Bar Style

"Bar Style" charts the glamorous design renaissance of hotel bars and members' clubs and the way their cutting-edge interiors have helped forge a new social culture that is a far cry from traditional bars and pubs. Until recently dominated by sexless corporate design and traditional stuffiness, it is hotel and members' bars that have responded to a backlash against the homogeneity of the high street with interiors of great beauty, style and wit. As this book reveals, hotel bars and members' clubs are now the playground for innovative designers, sophisticated celebrities and ultra-cool urbanites. The revolution in 'exclusive' bars began with the birth of the Groucho and Ian Schrager's boutique hotels. There is now a stunning range of intimate, ground-breaking bars - even within traditional hotels - that offer the fashion-savvy, post-club generation somewhere to rest its Manolo Blahniks. There is nowhere better to see and be seen, and the media has a frenzied love of these cool, fashionable bars. However, the designs of Starck, Collins, Jiricna, Conran and Chipperfield rise above the zeitgeist: the interiors instil a quality of aesthetic experience that will endure far longer than the celebrity of some of the customers.Watson, Howard is the author of 'Bar Style ' with ISBN 9780470011478 and ISBN 0470011475.