Considered the most romantic building in London, the former Midland Grand Hotel was the last and most extravagant of the great Victorian railway hotels. It used to receive travellers going through St Pancras station offering a resting place in a world of grandeur and luxury. Now this unique building has been beautifully restored to it's former glory and enhanced by all the modern amenities of a contemporary hotel.

The challenge was to ensure the uniforms reflected this ethos and the designs had a strong relationship to the history of the building and it's railway heritage. The interpretation of the uniforms had to offer a balance of influences and coordinate with the beautiful new interiors. Fashionizer's unique bespoke service and experience of managing new openings*, meant that they were the obvious choice for this complex project.

Fashionizer's design team felt it was important to ensure the uniforms reflected the approach to the building design; combining traditional British Craft with modern and fashionable concepts and ideas. The English heritage was introduced by way of traditional English wool fabrics for suits and St Pancras logo'd gold buttons, and cufflinks For the ties our designer used geometric images from the buildings original features to develop jacquard patterns. Combining current fashion trends with historical reference to railway uniforms, the doorman and the porter's uniforms have taken specific reference to the historical railway styles with traditional military style rows of gold buttons, high collars and deep cuffs. The front of house staff are a more modern take on this environment with women's still wearing a high collared jacket with buttons although the styling is fashionable, fitted and the fabrics very modern.

During the process of the uniform development for such a iconic hotel opening one of the main concerns for all clients is the management of the operations and budget of the project The Fashionizer team have great experience in launching and running bespoke uniform programmes and were able to ensure that all uniforms were distinctive, of a high quality, and suitable for each environment. Fashionizer successfully delivered 1500 garments, fitted over 150 staff and continues to support the operations team with any new requirements as these arise.

Kevin Kelly, General Manager comments..."We have enjoyed a great working relationship with Fashionizer throughout this challenging project. Their team guided us through a tight pre-opening schedule ensuring both critical path and budget were monitored throughout. As a consequence we were able to fit out all staff with uniforms ready for the hotel opening in March this year. We love the distinctive designs and special fabrics that are unique to the Renaissance St Pancras. We continue to work with Fashionizer on evolving the uniforms as we develop our operation. I would not hesitate to recommend Fashionizer as a supplier on any hotel project."

* Fashionizer has completed 30 new hotel openings since 1994, and has developed an expertise in the successful planning of critical path and budgets for new projects.