Mama Shelter is your hip new hangout in the city of love, courtesy of Monsieur Philippe Starck.

Paris in the springtime – yes, it’s a cliche, but who’s going to say no? Super-chic hotel Mama Shelter, in the tourist-free 20eme arrondissement, is irresistibly, and dangerously, affordable. The money you saved will, of course, immediately be spent on a painfully chic outfit from Colette in this season’s soft pastel shades, with matching macaroons from Laduree.

This place is all about simplicity with style – it’s the brainchild of Club Med and is designed by the tireless Philippe Starck – and a sense of humour. Rooms are small and dark, with block-coloured walls offering large mirrors, flat-screen monitors, and quotes etched onto black surfaces both horizontal and vertical; many ceilings and floors around the hotel also provide writing inspiration. Bedside lamps are comic book character masks, which you can try on yourself, should you feel the urge. Bathrooms are white-tiled and clinical, but with the hard edges softened by Kiehl’s products.

Each guest room (there are five sizes, from single to suite) comes with iMac complete with thoughtful location-specific bookmarks, and which also acts as an in-room camera so you can document your activities for the public photo album (hiding your identity with the mask – clever, eh?), CD/DVD player, free WIFI and free movies on demand, as well as a microwave and minibar. What the rooms lack in floor space, they more than make up for in gadgets.

The bar is like something from a nightclub, with an open central serving area surrounded on all sides by counters; not for wallflowers. The fun, big-kid theme is continued with table football; there’s also an outside terrace and a rooftop in summertime, with barbeques. Live music on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays ensure the joint is jumping; this place is hugely popular with locals.

You can eat at the restaurant, presided over by a two-Michelin-starred chef described as a “cultural wink,” or brasserie with its long wooden tables and benches and hanging pots and pans. There’s also a pizzeria, complete with red-checked tabletops. If you get tomato sauce on your newly-purchased chemise, fret not: you can launder it in the on-site machine, rather than being ripped off by a sky-high-priced laundry service.

Rates start at $103 including tax, and the opportunity to mix with (other) beautiful, cultured, bohemian types.

Photos: Francis Amiand/Mama Shelter

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

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Straddling the fence between fun and thoughtful design.

Despite threatening to give up the field in pursuit of something less material, Philippe Starck remains one of the most prolific and deepest thinking designers working today.

Starck explained in one of his many provocative interviews, this in Thought Economics: “design is the experienced manifestation of human ingenuity and imagination in the continual process of improving our lives (be that through better tools, scientific, economic, social and technological innovations, better furniture, cleaner vehicles, and so forth) and secondly, design is the aesthetic of humanity – the visual evidence that we exist.”

Wading into admittedly more shallow waters, these playful home accents promise more of a quirk factor than game-changing functionality. A mousetrap outlet cover is not going to save the world – nor is a chirping bird smoke detector going to prevent more forest fires (only you can do that). But what these objects possess in kitsch are evocative of something else entirely human: storytelling and as Starck put it, “the aesthetic of humanity.”

Here, haute design that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Ideas that exist merely because we do.

By Raw Edges, a collaboration between Yael Mer & Shay Alkalay, the Hole in the Floor shelving series offers an ending begotten quite unexpectedly.

These lamps from Estiluz look like being free-floating balloons, a wondrous reminder of simpler times when a balloon was the best possible (if not the most impractical) gift we could have received all day.

The Nepa Lamp by Giles Godwin Brown is, according to Brown, “a two-dimensional lamp silhouette that seamlessly transforms into a fully functioning three-dimensional task lamp.”

The LED birch lamp leaps from the wall like a good story leaps from its pages.

Comic Book Shelves, as designed by Oscar Nuñez and sold by Groopti, speak for themselves.

You fill with the appropriate volumes.

The Chick-a-Dee chirps life into an otherwise mundane object, and won the Mooi uit de brand design competition in the Netherlands.

The cutesy contraption calls out “chick-a-dee-dee” at the first hint of smoke, then gets more serious in the event of a fire.

Melvin the Magic bedside table by Elena Nunziata is a functional bedside lamp and “metaphoric figure of a night guardian.”

Proving that sustainability is not just a matter of materials, but the role it plays in captivating and sustaining our collective imagination.

Images: Bored Panda; Fresh Home; Estiluz; Groopti; Cool Hunting; Elena Nunziata

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Style. It’s that ‘je ne sais quoi’ about someone or some place. You can’t put your finger on it, but you like it. Or you don’t.

It’s personal and evolves with time and maturity. And then it might change, again. Style is expressed through fashion, music, decor, tattoos. Our style communicates who we are, what we like, how we feel.

So what happens when one style meets another? Is it catastrophe waiting to happen or is there hope for harmony?

That’s why we created Style Clash. Some design styles are more flexible; others force us to stretch outside our comfort zone. Each week we will offer tips for mixing competing styles successfully.

What do we mean by “successful”, you ask? If nothing seems strange, jarring or just plain ugly, then I’m all for it regardless of time period, colorway or material. I call it a successful Style Clash.

Let’s warm up with an example of a winning mix, to get us acquainted. Can you name the three (yes, three) different design styles and corresponding pieces of furniture in this dining room (top image)?

The Neoclassical credenza under the mirror looks perfect with this Country dining table and chairs and Modern pendant lamps. Classical, comfortable and clever. Voilà! It’s sincerely that simple.

For our first Style Clash let’s marry Italian/Old-World with Contemporary and see where we land.

Italian style (image above and below) is mostly masculine with high ceilings, distressed walls and dark woods. The color palette ranges but the hues are rich, regal and muted with age; never pale or pastel. The look is comfortable, broken-in and distressed. Stone floors, wood beam ceilings and arched doorways are trademark elements (image below).

Contemporary style (image above and below) is graphic in nature with sleek, straight lines and splashes of color mixed in with muted whites and creams. Furniture sits low to the ground and often has metal frames and legs. White walls, lack of window treatments and concrete flooring are other key elements of Contemporary design.

Combining these opposing styles (images below) might sound scary, but actually the result is charming and full of old and new world potential. Let me show you how…

If the name Philippe Starck rings a bell, you probably know a thing or two about Contemporary design. And you should recognize his Ghost Chairs in the image above. Starck is the go-to guy for some of the sleekest, chicest designs around. And his see-through, sexy chairs seem perfectly placed in this Italian dining room (image above and below). Notice the key Italian elements: the arch over the doors, the distressed walls and high ceilings, as well as the stone floors.

The same can be said of this smaller, private eating area (image above). The chairs are Starck’s La Marie, but the effect is still comfortable and serene. These spaces, probably located somewhere in Tuscany, carry all the traditional charms of an Italian villa with a touch of today. Successful Style Clash.

Meet me here next week as we continue to cruise the spectrum of interior design styles, two at a time. Ciao for now!

Images: Interior Divine and AT Casa.

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