Is nothing sacred? Not for Morgans Hotel Group, who have just desecrated the almighty concept of a vending machine as well as their Marcel Wanders-designed Mondrian South Beach. Doing away with a hotel gift shop and brushing off Marcel for a moment, the Mondrian brought in Mari Balestrazzi to reinvent an automat, called Semi-Automatic, for peddling their goodies. It's a great idea except for the fact that it only accepts credit cards and contains nothing edible.
That said, we're completely seduced by its clean lines and bounty of Atari classics for Playstation, and we kind of want to rub against it and purr. Aside from Atari games, the automat contains various other earthly delights such as 24-karat gold handcuffs from Kiki de Montparnasse, rentals of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow or 2000 Bentley Azure convertible, $28 anti-recession T-shirts and $400 marabou feather vests. Only in Miami, we say. Will this vending machine be popping up in any other Morgans Hotels? Probably not, but we do know it's next destination: our fantasies.
