Camera ready at The Merrion, Dublin

When Fashionizer started working with The Merrion Hotel in Dublin, it was the start of the millennium. Kate Moss was a regular on the cover of Vogue, Hussein Chalayan was British Designer of the year for a collection of wearable furniture and Kylie made her comeback, spinning around in a pair of gold hotpants.

The Merrion was already making its mark when in 2000 we were asked to translate the elegance of the historic building and the hotel’s growing reputation for excellent service into a distinctive front-of-house uniform collection.

Since then The Merrion has consolidated its position as a landmark hotel in one of the most elegant and cultured cities in Europe, establishing itself as beacon of excellence.

For all those years, Fashionizer has been the main uniforms provider and the original concepts and colours used to create the uniforms are now considered to be iconic.  

In the meantime, many of the garments have been tweaked, refreshed and added to, and this month we were back at the Merrion for a photoshoot, which included snapping the new uniforms for the recently opened Garden Room restaurant.  

Eighteen years ago, social media was futuristic fantasy and the smart phone was a mere myth but this time, with mobiles at the ready, we were able to capture the action and the transformation of the Merrion staff into models for the day.

Back in the day, we could only decipher guest’s opinions through word-of-mouth or endorsement from travel guides. Now, it’s much more immediate and guests’ views are unencumbered by editing or censorship as they use the World Wide Web to express their thoughts. So we were delighted to come across this review posted on TripAdvisor at the end of last year:

“All the staff are immaculately groomed wearing uniforms that fit and were just as clean and perfectly turned out as the rest of the hotel.”

Here’s to another 18 years of great uniforms and immaculate grooming!