Hotel de La Coupole - MGallery Sapa

The Hotel de la Coupole all began with a hat. Not just an ordinary hat, but a beautiful antique Vietnamese hat, over which was draped a beautiful piece of French vintage fabric, pink with polka dots. This unique marriage of French Haute Couture and Hill Tribe Fashion at the turn of the century became the heart of the design for this new hotel, perched in the mountains of Sapa, Vietnam. In typical BENSLEY fashion, the magic of the project lies in its story. That of the Hotel de la Coupole is very much based in reality. Sapa was once a sleepy market town tucked between high peaks and verdant rice terraces, but in 1914 it became the summer capital for French colonists, seeking to escape the summer heat of the Red River Delta. This hotel tells the story of the second hotel built in Sapa, the Hotel de la Coupole. The hotel was inspired by French motifs du jour from 1914, when the French Civil Authority moved all of its offices to Sapa for the summer. The Hotel de la Coupole recounts the tale of the French living amongst the hill tribes in the early 1900s. The architects who designed the hotel in 1914 decided to pay tribute to Vietnam and their French homeland through constant comparison between Parisian Haute Couture and traditional Hill Tribe garments – the DNA of the project. The result is an enchanting palace in the clouds, embellished with 50 shades of mustard!La Coupole holds 9 different room types, including 3 suites. These meld French and Oriental styles, using the French principal of color coded rooms and adding accents of Hill Tribe attire. The hotel was divided into pink, green, orange and yellow rooms, and tied together by integrating interpretations of Hill Tribe fashion on tiles or

wallpapers, or adding characteristics of local hats and jewellery to lighting. Each room features French cornicing and panelling, and altogether are home to almost a thousand original fashion prints of the era, collected by Bensley himself.