Merch and Luxury Hospitality

Most mornings in Shoreditch you can play a subtle game of anthropology without even trying. Walk from MOF HQ towards Broadway Market and you’ll count the Jolene totes first, on the arms of hands clutching those little peach-coloured cups; then the St. John baguette bags, then the wine-bar tees that signal a particular palette of taste. None of these items are especially precious or rare, yet they behave like markers. They tell you where someone frequents, what they appreciate, the communities they identify with. Everyday objects rendered as social signals.That, in essence, is merch. Not apparel. Not product. A symbol. A carrier of meaning. Which is why it’s strange that the hospitality industry—so rich in story, place, memory and atmosphere—continues to misunderstand it. Many hotels still treat merch as a perfunctory afterthought rather than a strategic extension of their world. Something to stock, not something to shape.The root of the issue is that most hotels conflate apparel with merch. Apparel answers the question do I like this? Merch answers the more layered what does this say about me? And for travellers operating at the luxury end of the spectrum—those who can buy any wardrobe, any price point—the second question is the only one that matters. A Gucci tee signals taste; an Aman tee signals taste plus access. One broadcasts preference; the other broadcasts belonging. The differential is significant.Merch is a shorthand for membership. A discreet signal that you’ve participated in a world that carries cultural or social currency. That you were there, not in the “got the T-shirt” sense, but in a way that implies discernment, values, and an ability to recognise what’s worth aligning with. Hotels, however, often strip the symbolism out and reduce the object to a cotton surface with a logo.Every so often the gap becomes visible in small ways. A colleague once asked about hats at Amangiri and was offered a standard Nike cap with the resort’s mark added. Not offensive necessarily, just oddly mismatched with a place defined by architectural sensitivity and an acute understanding of atmosphere. It wasn’t the object itself that jarred, but the missed opportunity to create something that felt truly rooted in the experience. Guests at this level aren’t looking for something branded; they’re looking for something that feels of the place.Contrast this with the cultural fluency of fashion. Merch has long been one of its most enduring formats—part entry point, part receipt of lifestyle, part code. The contemporary landscape has only deepened this. Everything is merch now: collaborations, collectables, drops, reissues. Objects that act as connective tissue across a brand’s narrative universe. Fast fashion has the volume, but luxury has the symbolic potential. Hospitality should sit closer to the latter, yet often produces objects with none of the nuance or narrative weight its worlds deserve.One way to understand why merch matters now is to look beyond hospitality entirely, to brands that have built cultural capital through objects alone. Highsnobiety’s “Not In” city series is a good example. On paper, they’re simple T-shirts—white cotton, clean typography, the provocation of “Not In London”, “Not In New York”, “Not In Milan”. But the effect is pointed. Each shirt is a commentary on place, presence and globalised identity. It plays with FOMO while granting the wearer a kind of cultural literacy: you’re aware of the reference, the irony, the wink. The interest lies not in the garment, but in the dialogue it sparks. Narratively, these shirts behave almost like social postcards. Analytical reading shows how they invert the traditional city-souvenir trope. A typical tourist tee says “I was here”; Highsnobiety’s says “I know what this means”. By removing the city image and replacing it with absence—“Not In”—the merch becomes a statement about mobility, taste and the global lifestyle economy. It’s merch, but also commentary. Wearable critique. A reminder that the most compelling objects aren’t loud; they’re legible to the right people.Luxury hospitality rarely produces anything with that level of symbolic play. Yet it has far richer material to draw from: histories, landscapes, rituals, signature experiences, cultural associations. All the things that make a stay resonant.When hospitality does take merch seriously, the results speak for themselves. Take Ritz-Carlton’s collaboration with Late Checkout. The first chapter, launched in late 2024, reframed the hotel brand—often associated with classic luxury—through a younger, more culture-facing lens. The pieces weren’t gimmicky. They were sculpted from a thoughtful intersection of nostalgia, comfort and modern visual language. Hoodies, bags, small objects, all rendered with a sensibility that felt considered rather than kitsch. Whilst arguably still a safe bet relative to other collaborations, what made it work was the way it fused two worlds without diluting either. Late Checkout brought an editorial eye and contemporary pace. Ritz-Carlton brought heritage, gravitas and its own visual DNA. The collaboration didn’t try to be fashion for fashion’s sake; it was a study in how a hotel’s identity can be extended through objects in a way that feels coherent.When the second chapter arrived this year, it built on that foundation. Slightly more confident. Slightly more sculptural. A mix of chromatic accents, archival nods and a focus on travel objects designed to accompany the guest beyond the lobby. The pieces work because they aren’t just souvenirs. They operate like cultural artefacts: objects shaped by the encounter between brand and collaborator, holding references, stories and aesthetic codes. Wear one and the message is layered: appreciation for design, an affiliation with a certain mode of travel, and the implication that you move within this world rather than merely visit it.This is where most hotel merch fails. It behaves as commodity rather than symbol. A commodity is interchangeable. A symbol carries a world within it. It’s the difference between a robe you forget in the wardrobe and one you wear on the balcony in your first five minutes home, purely because it transports you back into the atmosphere of the stay.In luxury, the difference has always been story. Diamonds meant something long before they were cut; paintings hold value because of the narrative behind them or the mystery surrounding them. It’s story that elevates an object beyond its material form. And as we argue in Journeys, the contemporary traveller seeks meaning—transformation, memory, resonance—rather than sheer novelty. Merch could hold that meaning. It just rarely does.Part of the shift we’re seeing is that merch has become a cultural product category in its own right. Not an add-on. Not a sideline. But one of the primary ways brands maintain relevance in a landscape saturated with choice. Collaborations, limited editions, artist commissions—these are the modern levers of cultural influence. They allow brands to refresh their narrative universe without fundamentally changing their core offering. They create touchpoints that extend into daily life, which is ultimately what hospitality needs more of: presence beyond the stay.In this sense, merch becomes a form of choreography. A physical continuation of the brand interaction once the guest has left the property. If the stay is the composition, the merch is one of the motifs, recurring in small, unforced ways. A cap worn to the gym. A tote carried to the office. A fragrance placed on a bedside table. Each touchpoint nudges memory, emotion and affinity. It keeps the story alive.The irony is that hotels are exceptionally skilled at crafting experience. They understand sensory cues, atmosphere, flow, tempo. They shape journeys with precision. And yet when it comes to the objects that travel with the guest afterwards—the things that extend the brand’s presence into real life—the industry defaults to generic solutions.Imagine instead a world where merch becomes a natural extension of a hotel’s identity. Where Eden Rock’s bag carries the saturation of its horizon. Where Le Sirenuse’s pieces feel like a continuation of its terracotta glow. Where an Aman cap feels sculpted from the same Salk-like geometry as its architecture. Where collaborations with Loro Piana or Cucinelli capture the movement, materiality and softness of their shared sensibilities.The point isn’t to turn hotels into fashion houses. It’s to recognise that the objects people carry have become the portals through which brand worlds continue to live. That a guest may stay with you once, but live with your merch for years. That in a cultural climate where travel itself has become a status marker, the artefacts of the journey hold as much relevance as the journey itself.Luxury hospitality has long excelled at crafting place. Now it needs to learn to craft the objects that allow those places to travel. The opportunity is not modest. Nor is it superficial. It is a way of taking the essence of a brand and allowing it to persist, with elegance, in the real world. Merch is not just an item. It is an extension of experience, a marker of identity, and one of the most underused tools in a hotel’s narrative repertoire.Brands that understand this will shape not just memories, but culture. Those that don’t will continue to create objects that feel peripheral to the experience, rather than extensions of it.Matter Of Form is a consultancy specialising in brand, CX and digital innovation for timeless brands. For brand world and interaction work, contact us at hello@matterofform.com. Merch now carries cultural weight that extends far beyond the object itself. For luxury hospitality, the opportunity lies in creating pieces that articulate a brand world with the same intention as the stay.

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