These can be tough times for hotels, given the ubiquity of Airbnb and a call to travel less. Small wonder many are upping the ante with more luxury, more facilities, more flash, more fashion. And, as with clothing labels and car marques, guests increasingly identify with the name over the door rather than the plumpness of the towels. And what projects an image more than the stylishness of the staff? Or the clout that comes from, say, having a fashion designer create their uniforms?

“Historically, the hospitality world has turned to fashion designers, but it was never really talked about. Maybe it was something designers didn’t really want to talk about,” says Ms Emily Adams Bode, the designer behind BODE, who’s just designed the uniforms for Palm Heights, Grand Cayman’s first boutique hotel. The hotel benefits from BODE’s particular fashion sensibility, as well the encouragement it gives to younger staff in particular, who like to look good at work. Here they are in the designer’s bright, graphic, loose-fitting clothes – and a long way from standard-issue corporatewear.

BODE is not alone. Craig Green has designed the front-of-house uniforms and even the guest bathrobes for The Standard hotel in London. The main uniform comprises an unstructured, workwear-inspired suit, black from the front, but, from the rear, providing a dazzle of electric blue with a red back panel. Expect the herringbone bathrobes to make their way, accidentally on purpose, into guests’ suitcases. Earlier this year, John Varvatos created its first hotel uniforms – made-to-measure wool suits in, again, electric blue – for The Dominick in New York, while British designer Gresham Blake has created a collection of 10 styles for the Hard Rock Hotel London, having already designed uniforms for The Savoy, The Stafford and The Grand in Brighton.

“Fashion designers tend to offer not just the status of their own brand, but those interesting final touches that you wouldn’t typically get from a corporatewear company,” says Gresham Blake’s designer Ms Molly Hopkins. “Top-end hotels know they can’t get away with just navy suits these days. Customers expect more.”

In recent years, couturier Nicholas Oakwell has designed a vintage-style look for Rosewood London and Christian Lacroix has designed for the Sofitel group. Others go the distance. Check out David Peck’s still-fresh dapper style for the JW Marriott in Houston, or Bespoken’s uniforms for NoMad in New York. Think narrow-lapelled soft suiting with patch pockets, double-breasted waistcoats and small-collared shirts, much of this made by Turnbull & Asser. If the match between hotel and fashion brand is right, the latter have also been keen, if not actually to design a uniform, then at least to get their clothing onto hotel staff. It’s effectively a form of product placement. Prada, Hugo Boss and Nautica have all taken this path.

Designing a hotel uniform is not without its challenges, which is precisely why hotel uniforms more usually tend to fall under the purview of specialist companies, rather than fashion designers. This is not a situation in which a fashion designer can simply pull pieces from its latest line. Budgets are tight. Hotel uniforms have to be inexpensive relative to the designer clothing that might inspire it and most hotel employees will need more than one uniform.

“There’s also the challenge of designing with materials we wouldn’t use for our own luxury collection but which have the same feeling,” says Ms Bode. Designers need to find some balance between edginess and timelessness. Uniforms, especially for international hotel chains, tend to be upgraded only every two to five years.

Above all, durability and wearability need to be considered. “Thinking about wear and tear is crucial,” says Ms Bode. “Uniforms have to be regularly machine-washed at high temperatures. And while we can take designs from our own collection and adjust them, they have to fit a variety of people and work for different tasks. If you’re lifting a heavy bag, will the shirt rise up to show the wearer’s back?” Even climate needs to be taken into account. Are the staff working mostly in air conditioning or outside in the heat? Culture, too. Do the staff prefer a certain level of modesty?

Perhaps that all helps to keep a cap on hotel staff style. Guests may appreciate a cooler concierge, but most will not want to feel they’re being out-dressed by the bell boy. “Can the staff look too good?” asks Ms Hopkins. “Put it this way. We get guests asking us to reproduce uniforms they’ve seen in hotels. And that can only be a compliment to the hotel.”