Sandra‘s Closet

A longstanding mainstay within the House’s collections, «The Jackie» experienced a well-chronicled rise to icon status—ever since its debut in 1961, the handbag’s perpetual presence on the arms of celebrated figures around the world crystallized its everlasting association with their signature sophistication. Jackie Kennedy was spotted in the ’70s carrying the G1244 bag by Gucci, that was the perfect accessory to match her iconic tortoiseshell glasses. Eventually, Gucci renamed the bag in her honour, dubbing the style the «Jackie» bag.

Today, Dakota Johnson finds herself at the latest inflection point of the line’s celebrated chronology in which a certain attitude encounters a certain era, marking the beginning of a new chapter through the House’s latest campaign. Johnson makes her way through everyday moments in Los Angeles with different versions of the Jackie 1961, each with its own personality, each perfectly paired to the occasion. The film and imagery, captured by Glen Luchford, pay homage to the style’s storied origins as spontaneous snapshots highlight the silhouette’s intrinsic versatility and enduring elegance, reflecting a state of co-existence that spans decades and personas.

The Jackie 1961
Following a distinguished line of reiterations, each emblematic of its time, today’s Jackie 1961 emerges to transcend the traditional with its sleek silhouette and universal attitude. The selection is presented in three different sizes—mini, small, and medium—in a wide range of colors that highlights the design’s inherent versatility. Clean lines bring the focus to the unique piston closure, as well as the quality of the material itself, whether natural grain, patent, or precious leather, or the emblematic GG Supreme canvas.

A beautiful new iteration: The Jackie 1961 crocheted raffia and leather shoulder bag

A longer, removable shoulder strap, either in leather or as a chain, enhances the Jackie 1961’s adaptable personality and practicality. Within each collection, the House introduces creative interpretations, including in woven raffia and straw as well as with velvet tapestry patterns for Cruise 2023.

My favorite this season: The Jackie 1961 small leather shoulder bag in green

The original model introduced in 1961 became expressive of the 1960s and 1970s jetsetter lifestyle for which Gucci was known and new sensibilities were brought to the signature style in 1999 and 2009, drawing from a contemporary intuition and attitude and ever- assuming new characters that defy definition – fitting seamlessly in any wardrobe.

TO SHOP THE GUCCI JACKIE 1961, CLICK HERE PLEASE.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Gucci and Getty Images
Art Director: Christopher Simmonds Photographer & Director: Glen Luchford
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Gucci Paradiso reopens for the Winter Season 2022/2023 at the Paradiso Mountain Club in St. Moritz. Mountain Club members have exclusive access to the Gucci Paradiso lounge.

With a look that invites guests to feel welcome and relaxed, members are swept away with spectacular mountain views. The interior design remains discreet in keeping with the elegant and contemporary eclecticism that characterizes the leading luxury fashion brand. Sumptuous velvet chairs and sofas from the House’s Décor collection provide with a place to dine, drink and relax while the tartan carpet adds to the space’s cozy atmosphere.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Courtesy of Gucci by Pamela Bargnesi – #GucciParadiso #GucciParadisoStMoritz
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One more look from the Maldives. I just love this. The colors blend in so nicely with the beautiful island that is the postcard perfect backdrop.

My look: Ascu cropped open-back one-shoulder ribbed linen-blend top by Jacquemus, crystal-embellished stretch-mesh midi skirt by Alessandra Rich, cutout acetate butterfly sunglasses in shiny black smoke by Fendi, open-toe platform-sole sandals, and long silver floral earrings, both by Gucci, black bikini bottoms with white piping by CHANEL, Palmette crystal-embellished suede cross-body bag by Christian Louboutin, and Oyster Perpetual 36 with a turquoise blue dial by Rolex.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht taken by Munko at Ritz-Carlton Fari Islands
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Breaking news! Today, GUCCI announced that Alessandro Michele is exiting the House after nearly eight years with the brand. The Roman designer was hired by Tom Ford and worked than after Frida Giannini before taking over the helmet himself. With his maximalist vision, he changed the look of fashion and brought colorful looks to the runway. Unexpected color combinations, animals such as tigers, lions and bees were his favorites.

The Hacker Project, 2021

Michele had a flair for rule-breaking hookups. There was the F/W 2021 Hacker Project with Demna of Balenciaga, a Kering «colleague» and then a year later he collaborated with adidas collab. However, the brand was hit during corona and numbers haven’t been on the rise recently. GUCCI seems to suffer from brand fatigue.

Gucci x adidas, 2022

In a statement GUCCI CEO Marco Bizzarri said, «I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet Alessandro at the end of 2014, since then we have had the pleasure to work closely together as Gucci has charted its successful path over these last eight years. I would like to thank him for his 20 years of commitment to Gucci and for his vision, devotion, and unconditional love for this unique House during his tenure as Creative Director.»

S/S 2023 Welcome to Twinsburg show.

Alessandro Michele said: «There are times when paths part ways because of the different perspectives each one of us may have. Today an extraordinary journey ends for me, lasting more than twenty years, within a company to which I have tirelessly dedicated all my love and creative passion. During this long period Gucci has been my home, my adopted family. To this extended family, to all the individuals who have looked after and supported it, I send my most sincere thanks, my biggest and most heartfelt embrace. Together with them I have wished, dreamed, imagined. Without them, none of what I have built would have been possible. To them goes my most sincerest wish: may you continue to cultivate your dreams, the subtle and intangible matter that makes life worth living. May you continue to nourish yourselves with poetic and inclusive imagery, remaining faithful to your values. May you always live by your passions, propelled by the wind of freedom.»

Personally speaking, I felt that GUCCI has become kind of arrogant lately. Its loyalty towards people who have been supporting the brand since a very long time has kind of disappeared. Let’s hope that the there will be a new prosperity in all ways, also on a human level as I love the brand a lot!

Thank you, Alessandro, for all the magic!

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / David Biedert Photography
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Arriving perfectly dressed for the new season, the S/S 2022 Prêt-à-Portea collection at The Berkeley London showcases couture cakes inspired by designers from Lanvin to Gucci. A contemporary twist on afternoon tea, this playful and stylish edit is set to become another favourite for sweet-toothed fashionistas.

This season’s collection opens with Oscar de la Renta – a striking orange gown crafted with apricot bavarois, salted Manuka honey and apricot ganache, topped with a meringue frill. A hero handbag from Michael Kors – whose bags were seen filled with flowers on the catwalk – has been created as a Victoria sponge with fresh strawberry jam, wrapped in an Opalys chocolate cylinder with flowers intricately piped with lime butter cream.

Gucci’s pink silk tuxedo has been reimagined in bourbon vanilla mousse and Emmanuel sponge, layered with peach compote and glazed with shimmering pink icing. This is finished with a thin chocolate jacket and bow tie. Meanwhile, Lanvin’s towering floral platform heels will stomp down the cakewalk made from chocolate biscuit, painstakingly piped with royal icing.

Schiaparelli’s couture golden mini dress combines caramel sponge, dark Valrhona chocolate and hazelnut praline, all topped with a shimmering, chocolate oversized collar. Richard Quinn’s buttercup yellow gown is immortalised in ice cream – chocolate wafer cones are filled with fresh fruit compote and pineapple and star anise sorbet, topped with bright yellow chocolate waves.

Finally, the Prêt-à-Portea pastry team have created a showstopper of a cake – designed to share – paying homage to Saint Laurent’s floral jumpsuit. An oversized red rose made of lychee mousse with fresh raspberry is set on a glossy white coconut cake, and finished with a green chocolate leaf.

As always, the tea also includes elegant canapés and sandwiches, with a selection of loose-leaf teas from the extensive collection.
Afternoon Tea is served Monday – Sunday: 1pm – 5.30pm.

Cannot wait to be back in London!

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © The Berkeley and Courtesy of the Brands
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Origins, travel, experience. And the certainty that a suitcase is not just a container. From the culture of travel that forms the history of the brand comes the new Gucci Valigeria campaign, featuring actor, screenwriter, director, and musician Ryan Gosling.

Creative Director Alessandro Michele, through the lens of photographer Glen Luchford, upends a typical sense of narrative and sets the campaign in a dreamlike dimension that goes beyond the boundaries that separate it from reality to recount a present built on the possibilities of the imagination and of an encounter.

The Gucci Savoy collection is the narrative result of a story that takes flight from the typical splendors of travel to confer the value of memory to the origins of a brand that was created from an intuition and from the observation of potentialities, precisely thanks to travel, developing discoveries of worlds and of diverse cultural manners.

«Travel for Gucci was never purely physical. Gucci is the brand that accompanied the artists, writers, actors, and directors of Hollywood on their journeys… This is why I wanted the advertising campaign to recount a situationist dimension where the protagonist traverses a “non-place” that is first and foremost a mental place, the same as those who, in the past and present, choose Gucci because they grasp the significance of creativity used to build imaginary places. And it is for this reason that a Gucci suitcase appears as a magical suitcase,» says Creative Director Alessandro Michele.

It is precisely in travel that the heritage of Gucci finds its origins. Founded in Florence in 1921 by Guccio Gucci, who more than twenty years prior when he was just 17, emigrates to Paris and then to London. The young Florentine works first as a porter at The Savoy in London, the go-to destination for international travelers. The very young Guccio Gucci comes into contact with the magic of travel that, at the time, was synonymous with discovery, discussion, study, and a bridge between diverse cultures. It was a time in which traveling signified experience, displacing the certainties of one’s social environment, a pursuit of the unexpected, of a will to encounter and to know. The return to Florence can’t but remember that observed and studied reality, assimilated and ready to be transferred into the practice of work. Guccio Gucci will do it with his first suitcases, trunks, bags, hat boxes. All the containers required to bring with oneself, on a journey, those necessities to represent oneself and one’s culture in an unknown and often foreign place.

In a narrative inversion that fills a stretch of space-time, the same containers appear as protagonists in the campaign, which presents the Gucci Savoy collection
including trolleys, hard and soft suitcases, duffle bags, trunks, hat boxes, and beauty cases. Objects that encapsulate experiences and desires that, in the images and video of the campaign, fill the bed of a polished pick-up truck in which the new collection lives side by side with historical pieces and that, in this plausible story of possibilities, are also repositories of dreams.

And it is this reality-adjacent dream that Ryan Gosling is living. At the end of a journey studded with arrivals and departures, he is introduced to surprising places through a trunk that becomes a gateway to fantastical worlds, which will turn out to be more real than any imagination could conceive. Because it leads to that reality of discovery that has always had the ability to build unexpected worlds.

The Gucci Savoy collection, which is part of the House’s wider Gucci Valigeria travel selection, is distinguished by a combination of heritage-infused design elements including the GG monogram and/or the Web stripe, offered in both soft and hard-sided iterations. The collection comprises items for every travel need, designed to be used now and for many years to come as classic and contemporary elements come together within a timeless aesthetic.

I will be going to Florence with Gucci in the beginning of October and cannot wait to explore everything where it all had started…

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Gucci #GucciValigeria
Creative Director: Alessandro Michele – Art Director: Christopher Simmonds – Photographer & Director: Glen Luchford – Make up: Thomas De Kluyver – Hair: Paul Hanlon / DISCLOSURE: We may earn commission from links on this page, but I only recommend products I love. Promise.

Reflecting the Italian temperament and lust for life like no other, I love PUCCI beachwear. Nothing beats a head-to-toe printed look. I absolutely adore when my bikini matches the outfit as shown here during my stay at the Blue Palace Resort in Crete. Brightly colored accessories, pink retro-inspired sunglasses, and fun rubber sandals, give the ensemble an exquisitely trendy note.

My look: Turquoise and pink printed jersey top, matching printed jersey pants, printed bikini top, and matching bikini bottoms, all by Emilio Pucci, DiorSignature B1U cat-eye acetate and gold-tone sunglasses by Dior, GG buckled rubber sandals by Gucci, Jodie mini knotted leather tote by Bottega Veneta, and Oyster Perpetual 36 with a turquoise blue dial by Rolex.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / Anouk Bauknecht
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Everyone is into a retro denim style this year, with wide-leg jeans being a major must-have. This trend cycles through every decade, and it’s returning as a massive staple in 2022. I especially love this pair with its printed inserts. It reminds me so much of the ’90s when we were sewing these details into the side seams of our jeans. Luxe hippie at its best!

The photos were taken at Clinique La Prairie, where I cannot wait to go back after all the fashion week craziness.

My look: Cropped ruffled printed top, and matching wide-leg jeans with printed inserts (Look 7 Cruise 2021), green flap pocket bag with colorful strap (Look 5 Pre-collection Summer 2021), all by CHANEL, Jodie suede platform sandals by Saint Laurent, oversized gold-tone, leather, crystal and faux pearl clip earrings by Dolce & Gabbana, and oversized metal frame sunglasses by Gucci.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: © Sandra Bauknecht / David Biedert Photography
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With an unduly cheerful, optimistic, or favorable view of things: now you can literally see everything through rose-colored glasses. Being a huge trend this season, designers offer a large selection of sunglasses in all shades of pink to choose from. The choice is yours!

As I love pink, I couldn’t resist myself…

LoL, Sandra

Cat-eye acetate sunglasses by Givenchy

Twist cat-eye acetate sunglasses by Balenciaga

DiorSignature B1U cat-eye acetate and gold-tone sunglasses by Dior

Venessa cat-eye sunglasses by The Attico x Linda Farrow

Medusa Biggie sunglasses in pink by Versace

Pink heart-shaped frame sunglasses by Moschino

Loulou heart-shaped acetate sunglasses by Saint Laurent

Oversized sunglasses in pale pink by Gucci

Dynasty oversized geometric-frame sunglasses by Balenciaga

Photos: Courtesy of the Brands and © Sandra Bauknecht
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As promised in yesterday’s post, I will show you how to sport a catsuit. It doesn’t need to be a style for the night only. How cool is this color-blocking combination for a day in Saint Tropez. The photos were taken inside the little gardens of the beautiful Byblos Hotel.

My look: Silk satin headband, and cutout halterneck jumpsuit, both by Saint Laurent, gold-tone crystal belt by Gucci, One Rockstud bag in ultra marine green by Valentino, hoop earrings and mules with multicolored letters, both by CHANEL.

LoL, Sandra

Photos: Michael HJ Lopez Photographie / Sandra Bauknecht
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