Sandra‘s Closet

Walking into the John Madejski Garden on Wednesday evening, you could feel that this one was special. The V&A Summer Party was turning ten, and the museum had pulled out all the stops, throwing open its courtyard for what has quietly become the most coveted night in London’s summer calendar.

With interior designer Pernilla Bennet of House of Bennet

A decade ago the museum turned its annual fundraiser into something far cleverer than a gala. The concept is simple and rather brilliant. Every summer the V&A invites a committee of leading creative voices to shape the evening and, crucially, to bring emerging talent into the room.

One of my favorites and definitely one of the most outstanding talents at the moment: Harris Reed, who officially stepped down as the creative director of Nina Ricci in March 2026, after a three-and-a-half-year tenure, is now focusing entirely on his eponymous namesake demi-couture label that is to die for!

Another designer I adore is London-based Molly Goddard, who is a real sweetheart, and truly deserves the title «Queen of Frill».

This year that committee included Harris Reed, David Furnish, Grayson Perry, Sandy Powell and Yinka Ilori, and the result is a guest list where a fresh Central Saint Martins graduate might find themselves deep in conversation with the patron who goes on to change their career. The party raises vital funds for the museum, but it also does something money cannot buy. It keeps British creativity alive, connected and celebrated.

Opening speech by Tristram Hunt, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Returning this year carried its own meaning, because the party had taken a break in 2025. In the past the evening often doubled as the curtain raiser for a major new show. When I last attended in 2024, the night marked the opening of Naomi: In Fashion, the museum’s glorious tribute to Naomi Campbell. This year there was no exhibition opening to coincide with the celebration, which personally speaking I missed. Half the thrill has always been stepping into a brand new world the moment the doors open.

The weather, for once, played its part beautifully. Glasses of Nyetimber caught the last of the evening light, Jessie Ware took to the stage, and the garden hummed with that particular energy you only find when fashion, art, music and a little British eccentricity collide all at once.

Performance by Jessie Ware.

I will be honest with you. I did not see everyone. The garden was so full of wonderful people that I spent most of the night lost in the kind of conversations you simply do not want to walk away from. That, for me, is the real luxury of an evening like this. Not the spectacle, but the company.

Photos: @gettyentertainment

The room held its share of icons, too. Mick Jagger, effortless as ever. Ellie Goulding, radiant. Maya Jama, Akshata Murty, Edie Campbell, Olly Alexander and Munroe Bergdorf were among the faces moving through the candlelit garden, alongside what felt like the whole of London’s fashion and art world gathered in one glorious place.

Always fun seeing my friend Mark-Francis Vandelli, who stars in «Ladies of London».

Ten years in, the V&A Summer Party has lost none of its magic. It remains a love letter to creativity, a celebration of one of the great cultural institutions of our time, and proof that the best nights are the ones spent among brilliant people under a perfect summer sky.

Here is to the next ten.

LoL, Sandra

So nice seeing Juergen Teller again with whom we worked so much at Marie Claire Germany many years ago. He is one of the best photographers I know that has a very special language.

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

Chopard Alpine Eagle Eden Rock St Barths: 100 Reasons to Book a Flight

You cannot buy these watches in Geneva. Not in Paris, not in Zurich. Chopard’s four new Alpine Eagle Eden Rock – St Barths editions, each limited to 25 pieces, are sold in exactly one place on earth: at Eden Rock St Barths itself. I call that the most elegant sales strategy of the year.

Full disclosure: I am hopelessly biased. Eden Rock is one of my favourite hotels in the world, and I treasure the memory of being there with David Matthews, whose family turned this rocky promontory above St Jean Bay into Caribbean legend.

Chopard Co-President and Artistic Director Caroline Scheufele I have known for years. One of my favourite photos shows us on a boat together with Anna Netrebko and Petra Němcová. So yes, this collaboration speaks to me on every level.

The watches themselves? Pure Alpine Eagle, dressed for the islands. 36 mm with diamond set bezels or 41 mm in clean polished metal, in Lucent Steel™ – Chopard’s high-performance alloy with an 80% recycled content – or 18 karat ethical rose gold. The white iridescent dials carry the collection’s signature sunburst inspired by an eagle’s iris, while a red seconds hand winks at the hotel’s famous red and white identity.

The sapphire caseback is engraved with the Eden Rock name, and both COSC certified movements, the 09.01-C and the 01.15-C, deliver the precision Chopard is known for.

Caroline says, «she wanted each piece to feel like a warm Caribbean breeze carried on the wings of the Alpine Eagle.» After last year’s Happy Sport edition, this is the second chapter between the Maison and the hotel, and clearly not the last.

Alpine soul, island light. See you in St Barths.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht, Watches: © Chopard
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise.

Gone too soon.

Still processing this. Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, known to so many of us as @jerrygogosian, was found dead in her hotel room at the Rosewood São Paulo on May 31st. She was 40. The circumstances of her death remain under investigation.

She gave us sharp wit, irreverence, and an insider’s eye on an art world that too often takes itself far too seriously. Her memes circulated like gospel. She said what people only dared to think. And just days before she died, she encouraged us all to «let the rich woman inside fly.»

What many may not have noticed is that in recent months, she had quietly turned to painting, sharing 87 delicate watercolors on her personal Instagram. Mostly flowers. A softer, more private side of a woman the world knew for her sharp edges.

But her passing is a reminder of something we need to keep telling ourselves: we never truly know what someone is carrying behind the version of themselves they choose to show the world. The funniest, the sharpest, the most brilliant voices are not immune to darkness and struggle.

So check in on the people you love. Be a little kinder than necessary. You never know what today looks like for someone else.

Rest, Hilde. 🖤

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht and via @hildehelphenstein
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise.

DRESSED FOR THE TOP: What «Ladies First» Gets Brilliantly Right

Sometimes the most important things happen when you slow down. Over the Whitsun weekend in the English countryside, I made a conscious decision to step away from the noise of social media and work obligations and simply breathe. I read, I rested, and I watched a film that has been dividing audiences since it landed on Netflix: «Ladies First«, starring Rosamund Pike and Sacha Baron Cohen, directed by Thea Sharrock.

Let me say this clearly: I loved it.

I loved Rosamunde Pike’s performance in «Ladies First».

Yes, the critics have been ruthless. The reviews have been unkind. But I found myself completely charmed, not despite the film’s unapologetic playfulness, but because of it. «Ladies First» reminds me of the romantic comedies of the nineties and early two-thousands, films that dared to be funny and warm and utterly unashamed of themselves. In a landscape of relentlessly self-serious cinema, there is something genuinely refreshing about a film that winks at you and then makes you think.

The premise is deceptively simple: a swaggering male chauvinist, played with wonderfully committed physicality by Baron Cohen, wakes up in a parallel world where women hold all the power, and men occupy every diminished, overlooked, and underestimated role that women have quietly endured for centuries. It sounds like a comedy setup. And it is. But beneath the laughs lies something that is, when you sit with it, genuinely sobering.

Because the joke only lands if we recognise the truth it is built on.

The film earns those laughs honestly. When the men are womensplained to in board meetings, when someone is called testerical, when the power lunch happens at Burger Queen, when he has to shop at Cockette, and when, in perhaps the film’s most quotable moment, someone declares «he got us by the ovaries.» I laughed out loud. Genuinely. The kind of laugh that reminds you why great comedy, however cheesy, is never a small thing.

The reality is that women remain startlingly underrepresented at the top of almost every major industry. What «Ladies First» does, wrapped in all its glorious cheesiness, is hold a mirror up to a dynamic most of us encounter on a regular basis and simply accept. The question the film poses, the one that stayed with me long after the credits rolled, is whether women would behave differently if we truly held that power. My honest answer: yes, I believe we would. And I think that is something worth celebrating.

But there is another conversation the film opens up, and it is one I find especially compelling as someone who lives and breathes fashion. In this reimagined world, the visual language of power shifts entirely. Clothes become a different kind of currency, and the film understands, perhaps more than it is given credit for, that what you wear is never simply what you wear.

The power of a good jacket: Power Shoulders

Fashion has always been a form of communication that requires no words. Research has consistently reinforced what those of us who dress with intention already know instinctively. A 2019 Harvard Business Review study found that 85 percent of professionals perceive well-dressed individuals as more competent, regardless of gender. Psychologists describe this through the concept of «enclothed cognition,» the idea that clothing does not merely reflect our state of mind but actively shapes it. When you dress with authority, you think and move with authority. The two are inseparable.

Nothing beats a well cut suit in a great hue: Never Seen Together 

This does not mean we need to borrow from a masculine wardrobe. That conversation belongs to another era. True power dressing today is about intention. It is a sharp, beautifully cut blazer worn with a silk slip skirt. It is a confident colour when the room expects beige. It is structure and precision and the quiet, undeniable statement of a woman who knows exactly what she is doing before she has said a single word. And let us not forget: we also look incredible in a men’s suit. That is our advantage, and it always has been. We can wear everything. Femininity is not the opposite of power. It is, when wielded deliberately, one of its most potent expressions.

One of my favorite suits in my closet that is inspired by menswear: Istanbul Memories

Ladies First may not be the film the critics wanted. But it might just be the film we needed. It is funny, it is generous, and hidden inside its warm, crowd-pleasing exterior is a question that is anything but trivial.

It is powerful to mix female and male elements: Dream More

What would the world look like if we dressed, and led, on our own terms?

I think we already know the answer.

LoL, Sandra

An unexpected combination of color and cut: Oversized Cool

Changing your appearance is a powerful thing to do: Bang

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht and Netflix
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise.

More than a new face for BLEU DE CHANEL, Jacob Elordi has established himself as one of the most compelling actors of his generation. He first broke through in Euphoria, where he played Nate Jacobs, a complex and unsettling character that brought him international attention. In 2023, Elordi appeared in Saltburn, directed by Emerald Fennell, and portrayed Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla.

He has since successfully taken on a series of transformative roles. Elordi starred in the awardwinning limited series The Narrow Road to the Deep North directed by Justin Kurzel. Elordi plays the Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, a performance that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also stars as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s reimagining of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights opposite Margot Robbie. Robbie previously appeared in See You at 5 (2024), a romantic film by Luca Guadagnino created for the global campaign of the iconic N°5 fragrance.

Now, Elordi becomes the face of BLEU DE CHANEL for 2026. A role that reflects a modern, instinctive masculinity and a spirit that favors individuality over convention.

The new BLEU DE CHANEL L’EXCLUSIF campaign featuring Jacob Elordi will be unveiled in May 2026.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © CHANEL
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise. @CHANEL.BEAUTY #BleuDeCHANEL #CHANELFragrance #JacobElordi

When Time Meets McDreamy: A TAG Heuer Moment in Geneva

Surrounded by some of the most extraordinary watches in the world… and yet, meeting McDreamy might have been the real highlight.

At Watches & Wonders in Geneva, where every brand competes to redefine time through design and innovation, it’s easy to get lost in the details, movements, materials, complications.

But some moments cut through all of that.

Meeting Patrick Dempsey, forever McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy, was exactly that kind of moment. Effortless, charismatic, and completely at ease, he represents the spirit of TAG Heuer in a way that feels natural rather than staged.

And fittingly, the brand itself delivered one of the most compelling statements of this year’s fair. In a year dedicated to the chronograph, TAG Heuer revisited its most iconic model: the Monaco.

The new Monaco Evergraph feels bold and forward-looking, built around a completely reimagined movement that replaces traditional components with flexible structures, pushing precision and performance into new territory. It’s technical, architectural, almost futuristic. Co-developed with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, it brings a distinctly experimental edge to contemporary watchmaking.

Operating at 5 Hz with a 70-hour power reserve and COSC certification, it reflects a clear focus on precision and long-term reliability. Co-developed with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, the movement adds a layer of serious watchmaking credibility to its experimental edge, while the open-worked architecture reinforces its technical character.

Alongside it, the Monaco Chronograph takes a more restrained approach. Rooted in the original 1969 design, it refines the icon with sharper lines and improved ergonomics, now housed in a 39mm Grade 5 titanium case that feels both modern and wearable. Inside, the in-house Calibre TH20-11 delivers an 80-hour power reserve and a bi-compax layout inspired by the historic Calibre 11, while signature elements like the left-side crown remain intact.

Together, they capture what TAG Heuer does best: balancing heritage with innovation, without ever losing its identity.

And maybe that’s what made the moment with Dempsey feel so aligned. In a space defined by exceptional watches, it was presence, not just precision, that made it memorable.

LoL, Sandra

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

The Mark Hotel serves the 90s cocktail everyone wants right now.

As New York slips deeper into a 90s state of mind, much of the current mood can be traced back to Love Story, which follows the magnetic, much-mythologized relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Their understated elegance, their quiet confidence, their distinctly New York kind of romance, it’s all back, and it’s shaping everything from fashion to the way the city feels right now.

Naturally, The Mark Hotel understands the moment. With its Cucumber Martini, the hotel offers a drink that feels almost like a continuation of that narrative, crisp, refined, and effortlessly composed.

Fresh, clean, with just a whisper of nostalgia, the cocktail captures exactly what defines this revival: a return to simplicity that doesn’t try too hard. Much like Carolyn’s pared-back silhouettes or JFK Jr.’s innate polish, it’s about precision rather than excess. The influence of the series is unmistakable, what we see on screen translates almost instantly into a renewed appetite for a certain kind of East Coast minimalism, where restraint becomes the ultimate luxury.

The Cucumber Martini fits seamlessly into this world. It doesn’t announce itself; it lingers. It belongs to a time when elegance was instinctive, when style was something lived rather than performed.

And truly, where better than The Mark? If there were ever a place where their paths might have crossed, amid quiet glamour, soft lighting, and that unmistakable Upper East Side ease, it would be here. The mood hasn’t been recreated. It was simply waiting.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © The Mark Hotel
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise!

Eric Dane – A Beautiful Soul Gone Too Soon

The world has lost Eric Dane far too early. At just 53 years old, the beloved actor known to millions as Dr. Mark Sloan «McSteamy» from Grey’s Anatomy, has passed away. After publicly sharing his diagnosis of ALS, he faced his illness with courage and dignity. Still, nothing prepares you for the shock of such a loss.

Eric joined Grey’s Anatomy in 2006 and quickly became one of the show’s most iconic characters. What could have remained a charming «pretty boy» role became something deeper in his hands. He gave Mark Sloan vulnerability, warmth, humor, and heart. He made him human. That is why audiences loved him. But beyond the screen, Eric was so much more.

I had the privilege of meeting him personally, and I can say from my heart: he was an incredibly kind and genuinely sympathetic human being. Warm, attentive, humble, nothing about him felt distant or arrogant. You met a person, not a star.

Only two years separate us in age. That makes this loss feel even closer, even more surreal. It is unbearably sad to see such a wonderful soul leave this world so early. I am deeply shocked, deeply saddened. Today, I am not only mourning an actor from a series I loved. I am mourning a man who left a real impression on me, a gentle, beautiful soul who deserved so much more time.

Rest in peace, Eric. You will be remembered, not only as McSteamy, but as the kind human being you truly were.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht and via Instagram @realericdane
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise

Bvlgari announces Dua Lipa as its new Global Brand Ambassador. One of the most influential artists of her generation, Dua Lipa has built a remarkable global career defined by artistic freedom, authenticity and a strong commitment to creative integrity. With multiple Grammy and BRIT Awards to her name and billions of streams worldwide, she has established herself as a powerful and enduring voice in contemporary culture.

With Laura Burdese

«Dua Lipa embodies a contemporary vision of empowerment and freedom that deeply resonates with Bvlgari’s values. She is a strong, authentic voice who redefines success, and through her artistry and confidence inspires women around the world to embrace their inner strength. We are proud to welcome her as our Global Brand Ambassador and to begin this exciting new chapter together.» says Laura Burdese, Bvlgari Deputy CEO and Bvlgari CEO as of July 1, 2026.

«It is incredibly special to work alongside an iconic brand like Bvlgari, and I’m thrilled to be part of a house that embodies confidence, creativity, and modern femininity. Their pieces always add the perfect finishing touch, transforming a look into a real moment.» – comments Dua Lipa.

Personally speaking, Dua Lipa is a great match for BVLGARI and I am really excited to seeing her future looks and campaigns.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht and Courtesy of BVLGARI
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise

 CHANEL announces the addition of GRAMMY®-nominated singer-songwriter and House Ambassador Gracie Abrams as a new muse of the COCO CRUSH collection. 

Since her debut in 2019, Gracie Abrams has emerged as one of the most compelling singer-songwriters of her generation. Her first EP Minor (2020), followed by This Is What It Feels Like (2021), established her on the pop scene in an intimate and authentic style. In 2023, she released her debut album, Good Riddance and received the highly coveted nomination for Best New Artist at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. The following year came the launch of her sophomore album, The Secret of Us and the deluxe version which included her highest charting song to date, «That’s So True.» 

A preview for you of my new obsession: COCO CRUSH supple choker, quilted motif, in 18K BEIGE GOLD by CHANEL Fine Jewelry

Gracie’s distinctive attitude and natural assurance perfectly embodies the spirit of COCO CRUSH, with the new campaign to be revealed on January 13th, 2026. 

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © CHANEL
DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise!
#CocoCrush #CHANELFineJewelry #SomeEncountersYouWearForever