Best New Hotels 2008: Hôtel Le Bellechasse, Paris

If fashionistas are booking out all the rooms at Hôtel du Petit Moulin in the Marais, you can now try your luck across the Seine at Le Bellechasse, Christian Lacroix’s second foray into hotel design. Chances are it will also be mobbed, since Lacroix has dressed these two adjoining buildings near the Musée d’Orsay with his customary extravagance. If the courtyard rooms in mock country French style show uncharacteristic restraint, street-facing rooms are pure fantasy, with a different theme for each of the seven floors. Each one combines aspects of St Germain – antiques, contemporary art, aristocracy and Bohemian history – to create ‘a trip within a trip’ which reflects and exaggerates the surrounding neighbourhood.

We love The murals, such as the playing cards in the British-inspired Avengers (named after the 60s TV series) rooms.

Rooms from about $545, www.lebellechasse.com.
ROSA JACKSON