You won’t find Peter Som or Brian Atwood staying at the Principe de Savoia in Milan, the Dorchester in London, or Le Meurice in Paris anytime soon. The designers are boycotting the hotels, as the owner, Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, has instituted a policy punishing homosexuals with death by stoning. The laws are slated to go in effect tomorrow, April 22, and LGBT activists have already begun to pull out of the Sultan’s hotels.
The Gill Action Fund, an LGBT advocacy group was scheduled to hold its ‘Winning The Heartland’ conference at the Beverly Hills Hotel this year, but decided to change locations after hearing of the Sultan’s decree.
Members of the fashion set are also joining the cause. British shoe designer Brian Atwood Instagrammed a note, encouraging fashion people to avoid booking at any of the aforementioned hotels during Couture Fashion Week this June and Fashion Month from September to October. Peter Som chimed in today with a regram of Atwood’s post, adding the hashtag #takeastand.
Aside from the Sultan’s deplorable policy, we think that at the very least, the boycott will cause the hotels to lose a lot of cultural capital. The last thing any hotel mogul needs is for his locations to be deemed “out of fashion” by the very caliber of people he might want to book visits. All in all, this news does not bode well for the Sultan.
[h/t Daily Mail]
