The July-August 2022 issue of Vogue Greece delivers the Mediterranean-region experience in a way that the combined efforts of Vogues France, Italy and Spain did not.

My original thoughts stand firmly, now that I’ve had the total pleasure of seeing model Luna Bijl’s cover story ‘The Big Blue’, released today June 26, styled by Nicholas Georgiou.

Panos Davios [IG] photographs the Dutch model, adored by Karl Lagerfeld, on the Greek island of Naxos, a Greek island in the South Aegean and the largest of the Cyclades island group.

The issue travels from Naxos to Mykonos and Hydra, showing us the sense of summer life in Greece.

I am privileged to have sailed in the Ionian Sea on a very special trip that I will never forget ever. It was the consummate, simple pleasures experience [abolish any visions of a billionaire’s yacht], rising at dawn to buy fresh bread, honey and oranges and eating breakfast on the beach facing the rising sun.

Not a week goes by without my thinking about that magic trip into antiquity and the evolution of humanity. The Mediterranean experience — and this one trip, in particular — lives on with me constantly. It’s best expressed in the poem ‘Ithaca’ by C.P. Cavafy.

Imaan Hammam, who was in Cairo last week, would surely love the poem. Cavafy was born in Alexandria and pays great tribute to the intellectual gifts and sensual beauty of Egypt.

When I read that Vogues France, Italy and Spain were combining forces in a single issue, visions of Portofino’s bougainvillea danced in my mind. None of it has come to pass so far, but Vogue Greece has grabbed my heart this morning with this exquisite, transitional fashion tribute to a region of the world that is the cradle of our modern civilization.

Thank you, Vogue Greece EIC Thalia Karafyllidou for this Big Blue Issue experience. I will be pouring over this issue, translation in hand. On your IG, you write about ‘Le Grand Bleu’ film. We are on it! ~ Anne

PS: I only wish that Adut Akech, photographed in Tenuta Borgia, could have caught this poetic vibe in her Vogues fashion story: ‘“From a terrace, the view of an absolute sea that sometimes at sunset smells a little of Africa” (Alberto Coretti) 100 meters away from the sea as the crow flies.” ‘