Imagine entering your hotel room to find a wardrobe of designer dresses, all in your size, clean, pressed and ready to wear. For free. It’s a service reserved for those privileged few staying in one of the W Hotel’s vast suites in Leicester Square — a partnership with fashion rental site Girl Meets Dress, in which the hotel’s W “insiders” will fix guests up with six dresses per stay from designers such as Givenchy, Dolce & Gabbana and Erdem.
Stylish extras are the latest trend in an ever-evolving concierge service being rolled out by luxury hotels. Where once they would be asked to make restaurant reservations or secure theatre tickets, today the roles of the concierge are fashionably wide-ranging. They might include the rental of sunglasses for patrons caught out on a sunny New York day, as available at the James Hotel in Tribeca, or tracking down hard-to-find sneakers, an amenity offered at the Dream Downtown in New York’s Soho.
“New York is a Mecca of sneaker culture, and our guests have a unique sensibility. When they come here, shopping is one of their priorities,” says Ro Anand, global director of brand activation and partnerships for Dream Hotels, of which there are six worldwide. “We started receiving requests from people trying to find certain styles of sneakers. As our concierges are very well connected, we decided to create a programme dedicated to finding them.”