“Vedi Neapoli e poi muori” – see Naples and then die – no doubt about it what Goethe wanted to express here: a thrilling city and consummate location for KATHARINA HOVMAN. Our photographer Philine von Sell travelled with her team to Italy and found a gorgeous setting for our cheerfully colourful Summer Collection 2021 there.

TIP: PUT ON HEADPHONES to enjoy this LOOKBOOK ACOUSTICALLY as well:)

...We roam across this pulsing city and its narrow streets, preferably on foot, but we try using the tour bus, too. Everyone warns about the traffic, and things really do seem a bit chaotic on Naple’s roads. On the other hand, anyone who takes on the challenge quickly realises – it’s a cautious chaos. People are attentive towards each other here. Everything flows. Everybody’s relaxed. The times we hear the sound of what’s more like a shyly honking horn are few and far between.

Even the underground is a highlight. The #1 Line, the Metrò dell’arte, lets us forget that we’re standing on a draughty metro platform. Renowned sculptors, painters and photographers have created a subterranean art gallery. In the colours of our summer collection! Carlotta, nicknamed Carlo for short, merges with the art on the wall in her outfit – she wears KATHARINA HOVMAN with the self-confident casualness you encounter everywhere in this city. Carlo is a “natural” at this, we discovered her in Düsseldorf. No one would ever think this is the first time she’s standing in front of a camera. By the way, the Linea 1 goes directly to MADRE, a worthwhile destination for fans of contemporary art.

On our second day lovely Priscilla enhances our team. A Roman by birth who has made Argentina her home, she’s a committed woman on a wide variety of fronts. As actress she basks in the footlights not only on theatre stages: one of her acclaimed projects is theatre in prisons. Culture for everyone, no exceptions.

Santa Chiara, the famous church in the city’s old town – the cloister, one of the most beautiful in Campania. And there they are again: the colours! Benches and columns with impressively lovely tilework. Hand-painted. Typical for this region – our eyes can’t get enough of them. Whose aura has more intensity? Carlo and Priscilla’s in the magnificent hues their outfits display, or the benches in the cloister that tell us their stories and invite us to enjoy the cooling silence?

Today, on Day 2, I get Maili in front of my camera, too. Maili comes from Strasbourg and is our hair & make-up artist. She’s already done lots of work for the shows on the truly big-time Parisian catwalks, for instance Lagerfeld and the like. She is simply the best.

Rione Sanità – one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods. A much-frequented district with a sinister mafia past. The Camorra has human beings’ lives to answer for here. But the great Toto was born here as well, a hugely popular actor and one of the most famous men on the Italian cultural scene. Books stand on shelves out in public on Toto Alley, and artists, both men and women, have immortalised themselves here. A great deal has been restored with a sensitive touch. A neighbourhood programme, organised by the City of Naples – using culture against the Camorra. Wonderful, creatively designed spaces. Carlo and Priscilla fit into the scenery in their sunny yellow and tomato-red outfits as if we had it built especially for them. Except that when I photograph, there’s nothing contrived about it. I take backdrops and scenery the way they come. It’s lovely here just like it is. Naples is not – as many say – “run-down”. Naples has the patina that comes with age.

We drive around 40 km south by car. Our destination: the Amalfi Coast. Word has it that the most weddings in the whole world are celebrated here. A wildly romantic spot. Its most famous town: the former fishing village of Positano – today the pearl of the Amalfi Coast, a must for the WHO’S WHO, but the same goes for Instagrammers and bloggers. A town as if painted on canvas. Colourful houses huddle closely to the craggy slopes. Narrow streets, steep stairways. It’s enchanting here, and a little bit old-school decadent as well.

Barely four kilometres away lies the community of Praiano. Nicer, more relaxed. Less sophisticated, but not as much “commerce”, either. Praiano is a well-kept secret for all those who don’t want to live where everyone lives. The pace is more sedate here. And here too, a breathtaking vista across the sea, aromatic lemons for the famous limoncello liqueur, and the most scrumptious tomatoes in the world.