Murano is a member of Design Hotels and it is easy to see why. My guide leads me inside a lift. Its walls are lined with lipstick-pink fur. As the doors open I realise I'm now in Lenny Kravitz's Miami Pad. The corridors are rock-star dark, lit only by spikes of ultra-blue light. The walls are a trompe l'oeil of padding. I press my finger against a pad and a door that I last saw on a 1950s fridge opens to a spectacular white cube.

A Warhol-esque picture of Marilyn's face at the peak of something pleasurable hangs suggestively above the bed. Sheer curtains drip in front, delineating her from the great mounds of white pillows that dominate the grand proportions of the crisp white bed. At its base is a flower-printed silk chest of drawers. Covered in glass, it could double as a brilliant bedside dining table for room service, which caters for anything from luxe caviar to a ham baguette.

My toes sink into soft white carpet as I pad around in search of the mini-bar. For a moment I don't spot it: a little moulded metallic box that could easily pass for a chic stool. I fiddle with the panels beside the bed and lights whirr into action, transforming the room with soft shades of rose, amber, violet, turquoise, green and blue. Unable to choose a colour to match my mood, I settle on a slow random shuffle.

The last I spent any time in the Marais, it was on the brink of registering on the fashion crowd's radar, and a French director who lived here in a crumbling apartment spent hours passionately bleating that all women are les anges. The French are good at that. I am remembering this now, lost in the depths of the enormous Zen-style bath and a delicious dollop of Anne Sémonin product - a singular slice of heaven.

Back on ground level in the restaurant I note that word of Murano has been most strongly whispered to the fashion and film set. The crowd is uniformly lean, leggy and clad in black. Beneath the spectacularly long stalactites of ice glass that jut from the ceiling, they eat equally edgy Mediterranean food that dabbles in Asia, often served on slate tiles.

In the bar, wearing black makes even more sense. It blends beautifully with the unexpected explosion of brilliantly clashing brights - orange, pinks, blues and burgundy - ranked along walls in cushioned squares and hanging from the ceiling in clusters of coloured saucers. A DJ marshalls the music to match the mood from his command post high above, but it's the 20-metre-long black bar serving 150 brands of vodka to a backdrop of screens dripping sea-like designs that has the crowd. They sip from test tubes arranged in holders containing selections of flavours such as pimento and ginger, and Cognac, sugar and lime.

I slip back out into the white room, where the long Chesterfield is an oasis of calm beneath its glass ceiling. In bed, I spy the same galaxy of stars across chimney rooftops. All gizmos have been shut down, save for the swoop of a searchlight across the sky from the Eiffel Tower. I'm in Paris.

Check in: Murano Urban Resort, 13 boulevard du Temple, 3e, +33 (0)1 42 71 20 00,

Ultimate Luxury: Sampling your way through the 130 types of vodkas.

Most Indulgent Moment: Room service caviar and champagne at 3am

Insider Secrets: The Teziano Suite has a private heated swimming pool.

The Little Things: Mobile phone rental, chauffeur airport transfers, small furry pets welcome.

Junior Luxies: Are you kidding?

Dress code: Black and skin tight. Think plunging necklines, skinny jeans and stiletto ankle boots.

Perfect luggage: Gucci in classic black.

Dent in the platinum:

Luxury Hotels Link: www.muranoresort.com