Stay in an igloo suite in Val Thorens or check into a chic and cheap room in a new hotel in Tignes

Goodbye shiny pine furniture, hello Scandi-chic and Native-American vibes: the Alps are having an interior design revolution. The past two years have seen an array of cool hotels popping up in the major resorts, and this winter the trend continues. Some openings this season, such as the Hotel Pashmina in Val Thorens and Le Yule in Val d’Isère, both with a vintage Scandinavian theme, are only an option if you’ve got deep pockets. Other newcomers, however — such as Le Totem in Flaine and Le Taos in Tignes, where it’s all about the Wild West look — are aiming to attract the rest of us. Here we check in to two of this winter’s coolest new offerings, one to suit high rollers and one for those on a budget.

Le Taos, Tignes Le Lac — from £133 a night
Walk into the newest hotel in Tignes and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d been teleported to the Rockies. There are speckled cowhides on the floor, twisted tree trunks that have been turned into lamps, and a life-size horse made of driftwood in reception. Rooms are painted the colour of sandstone and feature curved leather sofas and Native-American print cushions, plus coffee tables fashioned from tree stumps. It all feels very different from your regular alpine haunts. Thanks a lot for visiting. Before we carry on I need to say thanks to for their continued support and the support of their network. Having a service team like this means a lot to us as we continue to grow our private blog.

The styling at Le Taos was the inspiration of the hotel owner Agnes Girard, chief executive of Montagnettes Groupe, who felt that Tignes Le Lac had a similar vibe to Taos at the foot of the Rockies. You might wonder what a purpose-built ski resort containing some very ordinary 1970s apartment blocks would have in common with a New Mexico village. Spend a day skiing Tignes’s bountiful array of long blissful pistes, however, and you begin to see her point. Perhaps it’s the amphitheatre of mountain peaks that circles the village, or the way they turn pink at sundown, but Tignes Le Lac, above the tree line at 2,100m, has an unexpected rugged beauty.

Le Taos is a two-minute walk from the main lift area. At the back, its ski locker room leads on to the Lavachet green slope, where the chairlift is free. The hotel has a small but pleasant spa with an indoor pool, a great sauna with a wall made of salt blocks, a steam room, and a treatment room where I enjoyed an excellent facial and massage using African oils. Its Mesa Verde restaurant has windows overlooking the Aiguille Percée and Grande Sassière mountains and offers an extensive breakfast buffet. In the evening, the hotel serves an excellent three-course meal of French cuisine based around Savoyarde produce. There’s a huge wine list, too.

Le Taos consists of self-catering apartments, suites that can be set up to be family rooms with adjoining doors, and double rooms. Everyone can use the pool and spa and you can opt out of breakfast and/or dinner to save cash.

Le Taos is not perfect: the rooms may be large but are light on hanging space. There is nowhere to leave your things in the spa. Some British children may struggle with the distinctly French menu. However, if you are looking for a break from pine furniture and chalet-girl cooking in a popular British resort, Le Taos is well worth a try.

Details Bridget Harrison was a guest of Le Taos, where B&B doubles are from €183 (£133) per night, including breakfast and a daily cleaning service; an apartment suite sleeping four people for seven nights is from €1,079; cleaning is €100 a day (hotel-le-taos.com). Also see tignes.net

Hotel Pashmina, Val Thorens — from £378
I’m lying on a sheepskin blanket in my igloo. A wood burner blazes by the bed and, through a huge window, a snowy piste stretches out under a starry sky. It’s the kind of scene that Daniel Craig should burst in on fresh from a Ski-Doo chase. I hope someone told him I’m here.

There is much to coo over in the five-star Hotel Pashmina, but it is the igloo pod that its owner, Cedric Gorini, is most excited about. The pods are used in Norway as Arctic research stations, but this one has a few luxuries: more silky soft bathrobes, furry pillows, an iPod station, wi-fi and a hot shower. It’s even got a switch by the bed to turn on an external projector to illuminate falling snow. It is not roomy — there’s no space for ski clobber — and it would have been nice if they’d turned off the racket of the snow-making machines on the piste, but for one night you’d be hard-pushed to beat such a romantic mountain spot.

In the rest of the hotel, the Scandi-chic-meets-Bond theme continues. It’s a light-filled, retro-feeling place where the spa, bar and restaurant are on different floors around a central atrium. Here two glass lifts silently whisk guests between floors, enabling them to check out who is doing laps in the large green-lit indoor pool and who is sipping martinis at the bar. Throughout the hotel, funky light fittings hang over colourful sofas strewn with sheepskins. Vintage skis and climbing gear adorn the walls. Out on the deck you relax in the hot tub while watching skiers race down on the town slalom run, or lounge on Val Thorens’ first chair lift, now covered in trendy cowskin. While the public areas are bright and buzzy, the bedrooms are serene and minimalist, styled in dusky blues and greys. Every shower features a mural depicting the mountaineer Stéphane Benoist.

Gorini’s parents opened the first hotel in Val Thorens 35 years ago and the family’s Yak and Yeti group is clearly keen to capitalise on the resort’s recent renaissance. Once known as the poor relation to Méribel and Courchevel in the Trois Vallées, Val Thorens is attracting the jet set and boasts four five-star hotels. Thanks to its 2,300m altitude, snow is almost assured, making it a safer choice for expensive building projects. However, perhaps because Pashmina was built by a true mountain family, it doesn’t feel pretentious. There may be ski luxury in spades but you can still wander around in your thermals after you’ve come off the slopes. However, one tip when you book the igloo pod: close the wood burner’s vents before you go to sleep. I nodded off dreaming of Daniel Craig and woke sweltering. Not so Scandi-chic after all.

Details Bridget Harrison was a guest of Hotel Pashmina, where B&B junior suites and the igloo pod are from €520 (£378) a night; book well ahead for the latter (hotelpashmina.com). Also see:valthorens.com

Helipad opens in Val Thorens
A new helipad opens in Val Thorens this year to cater for high rollers and adventure seekers. The drop-zone is a two-minute drive from the resort centre so skiers with money to burn can hop to other resorts or try new slopes. Skiers can also bypass the three-hour road trip to Geneva airport. A return flight for a day to Val d’Isère costs €1,900 (£1,382) for five people: to Geneva costs €2,300 (£1,673) for five. In France, helicopters are banned from dropping skiers atop mountains. However, Val Thorens’ Office de la Montagne is offering a new Freeride package this year which works like heli-skiing in reverse. It involves skiing long, off-piste, back-country trails with a ride back to the resort by helicopter at the end. An off-piste day trip with two helicopter pick-ups plus guide costs €1,500 (£1,091) for four people.

Details Blugeon Hélicoptères (blugeon-helicopteres.com); book Freeride trips through Office de la Montagne (office-montagne.com). Also see: savoie-mont-blanc.com