Hôtel Amour Nice — the kind of place that just gets it

Some places you walk into and it clicks straight away. No settling in period, no trying to like it. You just get it. Hôtel Amour in Nice is exactly that kind of place.

It's not minimal, not pared back. There's colour everywhere, books, artwork, objects, loads of them. And yet, somehow, it all works. You can feel there's real thought behind every corner, even if nobody's spelling it out. That's the thing about genuinely well put-together spaces, they never need to explain themselves.

The places that look like us

II've always been drawn to spaces that feel personal. Places that remind you of somewhere, even if you can't quite put your finger on why. Growing up, our home was always full, big family, always something going on. Vinyls, vintage bits, frames everywhere, books on every surface. That's actually the same world that gave me the archetypes that shaped me.

Nothing was perfectly in its place, and honestly sometimes it was a bit all over the shop, but in the best way. It had soul, felt genuinely lived in. That was home.

A density that works

What gets me about Hôtel Amour is that nothing feels like it's there to fill space. Every object looks genuinely loved. Although people often think that finding the right sofa or nailing the colour palette will sort everything out, spaces that actually feel alive don't work like that. They build up slowly, through the things you really care about.

Layers, things that speak to each other, nothing left to chance, that's what drives my work too. The Dover in Mayfair hit the same note for me, I talked about it in my London addresses.

Images and spaces

For me, an image works the same way as a room, it needs a mood, a direction, something to hold it together. In fact, you can pile on the references and the details, as long as it all coheres.

My whole visual world comes from those kinds of spaces. Rooms that felt alive, walls that told stories, objects that said something just by being there. It's also the same thing I got into in when art steps outside museums, work that holds its own without needing a caption.

I'm not after emptiness for the sake of looking good. Instead, I'm after atmosphere. And when it's there, you feel it straight away.

A place that owns it

What I love about this place is that it knows what it is. It's not trying to win everyone over. On top of that, it has its own thing going, its choices, its colours, its logic, and it commits fully. That kind of confidence is genuinely inspiring.

Matcha downstairs in the morning, rooftop in the evening, good cocktails at the bar, private beach whenever the sun's out. Right in the middle of Nice, walking distance from Vieux-Nice and the Promenade des Anglais.

If you want to see how all of this feeds into my work, my portfolio is over here.