Renowned fashion designer Christian Louboutin has ventured into the hospitality industry with the opening of Vermelho, an intimate boutique hotel located in the picturesque village of Melides, Portugal. The 13-room property represents the designer's first foray into hospitality and was created in collaboration with architect Madalena Caiado and interior designer Carolina Irving. The project reflects Louboutin's longtime connection to Portugal's Alentejo region and showcases the work of both local and international artisans.
The hotel's name, Vermelho, meaning "red" in Portuguese, pays homage to Louboutin's signature color while embracing deeper cultural references. The property is designed as an intimate retreat rather than a large-scale resort, with its modest size carefully chosen to complement the character of the surrounding village. Architect Madalena Caiado created a framework of whitewashed forms and traditional Portuguese architectural details that serve as a canvas for multiple layers of craftsmanship and decorative elements.
Vermelho is organized like a private villa, featuring courtyards, gardens, and communal spaces that encourage interaction among guests. The exterior spaces are enhanced by sculptural interventions from Italian artist Giuseppe Ducrot, whose ceramic work extends across the building's facades in baroque-inspired frescoes and ornamental figures. Rather than appearing as applied decoration, Ducrot's ceramics are integrated into the architecture itself, creating a sense of permanence and artistic unity.
The interior spaces showcase an eclectic mix of furnishings and objects personally collected by Louboutin, with expressive ceilings and tiled floors setting the stage for the designer's aesthetic vision. Each of the thirteen rooms is individually composed, avoiding uniformity in favor of unique combinations of antique pieces, patterned textiles, and handcrafted surfaces that draw inspiration from Iberian traditions. This approach reflects Louboutin's personal aesthetic while celebrating local cultural heritage.
Local Portuguese craftsmanship plays a central role throughout the hotel's design. Artisans from the Fábrica de Azulejos de Azeitão created custom tiles for the bedrooms and produced the deeply pigmented red flooring using centuries-old techniques that remain fundamental to Portuguese cultural identity. The lighting throughout the property was created by India's Klove Studio, whose blown-glass chandeliers bring both scale and theatrical drama to the reception hall. Their green-and-gold installations successfully combine traditional glasswork with contemporary design elements.
The hotel's surfaces and furnishings showcase the work of specialized craftspeople who maintain historic traditions. In Seville, Spain, the workshop of Villarreal created a hammered silver-leaf bar for the lounge area, continuing a legacy of goldsmithing originally developed for Spanish religious traditions. "The beautifully chiseled objects that accompany the Holy Week processions in Spain made the reputation of this liturgical goldsmith's workshop founded in 1954 by Manuel Villarreal Fernández in Seville," the hotel team explains. Today, the Sevillian workshop operates under the guidance of the founder's son, Francisco Villarreal Reina.
The careful layering of materials including silver, ceramics, glass, and textiles creates rich textural experiences throughout the property, all set against the building's clean white stucco framework. This thoughtful combination of elements demonstrates how traditional crafts can be integrated into contemporary hospitality design while maintaining their cultural significance and artistic integrity.
The hotel's restaurant, named Xtian, extends the home-like atmosphere with dining rooms that pair Portuguese cuisine with interiors that feel both culturally rooted and refreshingly informal. The dining experience emphasizes tactility through carefully chosen furniture and fabrics, creating harmony between the food service and the crafted environment. Custom rattan chairs were designed specifically for the restaurant by Maison Gatti, a workshop originally founded in 1920 and acquired in 2019 by entrepreneur Alexis Dyèvre.
"After Christian and Alexis met, they went to the manufacturer in Fontainebleau many times," the Vermelho team explains. "This is where Christian decided to design a chair for Xtian restaurant. Together they imagined a bespoke style for the hotel with the Vermelho chair, inspired by a 19th-century design from the Maison Gatti archives." The collaboration also resulted in experimental new uses for the workshop's iconic canework, which appears on closet doors in guest rooms and communal areas throughout the property, demonstrating how traditional techniques can find fresh applications in contemporary hospitality design.
