Sandra‘s Closet

Last month, we got to know that the uber-gorgeous Blake Lively is the face for Gucci’s new scent GUCCI PREMIÈRE (for the previous post, please click here).

Highly anticipated, the secret has been lifted on her facebook fan page – here is the glamorous and fabulous ad campaign shot by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott. I know, the photographer duo seems to have closed the deal on every campaign this season.

In a stunning sequined backless gown, Blake Lively transforms the Hollywood glamour of the ’30s perfectly for Gucci’s new fragrance Première. A short film will be released in September during the Venice Film Festival.

LoL, Sandra

Italian luxury label Emilio Pucci launches its first ad campaign since the brand’s inception. The campaign was shot by fashion duo Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott and features model-actress Amber Valletta as muse.

The moody and evocative images are set amidst ornate and sumptuous backdrops inspired by Palazzo Pucci, the maison’s Renaissance-era headquarters in Florence.

Valletta, with her classic features, Italian roots and unobtrusive celebrity, was a natural choice for Pucci. An iconic face in fashion, she embodies the Pucci Woman, exuding a stylish self-assurance. Mert and Marcus capture the sultry, sophisticated, yet slightly subversive theme running through the F/W 2012 collection designed by Creative Director Peter Dundas.

The campaign will be launched in the September issue of select publications in the US, France and Italy and will pave the way for a more amplified reach in 2013.

To shop a great selection of Emilio Pucci’s fall 2012 collection, please click here.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Emilio Pucci

Time flies. One year ago, I was one of the advertising faces for the Closed F/W 2011 ad campaign. So I was very curious to see what the Hamburg-based brand has come up with this season. Shot by Max Farago in Amsterdam, the team set out with no fixed agenda or timetable to follow. And the Dutch capital presented them with plenty of spontaneous opportunities. In the end, they said, it became hard to depart.

Closed looked to other aspects of the city than those so instantly recognisable such as the iconic canals and gabled housing and realised that the texture of the streets was providing an ideal backdrop for the seasonal collection. And, of course, the easy going laidback attitude that the city is most known for resonated perfectly with the clothes and the four chosen individuals that comprise theCLOSED F/W 2012 campaign.

Find out who this season’s Closed ambassadors are:

Clara Cullen

Born in Argentina and based in New York where she makes film, Clara describes her life: “I love cooking. I have a horse named “El Zurdo”. I write my dreams. I like taking pictures of old women and dogs. My mum is the example of a woman. And dad is my number one fan. Travelling is part of my life. The Metropolitan museum in New York and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris are my favourites. Icons are, Yves Saint Laurent, Sonia Rykiel, Rita Mitsouko, Delia Derbyshire. Buenos Aires, New York. I’m obsessed with miles. I had a hard time communicating when I was a kid. I didn’t like school. It’s important to break the rules.”

Karta Healy

Introducing himself as a conceptor is typically modest of Karta. Probably the only person to successfully persuade a bunch of stiff British politicans to loosen their ties and enjoy bike riding in London’s House of Commons, Healy has been referred to as a cycling scientist. Educated in political science and then trained in industrial design, he is evangelical about the freedom of two wheels over the pollution of four wheeled vehicles and consults with city councils globally on congestion. His Sikh upbringing and nomadic travelling has given him an open outlook on life. As he says, “I have always lived ‘off-the-grid’.” True enough, Karta currently resides on a converted boat in London, “to escape the city within the city.”
Freedom could well be his middle name.

Pernille Teisbæk

Copenhagen-based editor, blogger and TV host, Pernille describes herself: “I’m a fashion blogger and freelance stylist. I just turned 28 years and I feel better and stronger than ever before… because I’m doing what I love. It all started when I was 12 years old and got my grandmother’s old sewing machine. I started to think about making something new – creating clothes that only I could have. Then I started looking in the magazines to find inspiration. After modeling, I started as fashion director at WOMAN magazine. I’ve since gone freelance. I really like the process of creating a universe around a specific look. I guess that is why I feel at home in front of the camera and behind it.”

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Closed and © Sandra Bauknecht

Dolce & Gabbana Fragrances unveils its newest face: the French model and actress, Laetitia Casta. Laetitia’s unparalleled beauty, sensuality and femininity brought her to the attention of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana who chose her to embody the Dolce & Gabbana woman for the launch of their newest fragrance Dolce & Gabbana Pour Femme.

“Laetitia has always bewitched us with her sensual and natural charisma: she is the perfect interpretation of the Dolce&Gabbana woman of today.” says the famous designer duo.

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana launched their first scent Dolce & Gabbana Pour Femme in 1992 that marked the decade of the nineties. In 2012, the designers have decided to re-launch their rich floral perfume in a new version.

Top notes: Neroli, raspberry and tangerine
Heart notes: Jasmine and orange blossom
Base notes: Marshmallow, vanilla, sandalwood and heliotrope

The advertising campaign was shot by Mario Testino in Sicily with Laetitia Casta and Noah Mills. The fragrance is available from July 2012 – as 25, 50 and 100 ml Eau de Parfum for women.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Dolce & Gabbana Fragrances

Continuing the theme of ‘portraits for successful living’, Diesel’s Screen Test F/W 2012 ad campaign puts fashion and strong personalities together to create a set of highly stylised performances to camera.

Iconic fashion photographer Steven Meisel creates the series of modern Screen Tests, featuring some of the most exciting contemporary models – Karen Elson, Hanne Gaby Odiele, Jamie Bochart, Fei Fei Sun, Coco Rocha, Mirte Maas, Sid Ellisdon, Ethan James, Yuri Pleskun, Sallieu Jalloh and Dae Na – inviting each character to enter his frame and role-play to the camera.

Each subject is engaged in a creative, playful act, expressing their individuality with confidence and attitude; props swiped from a dressing up box provide the riff for each invented persona. On digital screens the incorporation of animated cinemagraphs allows each image to come alive with the slightest movement.

In an irreverent grid layout, the characters become inadvertently connected and we see an accidental social network develop. A mix of styles and identities play against each other to create a singular, defiant, ‘Diesel attitude’.

In a global age of instant communication, Diesel presents a campaign beyond genre conventions. Taking cues from sophisticated high fashion as well as street style, the campaign mixes codes and references without fear or rules.

It is this ‘anything goes’ attitude to fashion that underpins this provocative and playful campaign, which will come to life in F/W 2012 with a 360° media approach, which will include print and online implementations, and a strong approach on social networks.

I like and you?

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Diesel

Kristen Stewart has officially made the transition from teenage dream to high-fashion icon.

The ad campaign for Balenciaga’s new Florabotanica fragrance features the 22 year-old “Twilight” actress in a floral dress, looking fierce at the camera. I am convinced that the new scent will get a lot of attention with its modern, attractive flacon and unusual ingredients, such as mint, rose, carnation, caladium leaf, vetiver and amber.

Balenciaga Florabotanica will be available in 30, 50 and 100 ml Eau de Parfum.
In Switzerland from October 2012, exclusively at Marionnaud.

And I have finally a scent matching my floral Balenciaga dress.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Balenciaga and © Sandra Bauknecht

The new Miu Miu F/W 2012 campaign, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, is a gallery of portraits with a seductive, provocative attitude. Actress Chloë Sevigny, who previously starred in the S/S 1996 campaign, impersonates a well-defined character, who vaguely yet perceptibly hints at psychedelic hedonism scenarios. A thread of subtle irony runs through all the images.

Naive, or maybe just apparently so, basically impenetrable, Chloë Sevigny raises the viewers’ curiosity, and plays with them. Clothing, with its sharp, masculine lines and the psychedelic repetition of prints, becomes the leading character in a kaleidoscopic visual collage, where masculine and feminine blur in a dandy-like fantasy conveying a refreshing eccentricity.

The setting is a series of stylised interiors: thick carpeting, a modernist chair and a butter-coloured hue set the context for a twist on the 1970s without defining it in any graphic detail. The emphasis placed on the character’s personality – engaging in an ambiguous exchange of glances with the observers, with whom she seems to share some kind of intimacy – is highlighted by repetitions in the frames and props enhancing the direct yet nonchalent poses.

LoL, Sandra

Photo: Courtesy of Miu Miu

« The strength of the sea and the brightness of the sky are the elements that I am drawn towards the most when in Pantelleria and that inspired me Acqua di Gio. For Acqua di Giò Essenza, I wanted to create a concentrate of power and sensuality. »

Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani has always loved the Mediterranean, and drew his inspiration from the rock-strewn landscape of Pantelleria to create Acqua di Giò in 1996. A fresh, sensual blend that has become a classic men’s fragrance. An irresistible combination of sea’ salty accents, sparkling citrusy notes, musk and woody cedar, this exceptional scent embodies masculinity in harmony with nature, a fragrance of escape and sensuality.

Today Acqua di Giò Essenza opens a new chapter with an Eau de Parfum, a new interpretation of Acqua di Giò, more intense, composed by Alberto Morillas.

Top notes: Cascalone, Sicilian bergamot essence and grapefruit zest.
Heart notes: Paradisone, jasmine absolute from Grasse, basil and sage.
Base notes: Patchouli,  Atlas cedar, vetiver from Haiti, ambrox, animalic ambergris and clary sage.

The result is an incomparable sensuality, the tantalizing lure of the skin.

The bottle shares the same architectural lines as the Acqua di Giò bottle, with the addition of light and technology. An engraved silver-plated plaque embraces the base of the glass like a mirror, to give the fragrance an even greater dazzle. In a click, the new magnetic cap bearing the Armani logo, opens and closes the bottle with a simple, sensual gesture.

The campaign was shot by Bruce Weber starring Simon Nessman.

LoL, Sandra

Advertising 1: Transsibérien Bags

“For our Fall/Winter 2012-2013 campaign, we wanted to continue the journey we started with the fashion show,” says Louis Vuitton Artistic Director Marc Jacobs. “Our aim was to recreate, in a cinematic manner, the glamour of travel and the romance of going somewhere, of meeting someone, of looking out a window…”

To this end, the interior of the Louis Vuitton Express, which brought Paris Fashion Week to such a memorable conclusion, was reconstructed, in all its exquisite and extravagant detail, in a New York studio – the locomotive itself having already set off on a new adventure. Winding its way East across two continents, the Louis Vuitton Express is scheduled to pull in on Shanghai’s famous Bund on July 19th.

Advertising 2: Leopard Bags

Shot by Steven Meisel, this is the first Louis Vuitton campaign ever to evoke so exactly the ambiance of the fashion show. Unprecedented levels of know-how and attention to detail were deployed to create a compelling restatement of the romance of travel, true to the heritage of Louis Vuitton. In the role of the travelers, ten young models – accompanied by four porters – showcase the collection’s gracefully elongated A-line silhouette, embellished with jewel buttons and opulent brocades.

In keeping with the theme of travel, Louis Vuitton’s iconic Monogram canvas luggage, stored in an overhead rack or carried by a porter, shares the spotlight with the season’s standout bags, including the Monogram-sequined Sunshine Express, the black and white Leopard, and the spectacular Transsibérien, with its jewel buckle and dip-dyed goat hair.

Advertising 3: Sunshine Express Bags

“All of these glamorous travelers have an imaginary voyage in their head, which is wonderfully captured by Steven Meisel,” continues Marc Jacobs. “I cannot think of anyone who could pack a train with so many beautiful young women and their porters, and still make the ambiance feel light and romantic. As opulently dressed as the girls are, there is a lightness and a magic to everything this season – and that is reflected perfectly in these images.”

The Louis Vuitton F/W 2012 advertising campaign, comprising a total of 10 single and double-page visuals, will break in the August 2012 issues of magazines worldwide.

I am so in love with this collection… so amazing! Below you can also enjoy some behind the scenes shots.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Blake Lively is the face of Gucci’s new upcoming fragrance Gucci Première, named after the Italian house’s haute couture line. This is the “Gossip Girl” regular’s first scent campaign, though she posed for Chanel last year.

The scent is meant to evoke Old Hollywood and so does the short movie for the campaign shot by director Nicolas Winding Refn. “She is a girl of extraordinary beauty and she’s a girl who loves fashion. She has great taste in clothes. Although she’s young, she’s also very determined, and I liked this spirit. She knows how to be a diva in the right sense, with an aspirational glamour,” said Gucci’s Creative Director Frida Giannini.

Lively was the perfect choice to transport that glam retro-Hollywood look, don’t you think? The perfume will be launched worldwide Mid July.

LoL, Sandra

Photo: Courtesy of Gucci