Sandra‘s Closet

To celebrate the art of travel that Louis Vuitton holds dear and to capture the light of California, the Maison unveils a series of travel cases reimagined for three of its iconic Colognes: Sun Song, California Dream and Afternoon Swim.

Crafted in translucent resin, these innovative cases are clad in vibrant color gradients that evoke the sun-drenched brilliance of the West Coast. The Monogram motif, delicately applied across the surface, lends the case its timeless signature. Transparency magnifies each Cologne, creating a chromatic spectacle in which light enhances its distinctive hues.

Sun Song Travel Case

For Sun Song, the case reveals an intensely sunny palette, from bright yellow to incandescent orange. It captures the light of glorious days and all the joy of the sun caressing one’s skin, visually prolonging the radiant, summery essence of the Cologne.

California Dream Travel Case

For California Dream, the case is clad in a gradient that recreates the Californian sky at sundown, moving from translucent pink to sky blue. This chromatic harmony transforms the case into a visual extension of the fragrance, an invitation to hold on to the lightness of a moment suspended in time.

Afternoon Swim Travel Case

The invigorating energy of Afternoon Swim finds its reflection in a case with oceanic hues, shifting from azure to abyssal blue. This refreshing, crystalline gradient captures the brilliance and power of a deep-sea dive, embodying the promise of aquatic vitality.

Travel Case, €950
Each version is available in a limited edition of 100 pieces, starting on July 2nd, 2026.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
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Since 2019, Louis Vuitton has cultivated a creative synergy with Alex Israel, an emblematic figure of the contemporary art scene. The Californian artist brings his singular vision of Los Angeles to the Parfums de Cologne collection, where his vibrant palette and the spirit of the West Coast inform every fragrance.

This year, Louis Vuitton and Alex Israel once again join forces to unveil the exceptional Woody Wagon Colognes gift set containing the collection’s six Colognes. An icon of Californian culture, recognizable for its wooden paneling, the Woody Wagon has long occupied a singular place in the mythology of the American West. Reinterpreted with the Maison’s savoir-faire and exacting standards, it becomes a singular creation at the crossroads of design, art and perfume.

«I’m thrilled to continue exploring my favorite landscape, Los Angeles, on this road trip with Jacques Cavallier Belletrud and Louis Vuitton. The Woody Wagon has long embodied a certain Californian freedom: surfboard on the roof, family in the back, and the Pacific just over the next hill. In this case, the family is our six Cologne perfumes.» Alex Israel

The Woody Wagon unfolds as an immersive experience. It functions as a miniature landscape of California – a sculptural object through which the collection’s world comes into focus. An ode to Californian freedom, where luxury, design and fragrance converge in an unforgettable sensory escape. Together, they form a colorful portrait of California, filtered through Alex Israel’s distinctive lens.

Produced in a limited edition of 66 pieces, a nod to the legendary Route 66, this creation was brought to life by 60 artisans and more than 7,000 hours of craftsmanship. Every detail of this miniature masterpiece reveals meticulous workmanship: from its roof to its wooden doors, subtly engraved with the Monogram motif, and wheels decorated with Monogram flowers, each of the 219 elements was conceived and assembled with extraordinary care.
Exceptional materials, including the Maison’s signature semi aged leather in natural beige and mahogany woods recognizable for their rich brown tones and distinctive grain further elevate this creation, a seamless fusion of vintage Californian design and Louis Vuitton’s contemporary codes.

Woody Wagon Colognes, € 9000
Available by pre-order in a limited edition of 66 pieces, starting July 2nd, 2026 (delivery in late September).

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
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STRAIGHT OUT OF A MOVIE: AFRICAN QUEEN ARRIVES IN SARDINIA

African Queen, the legendary Riviera restaurant founded in Beaulieu-sur-Mer in 1969, has opened its first Sardinian outpost right on the beach of Hotel Cala di Volpe at the Costa Smeralda. Two Mediterranean icons, one address.

Named after the film classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, African Queen has been one of the most famous meeting spots on the Côte d’Azur for decades. Since Riccardo Giraudi, Philippe Schriqui and Patrick Gioannini took over the brand in 2023, the concept has been carefully expanded to selected destinations, from Beaulieu-sur-Mer to Dubai and now Sardinia.

The new African Queen Beach Club & Restaurant brings that unmistakable Riviera feeling to the Costa Smeralda: warm materials, timeless design and subtle nods to the movie that gave the restaurant its name. On the menu you will find the signature dishes that have defined African Queen for generations, among them Grandma’s Niçoise Salad, the 1969 Truffle Pizza, the Old-Fashioned Artichoke & Truffle Salad, freshly caught fish, Giant Camarones and prime cuts from the grill, complemented by seasonal creations.

The setting could not be more fitting. Hotel Cala di Volpe, part of Marriott’s Luxury Collection, was commissioned by Prince Karim Aga Khan IV in the 1960s and designed by French architect Jacques Couëlle, whose organic architecture was inspired by a Sardinian fishing village. It remains one of the Mediterranean’s most celebrated luxury hotels to this day.

Long lunches, barefoot elegance and dinners by the sea: the Costa Smeralda just gained a new favourite address. I already know where I will be booking a table this summer.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Cala di Volpe
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Some prints never lose their power, and leopard is the queen of them all, especially in gold. On my way to a wonderful event in London, I slipped into this stunning look by Alessandra Rich, a designer whose creations I have adored for years. Mayfair deserves nothing less: a great city calls for a great outfit, and London always inspires me to dress the part.

With lovely Alessandra Rich

More soon from London, my loves!

My look: Crystal-embellished leopard-brocade dress in gold, matching jacquard pumps with red bow tie, silver-tone crystal heart shaped clip earrings, and crystal and chain necklace with bangs, all by Alessandra Rich, Kelly Cut clutch in black Swift leather with gold hardware by Hermès, and logo net gloves by Gucci.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / Felicia Sewerinsson @feliciasewerinsson
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Some cars are built. This one was tailored. Rolls-Royce has unveiled Phantom Regatta, a one-of-one Phantom Extended that reads like a love letter to the racing yachts of the English South Coast, and it makes its debut where it belongs: at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed, within sight of the very waters that inspired it.

The Solent, Chichester Harbour, the legendary Cowes Week regatta: this is sailing country, and it is also Rolls-Royce country. Sir Henry Royce himself lived in the coastal village of West Wittering, just eight miles from the marque’s present-day home. Phantom Regatta stitches all of that heritage into paint, leather, wood and metal.

The exterior wears Regatta Blue over English White, a hand-laid two-tone treatment that traces the line where a yacht’s hull meets the water. Twenty-two-inch fully polished disc wheels gleam like the steel winches of a racing boat. Pure nautical glamour, executed with the restraint only Rolls-Royce can afford.

Step inside and the metaphor unfolds like a sail. The front cabin is dressed in Navy Blue leather, the rear suite in Grace White, evoking deep water below and white canvas above. The RR monograms are embroidered in Turchese, a turquoise borrowed straight from clear inshore shallows.

My favourite detail? The picnic tables. Each one is composed of 16 planks of Royal Walnut, bookmatched by hand and separated by a two millimetre sliver of Black Bolivar wood, exactly like the caulked deck of a classic yacht. Around 120 hours of craftsmanship went into the tables alone.

The pièce de résistance is the Gallery artwork named Watercolour, hand-painted across the full width of the fascia by the marque’s in-house artist, who developed an entirely new blending technique over two weeks of trials just to capture the movement of open water. Above it all, a Bespoke Starlight Headliner glitters with 1,307 hand-placed fibre optic stars, arranged to mirror the swirling tidal currents around the Isle of Wight.

And because true luxury whispers, the finest touch stays hidden. Tilt the eyeball air vents forward and you will find engraved coordinates: Goodwood House on the passenger side, the Home of Rolls-Royce on the driver’s side. Two points, barely a mile apart, anchoring this remarkable motor car forever to the coast that created it.

Fashion has its couture ateliers. The motoring world has Goodwood. Phantom Regatta proves the craft is just as exquisite.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Rolly-Royce Motor Cars
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Louis Vuitton has taken its Escales Autour du Monde collection to the icy edge of North America. The new Escale en Alaska pocket watch conjures the Margerie Glacier at night, bathed in swirling Northern Lights, and it is officially the most complex pocket watch ever created by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton in Geneva.

At 50mm, the piece is less a timekeeper than a miniature theatre. Nine animations and 17 moving parts bring the Arctic scene to life: a blue whale raises its head and tail above the sea, an orca opens its mouth to reveal hand sculpted white gold teeth, and families of penguins waddle across a floating iceberg that drifts gently from right to left. Above it all, a gold compass rose spins in a deep blue sky, while the House’s signature trunks open and close to reveal tiny Monogram flowers. A first for the collection: an LV Monogram Star cut diamond, at 0.05 carat the smallest ever created, descends over the glacier like a shooting star.

The numbers behind the beauty are staggering. The manual winding LFT AU14.03 caliber comprises 751 components, pairs a minute repeater with a tourbillon, and required 500 hours of assembly and hand finishing. The dial alone demanded more than 300 hours of enameling across 32 shades and 35 separate firings, blending Grand Feu, champlevé, cloisonné and miniature enamel techniques. Add 160 hours of hand engraving for the animals and another 40 for the case, adorned with sculpted raindrops and snowflakes.

In true Louis Vuitton fashion, the timepiece arrives with leather goods savoir-faire: a bespoke bag, reimagined from a travel design in the House’s archives and finished in a unique matching blue, where the pocket watch can be attached and displayed alongside its gold chain.

A one of a kind masterpiece where haute horlogerie meets métiers d’art, the Escale en Alaska proves once again that for Louis Vuitton, the Art of Travel knows no limits. Not even at the end of the world.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Louis Vuitton
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DO I NEED THE CANARY?

There is a little yellow bird that has been keeping me up at night. The JW Anderson Canary Clutch exists in the world, it is sitting somewhere out there in resin-cast, 3D-printed perfection, and I do not own it yet. Which means my personal fashion zoo has a vacancy.

Because that is exactly what my wardrobe has become: a zoo. And I say that with complete pride.

Jonathan Anderson once described his creature clutches as the kind of throw-away and unexplainable items you would find on the dusty top shelf at a garden centre. That is precisely the genius of them. They are absurd. They are hyper-realistic. They make people stop mid-sentence and stare. And season after season, I have been powerless to resist.

My collection currently stands at six: the Pigeon, the Frog, the Hedgehog, the Puffin, the Victoria Sponge, and the Walnut. Yes, the walnut. Each one is sculpted in resin and brought to life through 3D printing technology, so convincingly real that guests at mine regularly lean in for a closer look.

The Pigeon, which started the whole madness back in F/W 2022, opens up at the wing to reveal a polished interior.

Pigeon Clutch
Worn in: My Look: Some Days

The Frog snaps shut with a magnet on the tip of its tongue, flashing a vivid red lining when you open the mouth.

Frog Clutch
Worn in: My Look: First of May

The Hedgehog, with its airbrushed finish and hundreds of tiny resin spines, is the one that fools people most completely.

Hedgehog Clutch
Worn in: My Look: Kinky Boots

The Puffin arrives in that signature black, white and orange.

Puffin Clutch
Worn in: My Look: Fashion Fairy

Victoria Sponge Clutch
Worn in: My Look: Minnie

The Walnut is simply the most elegant nut in the history of fashion.

Walnut Clutch
Worn in: My Look: Dots

I love them all. Each one has its own personality. Together they are a collection that is equal parts sculpture, humour and genuine fashion statement.

But back to the canary. The little yellow bird debuted to considerable fanfare and has been singing its siren song ever since. Does my zoo feel complete without it? Probably not.

Now over to you: which piece from my JW Anderson collection is your favourite?

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / @georgiashane / Erika Kostialova /Beyza Babacan / @yayhan
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Zurich is melting and my strategy is simple: wear as little as elegantly possible. Short skirt, airy blouse, big hat, bigger sunglasses, wedges to stay a few centimetres above the hot pavement.

The face underneath is bare. No makeup, no apologies, just brim and lenses doing the diplomatic work. Survive the temperatures, look like you meant to.

You know exactly what I mean.

My look: Cropped white blouse with ruffled sleeves, vintage bracelet bag with floral embroidery, logo ribbon sun hat, gold-tone obsidian earrings, and Maxime leather platform wedge sandals, all by Chloé , floral-appliqué denim miniskirt in blue by Magda Butrym, beaded bracelet and Blaze oversized sunglasses, both by Saint Laurent, vintage gold and brown necklace with lion pendant, and vintage snake ring, both by Roberto Cavalli, and cocktail ring with pink stone by Etro.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Anouk Bauknecht
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Air conditioned by design in the London Heat. The city is at its best in sunshine, and so, I decided, was I.

A dress in neon green and yellow, with no interest in subtlety, different, rounded, sculptural, almost egg-like, it holds its own shape rather than the body’s, which leaves room for air to move. Comfort engineered to look like drama – I like!

My look: Cotton-blend moire midi dress by Christopher John Rogers, Bow Chain embellished satin platform pumps by Mach & Mach, Tro crystal-embellished mini bag by Oscar de la Renta, pearl and crystal necklace, and heart shaped earrings with pearls, both by Alessandra Rich, and neon yellow sunglasses by Versace.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / Felicia Sewerinsson @feliciasewerinsson
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise.

Standing in front of Fiori, I almost vanish. My ensemble is a field of blossoms, and against Sofia Cacciapaglia‘s monumental Italian flowers it reads as the gentlest camouflage, woman and canvas folding into one bloom. For a moment I am not in front of the painting at all. I am inside it. Cacciapaglia paints women the way she paints gardens, larger than life and veiled in tenderness, and to stand dressed as one of her flowers is to be quietly initiated into that world.

Fiori
Sofia Cacciapaglia
Italy

The memory it stirred took me back to last November, to Riyadh, where I had the privilege of speaking at the Creative Women Forum Saudi Arabia at Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University. The theme that gathered us was simple and quietly radical: Empower, Engage, Sustain. Alongside the conversations, I attended a vernissage that presented a room of female artists from every corner of the world whose work I truly loved and wanted to share it with you ever since.

Flora
Olivia D’Aboville
Philippines

I think of Olivia d’Aboville‘s Flora, woven from Philippine abaca and recovered fibre, the fragility of the ocean rendered as something you want to reach out and touch. Of Sally Smith‘s Ghost Fish, the New Zealand sculptor who trained first as an architect and now works in bronze, coaxing presence out of absence, form out of empty space. Of Elisa Insua‘s Verde Alepi and Nero Marquina, the Argentine alchemist who builds the language of marble and gold from what the rest of us discard, beauty assembled out of excess and asking us, gently, how much is enough. Of Catherine Coady‘s Gold Fever Construction, the Australian eye turned with such clarity onto appetite, image, and the things we are sold.

Ghost Fish
Sally Smith
New Zealand

What threads them together is not a subject but a gesture. Each of these women takes the overlooked, the fragile, the thrown away, and makes it luminous. Cacciapaglia paints her gardens on humble cardboard. Insua gilds the cast off. D’Aboville lifts the sea’s distress into something delicate. The discarded becomes the centrepiece. The invisible is made to bloom.

Gold Fever
Construction
Catherine Coady
Australia

And now, months later, Art Basel has only just closed its doors, the great annual exhale of the art world, and I find myself thinking perhaps that is what the camouflage was really about. Not hiding, but belonging. To disappear into Fiori for a heartbeat is to be reminded that the most quietly powerful thing a woman can do is bloom in good company. From Riyadh to Basel, the flowers keep opening.

LoL, Sandra

Verde Alepi
Elisa Insua
Argentina

Nero Marquina
Elisa Insua
Argentina

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht
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