The perfect press trip

Press trips are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get. Sometimes it’s disappointing, often it’s fun, and sometimes you hit a gem. Last Wednesday was such a day. I flew to Hamburg for Pandora. I have beautiful memories of Hamburg anyway. I once saw my brother there after an absence of eight months. He was attending maritime school and had to do ten months (ten months) of internship at sea. That was back in the days before mobile phones, the era of light blue airmail envelopes. And it’s not like my brother was going to write letters. So when he docked in Hamburg for a day, my mother and I jumped in the car. Six hours of driving to have a little onion soup together. We thought it was worth it. I still remember what I was wearing: black jeans and a suede jacket from NAF NAF. Yes, that was very cool back then.

Anyway, Hamburg then. My second time I visited Sylvie Meis in her apartment. Also an exciting experience, especially when the downstairs neighbors knocked because their entire room was under foam. I turned out to have been a bit too generous with the bath foam; all for the photo. Afterwards, the photographer leaned against the white wall with his jeans while lighting. Result: a bruise. Result: the entire loft-living room had to be repainted.

Now I was going to Hamburg for the third time. For Pandora, the Danish jewelry brand that presented its new SHINE collection, a collection of 18k gold-plated jewelry. I had momentarily forgotten how beautiful the city was. It’s like London in Germany. Beautiful buildings, creative shops, nice people. A completely different story than Berlin, of which, as you may know, I am not the president of the fan club.

We stayed at Sir Nikolaj, the German brother of Sir Albert with, hooray, also an Izakaya restaurant where I immediately settled down for tea (yes, I’m healthy) and ordered pepe de padron and opened my laptop.

In the taxi, I met my fellow travelers Jessie Vuijk and Annette Oerlemans (no idea if they are related, thought it was too obvious to ask) and that was immediately a party. No matter how much wine and Jessie’s favorite sushi bar beckoned; we all had work to do. Jessie would shoot some jewelry and Annette had to meet her &C deadlines.

We gathered just before seven in the lobby where shuttle buses took us to a beautiful Hamburg villa. There were cocktails with gold, a bath full of golden balls, tables set with Pandora jewelry, models painted in the most beautiful gold, and of course a lot of healthy and delicious food. We tried on rings, touched necklaces, wiped glitter off each other’s cheeks, and also got to the essence. Of life. Of love. We still don’t fully understand it, but it was clear that it should be cherished and celebrated. And that every situation calls for a beautiful piece of jewelry, that too. And let’s not forget that Pandora’s are quite affordable.