photography SHINI PARK bts photography FRANCESCO PIZZO in collaboration with CAMPARI

As part of our specific, designated Monday morning duties, Simon delves into debriefing past week’s clients as Zana combs down and reshuffles the samples rail back into colour order*. I hover between tasks of the deadline variety, our coffees always a degree colder than desired at the first sip. There’s noticeably a bigger Grey chunk in the rails, winter must be arriving with the DHL man anytime now.

I take a bite into the preliminary edits from the Milan: Campari Red Diaries client folder, it’s been four weeks since the Skype briefing call with Costume Designer Diamante Cavalli and three since the campaign filming in Milan. One thing’s for sure: The Italians know a thing or two about Red. Like the Alfa Romeo Spider in The Graduate (1967), or the juicy tomato that garnish my Pizza Margherita dinner on the rooftop of Galleria Vittorio. Most of it’s in their humour though, rich and sarcastic, usually followed with hearty laughs and lots of hand gestures. ‘Alora, tweed and air conditioning to 15 degrees is London, si?’ She’d asked, and all I had to say was: si, Diamante, absolutely SI.

*works better than putting DVDs into colour coordination, as admonished by my husband whose analytical brain imploded on the notion of filing Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction next to Love Actually.

With director Stefano Sollima

The Campari Red Diaries filming spans five nights around Milan, I am the visiting fashion consultant on a special scene (to be revealed). By Wednesday – day Three – Director Stefano Sollima, Zoe Saldana, and 300-strong crew & cast are on full swing. I gush about Centre Stage to Zoe during a coffee break and she opens up like a flower. 20 minutes later her management is peeling her off our rather heated conversation on ballet, Puerto Rico and digital influence, then then she is ushered back into set to shoot. Zoe is a force of nature, Neytiri, Gamora or Lieutenant Uhura have nothing on her.

RIGHT with Costume Designer Diamante Cavalli

The film follows Mia Parc (Saldana) on another Campari Red Diaries ‘Legend of Red Hand’, following Clive Owen from last year. Not to mention previous Campari Calendar protagonists include Kate Hudson, Eva Mendez, Uma Thurma. It’s been a while since my first Campari celebration with Milla Jovovich in 2010; it was a very Italian ‘red’ affair then, and given the Saldana-grade gumption and Stefano’s storytelling potency, this one – released in 2018 – is also bound to be nothing less than vehement.

Zoe Saldana

Be the first to discover the full campaign over at the @CampariUK account. And of course, drink responsibly.

Before it ever dawned on me and by extension my immediate family, team and anyone who cared to listen on Twitter, that a runway show production is not remotely easy peasy (not even the lemon squeazy variety), I was aboard Eilean. Physically and figuratively; flying off the Minorcan port and promptly out of 4G (and IG) reach, her ivory sails trimmed neat and without a care in the world.

She is as wistful as she is unyielding, like a Leo Tolstoy heroine. Or Katniss Everdeen, for y’all millennials.

And boy, she’s one smooth ride. These noodle-legs can attest so. Granted, some other limbs were to be cuffed in seasickness acupressure bands after one particularly inky risotto and 5-minute attempt at screen-time.

Jacket & trousers – JOSEPH. Watch – Officine Panerai.

Poster-child of Officine Panerai, born of William Fife III in 1936, stage of Duran Duran’s ‘Rio’ (ask your parents), Eilean had been under care of six owners until a Florentine watchmaker and now Officine Panerai CEO Angelo Bonati took her under his wings, and restored over 40k hours in true watchmaking meticulousness. I boarded with Luminor 2 strapped on my left wrist, in blissful ignorance of any sailing terminology, much less mechanics of making a boat ‘go’ (Regatta is type of cheese, yes/no). We skated the Balearic sea like sails on a little island, chasing Spain’s September sun, and anchored for a swim and lunch near a particularly handsome cliff.

Park & Cube was a guest of Officine Panerai, but all views & opinions my own.