A Journey Into Couture, Mist, and the Soul of the Mountain Tribes

Hotel de la Coupole, Sa Pa.

There are hotels that offer comfort.

And then there are hotels that tell stories.

High in the mist-covered mountain town of Sa Pa lies Hotel de la Coupole – MGallery, a place that gives you far more than a room for the night. It offers an experience, a stage, a feeling of stepping straight into a living work of art.

This is not a hotel you simply check into.

It is a hotel you enter, like a character stepping into an aesthetic universe.

A Couture Palace in the Clouds

Hotel de la Coupole was created by the mythical hotel architect Bill Bensley, known for his ability to blend fantasy and culture in ways no one else dares. But in Sapa he did something entirely unique. He took the aesthetics of French haute couture and intertwined them with the handicraft traditions of the ethnic mountain tribes of northern Vietnam.

The result is a style that almost didn’t exist before: French Indochine Deco

– Art Deco meeting Hmong and Red Dao patterns

– Parisian elegance meeting mountain landscapes

– velvet and marble meeting herb baskets and embroidery

Everywhere you look, there are details that make you pause: old sewing machines, warm golden tones, handwoven textiles, mirrors that could have stood in a Parisian salon in 1930. Everything arranged in a playful yet precise symphony of color, form, and history.

The Architect Who Built a Fairytale

Bill Bensley himself calls the hotel his most daring and poetic project.

He is said to have remarked:

“This is what would happen if Coco Chanel fell in love with Sa Pa.”

And that is exactly what the hotel feels like.

A love story between fashion and mountain culture.

Between colonial-era aesthetics and Vietnamese pride.

A dialogue between two worlds that were never meant to meet — yet in Bensley’s hands, they find a shared soul.

Roots in a Modern Silhouette

The hotel is filled with symbols drawn from the mountain tribes who have lived in Sa Pa for generations: the Hmong, Red Dao, Hoa, and Tay.

You see it in the geometric textile patterns, the embroidery in red, black, and indigo, the handmade silverwork, the woven rugs and ornaments.

But everything is interpreted through a modern, theatrical lens.

Nothing is “copied” — everything is an homage.

And you feel that warmth the moment you step into the lobby.

Rooms Where Stories Live in the Walls

The restaurant Chic is a chapter of its own.

It feels as though you are sitting inside a Parisian couture house, with the mountains as your backdrop.

The Absinthe Bar is a jazz salon draped in deep greens and burgundy tones.

Even the pool area, under its great dome, feels like swimming beneath the sky inside a painting.

It is dramatic.

It is overwhelming.

And it is impossible not to smile each time you discover a new detail.