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Girls About Town: Jess Berkin

30 Apr 2024

Marmalade Girls About Town: a dedicated feature to highlight creative and visionary women in various industries who have fun with fashion in their everyday lives.

Jess Berkin, Chief Brand Officer, LEFT LANE Hospitality, leads brand development, brand management and marketing for LEFT LANE. Jess brings more than 15 years of luxury hotel and consumer brand strategy experience to her role. Jess has held a number of prominent leadership positions with global hospitality brands including Autograph Collection Hotels, The Luxury Collection, JW Marriott, Mint House and Makeready. Jess oversaw global communications and experiential marketing for Marriott International’s luxury brands portfolio for seven years, where she led portfolio-wide activation and hotel opening efforts for brands including The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, EDITION and JW Marriott in markets such as Dubai, Cabo San Lucas, Venice, Cannes, Hong Kong and London. A big fan of her work, we can’t wait to see what she does with the highly anticipated Hotel Bardo opening in February. Stay tuned to see how Jess styled new arrivals for NYE at Saint Bibiana!

Marmalade Savannah: How would you describe your personal style? Do you find a big distinction between how you dress for your professional life versus your personal life?

Jess: I’m drawn to more classic, minimalist pieces but am always looking for distinctive details like an unexpected shape, cut or layered piece to make it my own. Fit and editing are key for me – I want to look polished and put together, but with a point of view.

There isn’t a big difference between how I dress professionally and personally. I love to have fun with fashion, but hospitality is about creating experiences for our guests, so we don’t need to be the loudest ones in the room.

Marmalade Savannah: Who are a few of your favorite designers at Marmalade?

Jess: So many to choose from – Staud, Simon Miller, Anine Bing. I also love the repurposed and vintage pieces from Erin Knight Designs and the pre-owned designer bag wall.

Marmalade Savannah: What inspires you?

Jess: As we prepare for Hotel Bardo’s debut, we’re also cooking up our second hotel brand – a lifestyle hotel and clubhouse concept for members and travelers to create, socialize and stay. The brand (name to be announced next year) is rich with nostalgia, revelry, and play—for the sake of play – and developing it has been an inspiring process. I’m really looking forward to bringing it to market.

Marmalade Savannah: We are big fans of your work and can't wait to see your most recent project realized... What do Savannahians have to look forward to with the opening of Hotel Bardo?

Jess: Thank you, we are so excited. We were very focused on making Savannah part of this transformation, and the community has been so welcoming of our work. This project is the flagship for the Bardo brand, which will scale to additional cities, so we are looking forward to setting the gold standard here. Locals can look forward to a highly activated resort, teaming with warm, anticipatory service and beautifully designed spaces – including four restaurants & bars, a cooking school, spa, retail shop and so much more.