A hotel is a point of endless rendezvous and interaction, both a destination and a starting point: a threshold between familiarity and the hitherto undiscovered. Inside a hotel’s rooms and suites, labyrinthine corridors and vestibules, personas are easily worn and shrugged off, different roles assumed and exchanged - a million stories can be told. A hotel is a space open to reinvention of the self.
The grand public space of the lobby or foyer marks a point of convergence, a spontaneous and unexpected arena for the exchange and interchange of distinct characters. A proscenium arch under which personalities are perceived, discerned, redefined as guests mill around, blurring lives together. A hotel is a paradox - simultaneously intimate and expansive, private and public. It is an ephemeral space - a home, but only for a night.
The Miu Miu Croisière 2019 campaign captures this essence - of constant change, of intrigue and interaction. A litany of women from different walks of life - models, movie stars - cross paths at the entrance to the gilded foyer of the fin de siècle Hôtel Regina in Paris. The revolving cast promenading through the doorway includes the actress Gwendoline Christie and the models Lucan Gillespie, Taylor Hill, Kendall Jenner, Adriana Lima, Ariel Nicholson, Cami You Ten, Zoe Thaets and Naomi Chin Wing - vividly illustrating the notion of the hotel as cultural crucible, a pole of intersection.
Captured by Alasdair McLellan at the very door of the hotel, suspended in dynamic action, these figures are poised, on a threshold. Whether entering or exiting, the women are boldly stepping into the unknown. Nothing can be anticipated, but anything may be expected.