Cactus de Cartier
All aboard!
After one of the most intense Haute Couture weeks I’ve ever experienced (why do they pack everything into two days instead of spreading it out over several days? I don’t get it…) I booked a last minute job together with Louis Vuitton that took me to down to Grasse over the day before leaving for this very special trip together with Cartier the next day. To say that I’m exhausted by now is definitely an understatement but hey, I can’t complain when the trip is as good as this one was.
Last year Cartier took us to Cannes for a magical weekend away and this year the destination (which was unknown to us until a couple of weeks before the takeoff) was Marrakech! Why Morocco you ask? Because Cartier just released their new creative jewellery collection called Cactus de Cartier and where else could would be a better fit than Morocco when talking about the desert, one million cactuses and everything else that I’m guessing inspired this incredible high jewellery collection.
Below you'll find a few digital memories from this lovely (but incredibly short) time in the Moroccan 42 degree heat. I hope you'll enjoy!
Personally I’ve only been to Morocco once before but I visited Agadir during that trip together with my family so going to Marrakech was a first for me! If you’ve been following along through Instagram and Snapchat you’ve probably seen most of this trip already. I’m seriously loving Snapchat at the moment by the way! It’s so easy and quick to share these kind of memories together with other people and in this way people get to see so much more (if they want to of course) than just a few couple of photos. If you haven't tried it already I suggest giving it a shot (although I have to say that it's not very user friendly...).
Annyhooow, Cartier brought us to Marrakech with a private jet and I don't know about you but I'm not a huge fan of flying so let's just say that I was very nervous about this. Excited and nervous at the same time of course! Despite the very bumpy take off and landing I had one of the best flights of my life and could actually relax a little bit once we were in the air. Oh, and did I mention the Ladurée lunch boxes they had prepared for us? I know, incredible. After landing in Marrakech we were taken to our private villa, which I shared together with the adorable Shini and Chriselle. The villa, equipped with everything you could imagine (including your personal butlers) was more than I could have dreamt of. The only downside? Not enough time to spend by the pool!
An oasis in the desert
On our second day in Morocco, Cartier brought us on a little adventure. An adventure that made me feel as though I was in a James Bond movie for a few minutes. Why? No, not because of a guns or going skydiving... But because we had a whole fleet of black jeeps dedicated to Cartier, which when driving in the desert in a row looked pretty cool if I can say so myself. Just imagine the music and a few people fighting on top of the car roof and you get what I mean.
Even though the car ride looked really cool, I wasn't the biggest fan of how it made me feel since it was basically an hour of being thrown around inside the car if you would have forgotten to fasten your seatbelt... Car ride aside the views we got to experience of the Moroccan desert were definitely worth it. Thank god that we just stopped for a short little while since the temperatures were rising towards 40 degrees around 11am in the morning. Our destination turned our to be the most beautiful little oasis in the middle of the desert, called La Pause. Here we enjoyed lunch, cooling down in the swimming pool and hiding in the shade of olive trees while drinking mint lemonade.
Time for dinner
I forgot to mention that after the little pause in that magical oasis we photographed a special little something for Cartier, which is something I usually wouldn't mind but when the temperatures reached 42 it was hard to look as though you were enjoying the surroundings and not having mascara dripping down your face. Fortunately I got to bring my own photography assistant on this trip which meant that everything went so much smoother. Since Hana and I go way back I could also be comfortable looking like a complete fool (who accidentally flashed the security guard a couple of times...) while she's tried to capture the few seconds where I managed to look somewhat ok. The fact that she had did all of this in the scorching heat just shows what an amazing professional she is. Thank you again Hana!
After we almost passed out in the middle of the desert Cartiersaved us with air conditioning and brought us to this amazing villa that you can see here to the left for a magical dinner.
These are some of the beautiful Cartier pieces that are a part of their new creative jewellery collection Cactus de Cartier. And what could be more fitting that a whole cacti wall behind you in this case? Only problem was that I took one step too far back at one point and literally got stung by 100 at the same time...
Up, up and away!
At 4am in the morning Cartier woke everyone up to take part of this incredible experience. Flying a hot air balloon over the Moroccan dessert while nibbling away on croissants and pancakes for breakfast and watching the sun rise for the day. Sounds pretty spectacular, no?
As I'm sure you can understand this trip was pretty hard to wrap my head around... I don't really know if I'm aware of everything I just had the opportunity to experience. When you're always rushing onto the next thing (I'm leaving for Barcelona today for example) I rarely have the time to properly sit down and think about everything I've just gotten to see. This was one of the most unbelievable experiences I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of so far and I can't thank Cartier enough for letting me enjoy it together with them as well as the other lovely ladies who was a part of this trip: Shini, Chriselle, Denni, Alexandra, Kristina and Eleonora. Thank you again, I had the best time ever and will never forget these beautiful days in Morocco.
Photos of me & the hot air balloon ride: Hana Le Van