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"Over the last 20 years hotel occupancy ran at up to 77 per cent and that compared very favourably with other places," says Bailey. It is a major development, with 155 rooms, on a prime site, and there is a restaurant (Nobu) and a drinking den (the Met Bar) to be seen in. Staff wear black Donna Karan outfits, and designers hold private views in their bedrooms over London Fashion Week.Such drop-dead trendiness might get customers pleading with the door staff when you first open, but the trick is to make them come back after the fuss has died down, says David Bailey, a City analyst specialising in the hotel trade. "The danger with being themed is that you give yourself a limited shelf life.

It may be about Cool Britannia for them at the moment, but they could easily be old hat tomorrow, in which case those projects that are based on a fashionable ethos may well be old hat as well." If the new hotels can provide good service in desirable locations, their bubble should not burst.London is what's known in the tourist trade as "a strong destination", as most people who visit Britain, or even Europe, will want to come to the capital at some point. She is the daughter of one multi- millionaire and married to another. Hers is the name on the leaseholds of at least half of Bond Street's designer stores, and she owns the UK franchise rights to clothes by Donna Karan and DKNY, Prada, Miu Miu and Armani. Together with her husband, Ong Beng Seng, she owns stakes in health clubs, cinemas, restaurants like Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Cafe, and dealerships that specialise in prestige cars like Ferraris and Jaguars.In 1991 the Ongs opened the Halkin, a 41-room hotel in Belgravia where the staff wear uniforms by Giorgio Armani. But the Metropolitan on Park Lane, unveiled in February last year, was the first in the new wave of London hotels that will pursue boutique ideals in grander buildings. She launched a second hotel in 1996 - and modestly named it The Hempel - but that was also on an intimate scale. The first person to emulate Schrager in London was Christina Ong.Mrs Ong knows about money, and fashion.

Both feature huge atriums and preserved original features, but detailed plans for the rooms are being kept quiet. A spokeswoman for Schrager said that "initial deconstruction" work had started, but no drawings or architectural plans were being made public, and there was no opening date. With a coyness characteristic of her industry, she could not even confirm how many hotels Schrager was ultimately planning to build here.His inspiration for the boutique hotel concept was Blakes, the small Kensington establishment opened by Anouska Hempel in the 1970s. They have won planning permission for a 200-bed hotel above the old Lumiere cinema in St Martin's Lane, near Tra-falgar Square, and are applying to convert Sanderson House, a Grade II-listed former paint factory close to Oxford Circus.

Together they conceived the Royalton and the Paramount in New York, the Delano in Miami and the Mondrian in LA.Now Schrager is in the process of formalising a joint venture with the British property group Burford. Schrager and his business partner Steve Rubell were sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for tax evasion, a spell of enforced contemplation that enabled them to plan a hotel empire.When Rubell died from an Aids-related illness in 1989, the hyperactive Schrager took over as frontman for their business, built on concepts like "hotel as theatre", "lobby socialising" and the boutique hotel as an intimate establishment offering personal service and luxury "in an atmosphere of timeless elegance".Schrager's creative partner is the Post-Modern Parisian Philippe Starck, who moved from designing furniture for President Mitterand to buildings in France, Japan and Mexico. Unfortunately so did the tax man, who raided Studio 54 in 1980 and found millions of dollars stashed away around the building. "I would rather come back and have a plate that has four ready-to-eat white peaches; next day cherries; next day, whatever. At least I'd feel they cared."THERE IS A man in New York who says that hotel lobbies are the nightclubs of the Nineties - and he should know. Ian Schrager owns the coolest hotels in that city, places like Morgans and the Royalton that are built around lobby bars where the in-crowd go to be seen (and are often pathetically grateful to be allowed in).

Now he has an eye on London, as do his many imitators.In the late Seventies, Schrager was joint owner of Studio 54, the archetypal American discotheque, where the Beautiful People of the day like Grace Jones and Bianca Jagger came to dance. There wasn't a flower in the suite, not even one rose in a bud vase, which is probably my most hated thing in the world It's so corporate. Every-thing about this small but elegant Scotsman is just so, from the velvet edging on his Hermes jacket to his precisely modulated tones. "When I was in Milan, in a suite at the Four Seasons that would have cost pounds 700 a night, they gave me the usual fruit-basket Over the weekend it got messed up as I ate a bit at a time It just became tragic by the end You want to put it in the bin. Asked what will make One Aldwych different from other expensive establishments, he talks about fruit "It is the details that are important," he repeats. Anyone with upwards of pounds 200 to spare will be able to spend the night surrounded by beautiful things (and no doubt be insulted by a beautiful porter, who will act like you're messing up his imaginary film set).Gordon Campbell Gray ran a designer hotel in Long Island before returning to Britain three years ago, intending to import the New York fashion to this country.