Hôtel Martinez on La Croisette, where MICRO by The Fix will make its debut from 1–20 August, bringing the new Chelsea-bound wellness concept to Cannes before its London opening this autumn.
Hotel Martinez
Most start-ups begin quietly, testing the concept, finding their audience and building momentum before making too much noise. MICRO by The Fix has chosen the iconic Hôtel Martinez in Cannes.
The residency comes hot on the heels of Alo Yoga’s high-profile activation on the Riviera, further signalling how quickly luxury wellness, fashion and hospitality are converging in Cannes. For MICRO, however, the Riviera isn’t the final destination but the launchpad: this is where Alkhawaja will introduce the concept before taking it home to Chelsea.
It is the first opportunity to experience MICRO, the physical expression of Alkhawaja’s The Fix Collective, and an unusual decision to introduce a London business more than 700 miles away from the city it will eventually call home. Yet Cannes gives MICRO something Chelsea cannot offer before the doors have even opened: three weeks inside one of Europe’s best-known luxury hotels, surrounded by precisely the international, affluent and wellness-conscious audience the business hopes to attract.
The White Lotus Effect
Hôtel Martinez has stood on La Croisette since 1929 and this June became the first and only hotel in Cannes to receive France’s coveted Palace distinction. Now firmly back in the cultural spotlight as one of the locations for the forthcoming season of The White Lotus, its combination of heritage, Hollywood and contemporary luxury gives MICRO an enviable stage. For a new business still months away from opening at 60 Sloane Avenue, it is quite an address from which to make a first impression.
Behind the beautiful setting, however, is Alkhawaja’s challenge to a wellness industry that has become increasingly focused on optimisation. We track our sleep, count our steps, measure recovery and monitor almost every element of our health, while another notification inevitably arrives to tell us what we could be doing better. MICRO starts from the rather different premise that feeling well shouldn’t become another source of pressure.
For founder Alkhawaja, the setting also gives physical form to an idea she has been developing through The Fix Collective: that somewhere between tracking our sleep, counting our steps, measuring recovery, monitoring glucose and being reminded by our watches to breathe, wellness itself has started to feel remarkably like work.
MICRO is her response to that. Light, scent, sound and material are used to change the atmosphere before anyone gets onto a Lagree MicroFormer, while movement, recovery and nutrition are treated as parts of the same experience rather than separate appointments to squeeze into an already over-managed day. “August on the Riviera is a moment when people are already reaching for movement and restoration,” says Alkhawaja. “For three weeks at Hôtel Martinez we are bringing MICRO’s philosophy to Cannes, with a quiet rhythm of movement, recovery and stillness, designed with intention.”
A moment of breathwork reflects MICRO’s quieter approach to wellness, combining movement, recovery, sound and sensory design to create an alternative to the high-adrenaline fitness studio.
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A Moment to Linger
Cannes is also a rather clever place to find the people who may eventually walk through MICRO’s doors in Chelsea. Every August, the Riviera gathers an international, affluent audience already spending on hotels, restaurants, beauty, fashion and wellbeing, with considerably more time to discover something new than they might have between meetings back home. Instead of introducing MICRO to that customer through an advert on a phone, Alkhawaja gets to put the experience directly into their holiday.
And holidays change our behaviour. We linger over breakfast, book the massage, try the class we never seem to have time for at home and occasionally discover rituals we take back with us. A sunrise movement session overlooking the Mediterranean therefore does more than provide a beautiful backdrop for Instagram. It allows brands to become associated with how somebody felt during one of the few periods of the year when they had actually given themselves permission to slow down.
For guests, the difference should be apparent before the workout begins. MICRO is deliberately moving away from the high-volume, high-adrenaline studio formula of loud music, competitive energy and constant optimisation. Instead, scent, sound, lighting and material are used to settle the environment before guests move onto the Lagree MicroFormer for its signature slow, low-impact, high-intensity practice. Across the 20-day residency, that core workout will sit alongside sunrise beach movement, breathwork, sound healing and golden-hour sessions, with a rotating programme of practitioners including Sanctum, Woz, Cannes Run Club founder Elodie Meschi, Run That founder Jay Copley and Pilates with Ashlea founder Ashlea McKee.
The Hôtel Martinez residency runs from 1–20 August, with places available across the programme for hotel guests and visitors wanting to experience MICRO before its permanent Chelsea opening this autumn. Numbers will remain deliberately intimate, the MicroFormer itself naturally limits class sizes, so advance booking will be important for those wanting to be part of the Cannes debut. It is also the first step into the wider MICRO community: when 60 Sloane Avenue opens later this year, just 60 founding memberships will initially be made available by invitation, making three weeks on the Riviera an early opportunity to discover what Alkhawaja hopes will become a rather different relationship with wellness.