Terminal Neige, Flaine, France

If opening a new hotel is tricky business, launching a new brand is even more so. The Maison & Hotels Sibuet group is gambling on its new Terminal Neige line being exactly what the alpine ski set is looking for – small, smartly designed and approachable. It’s debut property in snowy Flaine is set in a low-slung modernist building designed by Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer and channels the hipster attitude of an Ace hotel.

Family scion Nicolas Sibuet led the interior design scheme with Native American-inspired woven and woollen fabrics on armchairs and drapes, steer skulls on stone walls and warm chestnut furniture. Each room features a black-line fractured mural by a local street artist that draws the eye towards window views of the ski slopes of the Grand Massif and distant Mont Blanc. Meanwhile, the in-house spa offers treatments that incorporate the antioxidant vitamins derived from alpine plants.