tumi aw26 | path to new peaks

Villa Maroc

Through the tangle of Essaouira’s medina, the air is warm with leather and spice, and cats doze on faded, sun-bleached carpets. Down a narrow alleyway, the only clue is a great wooden door, worn smooth with age and painted a vivid Yves Klein blue. Step through it and the clamour of the souk falls away. The light dims, the air turns cool, and past a small boutique glinting with Berber silver, a tray of fresh mint tea waits as if you were expected. This is Villa Maroc, often called Morocco’s first riad hotel, and, three decades on, a family institution finding its way into a new generation’s hands.

In the late 1980s, British surfer James Waley fell for Essaouira and took on a single riad in the medina. Mounia Ezzaher‘s parents came a few years later. Her father had known the town since boyhood: the small blue fishing boats rowing in at dusk, light glowing gold over the water. It happened over a conversation in one of its salons: when Ezzaher’s parents asked whether the riad was for sale, the answer came back on a torn scrap of paper, a price pencilled across it. A week later they had signed; two months after that, Villa Maroc was home.

Villa Maroc

Now encompassing four riads, the hotel has just 21 rooms and no two are alike. Each has the intimacy of a home long loved, furnished with antique pieces, worn textiles and original artwork collected over the years. The rooms feel gently out of step with the present: no television screens, only sweet pastries set out in embossed metalware, orange-blossom soap and the call of gulls over the harbour.

Beyond the rooms, the house unfolds slowly: a cool warren of staircases, courtyards and shady corners made for losing an afternoon in. The roof terrace climbs in levels over the ramparts towards the water and palm-fringed coast. The whole riad seems to exhale and wants its guests to do the same. “I want them to feel very in Morocco – like they can take a break,” Ezzaher says. The aim is to show the country in every detail, giving Villa Maroc a spirit entirely its own.

Villa Maroc

Much of that spirit can be attributed to a marriage of two temperaments. Ezzaher’s mother is Swiss, her father Moroccan. “It’s a running joke in the family: Moroccan hospitality and Swiss precision,” she says. Between the two sits a rare kind of ease.

That same duality carries through to the table. Dinner is served around an intimate, candle-lit courtyard, with seats low and drawn close. Each evening brings a different set menu, with no choices to weigh, built on the conviction that Moroccan cooking runs far deeper than the tagine most travellers know. On the night Schön! alive dined, that meant spiced oranges with black olives and garlic, followed by slow-cooked goat, so tender it fell from the bone. Removing the choice, as Ezzaher sees it, allows guests to surrender to the meal, and to meet dishes they would never think to order for themselves.

Domaine Villa Maroc

Much of what is on the table comes from the family’s own acreage. Drive inland, through open, sun-worn country, where wild horses roam free, and the olive groves appear. This is the Domaine, the family’s other life’s work: an olive and argan farm with its own mill. Ezzaher’s mother, unconvinced by the local olive oil, took to travelling with her own bottle from Tuscany; her husband, an engineer with no background in farming, resolved to outdo it. He learned the craft from producers in Spain and Italy. What began as a private project is now a working estate, producing more than 20 tonnes of oil last year, pressed from trees harvested between October and December.

Over time, that pride settled into something quietly principled. Nearly everyone who works the land comes from the surrounding villages. Even the waste closes a loop: the crushed olive stones are dried and burned to heat the pool at Les Jardins, the family’s contemporary sister property nearby. It was never badged as a sustainability drive; it simply made sense.

Left: a wild horse and Right: Mounia Ezzaher and her father, both at Domaine Villa Maroc

Now the story passes onto the next generation. Ezzaher is now General Manager, after her parents stepped back this year with an unhurried handover no manual could capture. She had, she says, “dreamed about taking over since I was a little girl”: not to remake Villa Maroc, but to build gently on what was already here. If anything, she wanted to give the place’s long history its due: there was, she felt, “such a big story to tell”.

In the end, it is the slowness that stays with you. Mint tea that arrives unprompted; the afternoon light pooling in the worn reds of a Berber rug; the call to prayer rising over the medina as evening settles. Villa Maroc has never chased the times, only grown more surely into itself. That, long after the blue door has closed behind you, is what you carry home.

Villa Maroc

Find out more about Villa Maroc here and Domaine Villa Maroc here.

words. Olivia Cichero

edit. Huma Humayun
images. Courtesy of Villa Maroc

Serenissima.
Away from the crowds,
Hotel Cipriani offers
the luxury of privacy.
belmond.com

What do a bartender, the entrepreneur behind Sea Containers, a famous architect and George Clooney have in common? The answer is Hotel Cipriani in Venice, the star-studded venue that has been synonymous with la dolce vita for almost 70 years. To understand its story, however, we must travel further back than that…

Back in 1927, a Bostonian by the name of Harry Pickering walked into the bar of the Hotel Europa-Britannia in Venice, which he often frequented. Unfortunately, he had run out of funds, but a young – and rather generous – bartender lent him 1,000 lire to purchase a ticket home. It was not until 1931 that Pickering returned, but when he did, he paid back his debt fourfold. The bartender, born in 1900 in Verona, was called Giuseppe Cipriani. He used the cash to open his own bar, which he named after his American benefactor.

See the full feature now only in Schön! alive.

The place to be.
The hotel’s pool – the largest in Venice –
is the symbol of the city’s dolce vita

A legacy project.
Peter Marino in the newly designed reception area

text

Room with a view.
Hotel Cipriani’s site boasts 270-degree vistas of the water.
The Dogaressa Signature Suite, for example,
affords a beautiful view of St Mark’s bay.

Get your print copy of Schön! alive at our Schön! store and at Amazon.
Download your eBook.

words. Huma Humayun
images. Courtesy of Belmond

Natasha Poly, Daiane Sodré, Candice Swanepoel, Amelia Gray and Ming Xi by Steven Meisel.

There was a time when the gym bag was something you tried to hide before heading anywhere else; ALO would now like us to consider the possibility that it might be the best-looking thing we carry all day. For Autumn/Winter 2026, the Los Angeles wellness label returns with the second chapter of its handbag collection, bringing new silhouettes, Italian-made leather, a clever new take on mesh and, for the first time, a full range of small leather goods.

Following the previous collaborations with Bella Hadid and Kylie Jenner, the latest collection is taken over by fashion photographer Steven Meisel, who returns with a high-energy campaign featuring supermodels Amelia Gray, Candice Swanepoel and Daiane Sodré alongside newcomers Ming Xi and Natasha Poly.

“Building on the iconic visual language of our first bag campaign, we wanted to evolve the story through new faces, unexpected propping, and a greater sense of movement,” says Summer Nacewicz, ALO’s Executive Vice President of Marketing & Creative. “Steven brought an energy to the imagery that feels both sexy and inherently sporty – capturing the confidence, magnetism, and momentum that define the women who carry these bags.”

Natasha Poly and Ming Xi by Steven Meisel.

At the centre of the collection is the new Unwind Cinch, a softly structured silhouette arriving in medium and mini sizes, with the proportions designed to accommodate the realities of daily life without looking remotely like standard gym equipment. The bag comes in black, espresso and warm gravel, with each paired with one of ALO’s Intention Crystals: Smoky Quartz, associated with grounding and protection, or Yellow Tiger’s Eye, which the brand links to confidence, courage and personal strength.

Leather Mesh brings another twist to the collection, taking one of ALO’s most recognisable sporty materials and translating it into Italian leather. The laser-cut pattern creates an airy, perforated surface before each piece is finished by hand in Florence, and the fabrication appears across the Mini Unwind Bag, Shoulder Voyage and Tranquility Tote. “We were inspired by one of the most prominent fabrications in our line, mesh; and wanted to interpret it in leather to create something entirely new,” says Abby Gordon, ALO’s Chief Design & Merchandising Officer.

The Shoulder Voyage gives ALO’s familiar Voyage silhouette a more compact shape suited to everyday wear, while the Leather Mesh Tranquility Tote takes the same perforated treatment into a larger carryall. Elsewhere, the collection continues with more traditional leather versions, all made in Florence from responsibly sourced Italian leather and finished with hand-painted edges and custom-forged hardware.

Amelia Gray and Candice Swanepoel by Steven Meisel.

For the first time, ALO is also moving beyond bags with a small leather goods collection comprising a card holder, zip card holder, zip around wallet, passport cover and small crescent pouch. The pieces are made using the same Italian leather and construction as the handbags.

The ALO Autumn/Winter 2026 Accessories Collection is now available to preorder at ALO Sanctuaries worldwide and online. Purchases will start from 16 September. Discover more here.

photography. courtesy of Steven Meisel for ALO
words. Gennaro Costanzo