Emily Ramshaw
Much like any girl with a pulse and half an imagination, we’ve always kind of had this thing about living like Eloise. We know the book is kids stuff, but much like glitter barrettes and pizza parties, the fantasy of living the life in a luxurious hotel has never really gone away. In our dream world, we order decadent room service at all hours of the day and night (Belgian waffles for breakfast and champagne the rest of the time?), sun ourselves poolside and hold court at the piano bar (or something) come evening. Factor in the perks of coming and going as you please, house cleaning at all hours and the industrial grade kitchen downstairs—you don’t really have it all until you live in a hotel, right?
With that in mind, if we can live the fantasy even for a day, we’re totally down. And when we get to play dress up in straight-off-the-runway Donna Karan in the St Regis New York’s Milano Suite, you might imagine that we were pretty much in our own veritable slice o' heaven, what with views directly down Fifth Avenue (yellow cabs streaming downtown, MoMA around the corner—if that doesn't say classic New York, what does?!), cushy bathrobes and the kind of beds you never, ever want to get out of.
It sounds pretty good, right? And cinching the deal by filling the suite’s walk-in dressing room with Donna Karan’s fall collection, which celebrates the label’s 30th anniversary and was shown, in grand New York style, in an old-school banking building on Wall Street last fashion week (with a front row that included Katie Holmes, Rita Ora and Hugh Jackman—NBD), was kind of the proverbial cherry on top. Seeing the clothes up close was a trip in itself, too—the shaggy black fur jacket was enough to get us excited for winter, if you can even imagine that—but put a leggy, suntanned, surfer girl in the ultimate power woman clothes and give her full command of the hotel, and suddenly, well, we’re kind of feeling the Eloise magic.
Of course, it hardly hurt that we had a full hair and makeup team on deck (or in the suite’s cavernous marble bathroom, rather—hairstylist Jenny Balding and makeup artist Gina Daddona might has well have set up a salon right there) working with the aforementioned all-legs-everywhere model. If we’re being totally honest here, by the end of our not-so-tiring day, we’re pretty sure everyone involved had pretty much fallen for Hanalei Reponty—the girl was not only born in Tahiti, but before becoming a model and a low-pro Instagram celeb (if you’re after lifestyle envy, look no further than her profile), she just so happened to be professional surfer. Yeah, she's our dream girl. We were just happy she was spending the summer in New York and more than game to play the star in our hotel story (we’re just living vicariously, you guys—our stems don't quite compare when it comes to the task of filling out those thigh-high boots). But it all kind of came full circle when our butler (yes, we had a very, very attentive butler) arrived with a chilled bottle of Veuve on a rolling bar cart. Hotel living, kids—we told you it doesn’t get any better, right?
Hotel living, kids—we told you it doesn’t get any better, right?
