• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, February 20, 2025

Monkey and Cobra Double Old-Fashioned Glasses from CB2's "White Lotus" collection

Who wouldn’t want to be a pampered guest at a five-star resort in an exotic location?

Such is the premise of “The White Lotus,” Mike White’s visually seductive, deeply layered, pitch-dark HBO/Max series, now starting its third season, with the first episode debuting last week. 

Set in hotels based on The Four Seasons, Season One was based in Maui, Hawaii and Season 2 in Italy’s Sicily. And now we find our ragtag group of preposterously rich and privileged white travelers (with an asterisk — there’s now one black hotel guest) in the most tropical locale yet: Thailand, somewhere near Phuket.

This East Asian hotel, set deep in trees loaded with vicious, jumping monkeys, (does that mean something?) is ostensibly more of a wellness center, itself another of writer and showrunner Mike White’s cosmic jokes.

And while every season is about sex, privilege, death and money, this location introduces the role of spirituality and Buddhist teachings.

Hello, obvious hypocrisy!

Still, the iconography and aesthetic of the show is lush and brilliant, full of architecture, art and history, captured in beautifully realized frames, which somehow translates to brainy. This is the most prestigious of prestige TV.

Indeed, White builds worlds that viewers want to step inside, and perhaps even bathe in. 

Evidently, that excites advertisers.  This season seemed to set a new cornerstone of marketing, with amazingly numerous and immersive brand partnerships. They go way deeper than the usual old-school sponsorships or product placement -- never mind following the ancient rules of traditional ad sales. HBO never had any ads, but Max, of course, makes viewers pay more to make the series ad-free.  

These "White Lotus "product lines were all meticulously strategized and designed, and ready to roll just as season 3 broke.

Among them: CB2, H&M, American Express, Diageo, Google Pixel, Abercrombie & Fitch, Away, Banana Republic, Bloomingdale’s, BMW, and Supergoop!

They are tastefully worked-out partnerships. Still, White’s brand of tragicomedy is built on feeling the hypocrisy and downright evil of the acquisitive guests.

In that way, this season is even more ironic for brand partners, given its adjacency to Buddhism, which is about achieving a state of enlightenment, free of material wants.

But if you dive into these copious “White Lotus Collections,” you forget about all that, because the show has established an elevated aesthetic that translates well, and that these products manage to match.

For its limited-edition line, called The White Lotus x H&M, the fast fashion retailer worked with the series’ inspired costume designer, Alex Bovaird.  “The collection has the DNA of the costume design, my insights into the characters,” Bovaird  told The Hollywood Reporter.

Throughout the design process, Bovaird worked with H&M’s creative advisor, Ann-Sofie Johansson, who told THR, “To collaborate on a collection is to tap into a cultural moment.”

Johansson continued, “the influence of TV and cinema on fashion is significant, and as a designer, you must stay very curious and open to what is happening in popular culture.”

Indeed, wearing these colorful caftans and cover-ups will even cheer up non-travelers in backyards or cars.

Similarly, the CB2 website calls its collaboration “a new collection of spirited patterns and charming objects inspired by TV's most-fantasied hotel.” Most-fantasied? Is that a phrase?

Anyway, it’s full of furniture and pillows, but an object online that caught my eye is described this way: “Designed in collaboration with HBO's ‘The White Lotus,’ our solid brass monkey sculpture brings the exclusive Thai resort from the series' third season to your home…the design is complete with an upturned tail and lantern that can be removed and replaced with jewelry or keys.” 

So if it comes down to it, I can watch with my little brass monkey. Perhaps the amulet will ward off the terror I am anticipating in the coming episodes of this most sinister season.

Now that’s synergy.