino and Alberta Ferretti are venturing further and further into the world of hospitality, unveiling pop ups, co-branded collections, spa residencies, even fully branded properties.

While the hospitality-fashion collab trend isn’t completely new, it has exploded in recent years. Fashion-loving globetrotters can now soak in over-the-top opulence at Palazzo Versace in Macau, China, a lavish, 271-room homage to the fashion house that opened in March 2024. Or jet to a far-flung Maldivian atoll, where Bulgari will unveil Resort Ranfushi in early 2026, nearly three years after it debuted the magnificent 114-room Hotel Bulgari in Rome. In January 2025, the new 210-room Beach Club in Boca Raton, Florida, opened the Cabana Club by Vilebrequin, a group of poolside bungalows styled in wallpaper featuring the swimwear designer’s colorful prints. Next spring, legendary French parfumeur Fragonard will debut a chic guest house in Provence, which will offer perfume making classes. Meanwhile, the fashion world is anxiously awaiting the opening of Louis Vuitton’s first eponymous hotel, coming to the Champs Elysée in 2026.

For many reasons, luxury fashion and hospitality make perfect bedfellows. At their core, each is in the business of worldbuilding, inviting consumers into these alternate realities, and, ultimately, selling them a piece of the fantasy. “These partnerships allow fashion and beauty brands to engage customers in a way that transcends traditional advertising,” says Gabby Cohen, chief brand officer of Aspen One, the company that owns the Little Nell. To this end, a hospitality partnership allows luxury retailers “to offer to its customers a 360-degree experience,” says Livio Proli, CEO of Missoni, which partnered last summer with Verdura, a sleek five-star resort in Sicily. The Missoni Resort Club at Verdura featured beach chairs bedecked in the fashion house’s signature zigzags, Missoni-inspired cocktails, and a Missoni boutique, offering an unparalleled opportunity, says Proli, to plunge guests “fully into Missoni lifestyle philosophy,” one that can be summed up as la dolce vita.

Meandering through the Dioriviera gardens last summer with the Nell’s resident gardener—whose grandmother tended to Queen Elizabeth’s gardens, no less—it was impossible not to be transported to La Colle Noire and seduced into a fever dream of beauty and elegance. My experience at the spa only amplified that reverie. An aesthetician administered a Kobi-Dior facial, an anti-aging treatment that uses Japanese massage and luxurious products from Dior’s Prestige line, which feature the Rose de Granville, an age-fighting bloom handpicked at Dior’s 17-acre garden in Normandy. All of this worked wonders to revive my weary, 45-year-old-mom face.

It left me wanting more: more glamor, more luxury, more Dior, which is exactly the point. Caitlyn Chase, a guest at the Nell last summer, says the Dior takeover cemented her loyalty to the hotel and to the fashion house, and made her seek out Dior products. “I had another touchpoint to learn about the various products and services Dior offers and experience the brand in a new way,” says Chase, who also took a Dior Prestige Beauty class during her stay. Chase so loved the Jouy fabric she encountered at the Nell that she ventured to the fashion house’s boutique in town to buy some accessories clad in it. Chase adds, “Experiences like travel or a spa day create lasting memories, while high-quality luxury products serve as investments, tangible reminders of special moments.” The Dior pop up, says Chase, deftly offered both.

While Dior won’t be back at the Little Nell this year, the company will open the doors this month to its first permanent spa in Italy at the Belmond Splendido in Portofino. After two successful summers of pop ups at the property, the Dior Spa at Splendido is the crown jewel of the former 16th century monastery’s multi-year refurbishment. Surrounded by citrus groves and climbing wisteria, the spa serves up signature treatments (such as the “Splendidior” a facial-massage combo), as well as a stunning rooftop terrace with sweeping views of the impossibly blue Ligurian Sea.

Dior isn’t the only luxury fashion house flourishing in the business of hospitality. Bulgari helped pioneer the trend, opening its first hotel in 2004 in Milan, and now has nine namesake properties worldwide, with plans to open in Miami Beach, the Bahamas, and Bodrum in the coming years. For Bulgari, incarnating its brand means translating what it knows about precious gems to hotels. “We craft the hotel as a jewel, with the same attention to details, design, craftsmanship, and quality of materials that are common with jewelry,” says Silvio Ursini, executive vice president of the Bulgari Group. Think: marble mosaics, custom fabrics in Bulgari motifs, and handcrafted Murano lights, not to mention VIP access to one-of-a-kind experiences, such as lunch in some of the most exquisite private residences in Rome.

From light fixtures to menu items, towels and candle scents, each detail allows a brand to bring itself to life. It’s the storefront experience on steroids. But whereas a shopping trip might end after an hour or two, a hotel stay lasts days, allowing for richer expressions of a brand’s identity and, in turn, the chance to connect with consumers more deeply. “In essence, both hotels and storefronts serve as physical embodiments of a brand's values and aesthetic principles,” says Ursini. “However, hotels offer richer narratives woven throughout every facet of their operation, from arrival to departure, providing guests not just goods or services but memories.”

Beyond sheer sales strategy, the pop-ups and collaborations can also be personal pet projects for designers. Belgium-born Diane von Furstenberg, famous for her wrap dresses, partnered with the Hotel Amigo in her hometown of Brussels to design a suite, adorning it in her signature bold prints and two framed Andy Warhol scarves with her face splashed across them. The Amigo is set in the neighborhood where von Furstenberg went to elementary school, and she was drawn to the project by a sense of patriotism and nostalgia. "Designing the DVF suite for the Amigo Hotel in Brussels felt like coming home again," she says.

The fashion-hotel trend shows no signs of slowing down, and summer 2025 will deliver both new and tried-and-true partnerships. For Dior lovers who can’t make it to the Italian Riviera, the fashion house is partnering with Belmond in June for a four day wellness journey aboard the Royal Scotsman train that will take passengers through the Scottish Highlands. In the warmer climes of the Med, the spa at Cheval Blanc in St. Tropez has teamed up with Guerlain, Balmain takes over the One&Only Aesthesis in Greece, and Valentino will collaborate with Puente Romano Beach resort in Marbella, Spain.

Stateside, Michael Kors has partnered with the Montauk Yacht Club to offer the Jet Set package, in which guests receive a Michael Kors Bedford Weekender Bag, a massage in the resort’s floating  cabana spa, a sunset cruise, and chef’s table dining experience. Saks Fifth Avenue will team up with with the Montage Laguna Beach to offer a personalized shopping experience at the resort, and luxury hat designer Nick Fouquet will host a pop up in July at the Ritz Carlton Bachelor Gulch in Colorado.

Meanwhile, capsule collections abound. Lake Como’s dreamy Passalacqua has partnered with the Swedish lifestyle brand CDLP to create a collection of breezy leisure wear, while in the Caribbean Eden Rock in St. Barth’s has partnered with watchmaker Hublot to create a limited edition timepiece that can be purchased exclusively at the resort.

For the Nell, the Dior collaboration was wildly successful. An early summer wellness retreat drew the likes of Ashley Park and Alexandra Daddario, and by midsummer, appointments for facials and massages were in such high demand that the Nell and Dior extended the partnership through September. The coupling surpassed previous revenue records, according to The Little Nell’s director of operations, Josh Rosenberg, but there are benefits beyond profits. The collaboration, says Rosenberg, “elevated our spa’s global profile, establishing us as the premier spa destination in Aspen.” Ultimately, the Dior-Little Nell partnership illustrates so much of what all parties hope to get from such a project: sales, visibility, prestige branding, customer loyalty.

My time at the Dioriviera plunged me into a lavish life that wasn’t mine, but that I could buy a piece of for a moment. The memory of that lovely afternoon stuck with me long after my stay and imprinted on my brain a notion of Dior–luxurious, refined–while cementing the Little Nell as one of my all-time favorite hotels (highly recommend it as a brief respite from motherhood). Months later at my local Nordstrom, when I was re-upping my makeup supply and faced with dozens of choices, I reached for Dior. I wanted to carry a piece of that rarefied world with me wherever I went. Now, whenever I apply my Addict Lip Maximizer, I’m transported to La Colle Noire and feel as though I’m wearing the Granville rose on my lips.