Come together in a new space for the soul

Luxury hotel group Aman is launching a sister brand aimed at a more social clientele, says

Luxury travel has long been synonymous with privacy and peace; notions of comfort and exclusivity inextricably bound up with ideas of Zen retreat and seclusion. But, says Roland Fasel, the chief operating officer for Aman: “The world is really lonely, and people have lost the art of connection and interaction.”

“You might want to switch off and recharge and have some peace on holiday, but you might want to interact a little more,” he notes. “Why wouldn’t we, at Aman, give people the opportunity to make that decision for themselves?”

Last week in New York, the beloved ultra-luxury brand, renowned for its high-end properties in remote, exotic locations, such as Bhutan and the Utah desert, its luxury yachts and its 12-seat private plane, announced a brand new sister brand, Janu. Where Aman means “peace” in Sanskrit, Janu means “soul”, and, in this case, not the soul you’re searching for in your meditation class, but the sort of soul that makes for an earthy, visceral prefix to food or music.

“While I see other hotel brands placing greater emphasis on wellness, relaxation, and privacy, many lack excitement, buzz and a scene,” says Vladislav Doronin, the chairman and CEO who has owned the Aman brand since 2014. “We want to kick-start human interaction again and believe Janu offers a place to find new energy and enrich the soul.”

Guests at last week’s predictably glamorous cocktail party were expecting simply an update on the forthcoming Aman New York, with the ambitious gut renovation of the iconic Crown Building on Fifth Avenue anticipated to open towards the end of this year. In addition, however, we were treated to the surprise announcement, and a short, but evocative and visually arresting introduction to Janu, whose three initial properties, in Montenegro, Saudi Arabia and Tokyo, are scheduled to launch in 2022, with five more in the pipeline; Janu plans to have eight properties open within its first 10 years.

Though design will still be a “pillar”, says Fasel, “playing with light and courtyards, bringing the outside in”, with “the same design intensity that we would have in different Aman environments”, it will not be the famously minimal design of its sister brand, but softer and warmer. The interiors of the Montenegro property, for example, will be designed by colourful New York interiors duo Yabu Pushelberg. And, while some properties will, as with Aman, be resorts, they will be “vertical” – bedrooms within buildings, not stand-alone villas.

Janu hotels will also be larger, with up to 150 rooms (by comparison, the largest Aman hotel is Tokyo, with 84 rooms), and with smaller bedrooms – an average of 450 sq ft, compared with the smallest room in the forthcoming Aman New York, which is 680 sq ft. But prices, while officially to be confirmed, will reflect that; Janu rates will be “more affordable” than the notoriously hefty Aman price tag, where entry level rooms rarely fall below $1,000 (£770) per night, and are often much more.

“There’s a finite number of Amans that you can put into this world,” says Fasel (and only a finite number of travellers who can afford to fill them, of course); the brand currently counts 32 properties in 20 locations, with nine more in the pipeline. “There is only a handful of urban cities where I can put an Aman”, he continues. “Janu gives us much more flexibility, to build something more contemporary, and there’s no finite number of how many we could build.”

This is not, however, to borrow a term from fashion, a designer diffusion range; this is not Erdem for H&M. “This is not a sub-brand to Aman,” insists Fasel. “It is a sister brand, but will be resourced independently. It is being driven by the Aman team, but, as a brand in itself, it will operate independently in the luxury space.”

That explains why he doesn’t believe that launching the first three properties in locations already home to Amans is overkill. “You have the opportunity to do all the spiritual, soul-searching and the mindfulness on one hand, but you have the opportunity, if you want it, to dial into a more lively, community-focused context too,” he says.

The concept, say its creators, came from a glaring gap in the market. At one end there’s Aman, with its private villas and