Hotel Stories: the Ritz Paris Founders César and Marie-Louise Ritz AOC Fashion

The Ritz Paris

From the outset, the Ritz Paris, one of the most iconic luxury hotels in the world, set new benchmarks for luxury and hospitality, drawing an elite clientele that included royalty, politicians, artists, and writers. The hotel's origins are deeply intertwined with the vision and standards of César Ritz, whose legacy continues to influence luxury hospitality today at Ritz-Carlton hotels worldwide.

AOC is exploring the history of Ritz Paris, the lives of people staying at the hotel and also its founders. I’m struck writing the first words with the idea of forming a timeline around great luxury brands. We have Louis Vuitton arriving in Paris as a young man with little money in 1837 and César Ritz arriving 30 years later. The Ritz Paris opened in 1898, the year after Guccio Gucci arrived in London in 1897, finding work as a bellhop at the Savoy Hotel.

I’m hoping to construct a master chart of all these great brands timelines in an effort to understand the world in which they operated and intersected with each other.

The images used in this introduction to the Ritz Paris come from two sources. The hotel images are new from the Ritz Hotel in 2024, located on a travel website. The fashion images are Rebecca Leigh Longendyke lensed by Erik Torstensson in a Holiday 2024 cashmere, denim collaboration Frame x Ritz Paris. This beautiful product remains available today on the Frame website.