A REVIEW OF THE QBIC HOTEL, EAST LONDON

On Wednesday I headed to London for menswear show Jacket Required, which is just a hub of amazing talent if you haven't heard of it already. Anyway, I stayed in the East London budget hotel QBIC Hotel, just near Brick Lane.

We usually stay in a chain hotel so it was refreshing to sleep somewhere as cool as this place. On arriving there were so many interior design delights to look at I didn't know where to start. From the "Oh god not you again" doormat, to the Alright treacle light in the lounge area, it was a bloggers photography paradise.

The staff were great from start to finish and I loved the whole laid back attitude - think no pointless tea and coffee stations in each bedroom and expect a proper industrial coffee maker on each floor for a genuine shot of the hard stuff. There were no room phones so you could just text the reception mobile if you wanted something. There was also a sushi and wine event on in the kitchen section in the evening, all free of charge. 

In terms of interiors, the reception and lounge area was really where the magic happened. The chairs, the plants and bell jars, the wooden cow - I loved it all. The bedrooms were very simple and almost Japanese. The bed had a great graffiti design on the headboard and there wasn't a dressing table as such, just a wooden ladder which was constructed into a beauty station. There was even a plunger in the bathroom - god only knows what they thought I was going to do! 

The only real negative for me was there wasn't a window, you had to pay a whopping £10 extra for the luxury of daylight. I didn't like waking up to no sunshine or natural light shining through, so that let the stay down for me but I can understand with the shape of the building why some rooms wouldn't have window space. However, it was a great hotel apart from that minor thing and I'd definitely recommend staying if you want somewhere cheap close to Shoreditch for a day of vintage dress hunting and a night of over-priced beer and achingly cool guys everywhere.

Oh and from what I've just spotted on their website, this hotel - originally established in Amsterdam - offers 100 £1 rooms a month so it might be worth checking it out. Who is going to argue with this much style for £1?