In the Namibian wilderness, among cheetahs and sea gems
Recalibrating our gaze on the essential. The power of light, the horizon carved between sky and bush, wild animals rescued from poaching and few human traces.
It is a constant, almost physical presence that imposes discipline: here nothing can be superfluous, because everything is laid bare. It is a country that works by subtraction, reduces to the essential and forces one to slow down. The lines are sharp, the horizons absolute. It is not an accommodating aesthetic, but an almost severe language that demands attention.
Where TREES MAKE STONE
We understand this as we move towards the first date. Travelling, here, means entering a world in which displacement is also part of the experience. Distances are never neutral: they are crossed slowly, often from above, and serve to recalibrate the gaze. As in the flight that takes us to the dune of Sossusvlei, in the Namib-Naukluft National Park, with its 50,000 square kilometres, one of the largest conservation areas in the world, an infinite theory of ochre to red shifting dunes, which break off to meet the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing is by chance: the word Namib means vast in the local language. From the Windhoek airport, the same one where we landed on arrival, we fly for about an hour over an expanse of velvety-looking red earth, barely etched by the white of the roads and runways and interrupted at times by piles of dark rocks, which we seem to be touching, so close they are to the aircraft's nacelle; rare bushes, even rarer trees. The absence of human traces hints at the country's population density, one of the lowest in the world: two million people scattered over an area of 825 thousand square kilometres, about three times the size of Italia. From up there, the desert seems motionless, but all it takes to land is for everything to become unstable, yielding, alive again. Like the sudden curving slopes that rise up to 300 metres in the immense ochre sand dunes of Sossusvlei, one of the most astonishing spectacles in the world, even for those who are used to deserts. After the flight, it takes an hour by jeep to get there, with the light cutting the landscape in half - the red of the earth, the blue of the sky - to begin the silent climb up the dune called 45, like the temperature of the air when we get there, tempered however by a dry wind that brings relief. At the top, the silence is unreal: a forest of black petrified trees emerges from an ancient dried-up salt marsh, its jagged bottom and cracks glistening in the sun. All around, an ocean of waves of red sand as far as the eye can see restores at least part of the size of the Namib Desert, the oldest in the world, with an estimated age of 55 88 million years. No one speaks: to this sight of red and blue lines of sky intersecting with the black of logs turned to stone, there is really nothing to add.
TERRA OF CREATIVE INSPIRATION
It is in this radical light that Namibia's link with the Parisian haute joaillerie maison Messika is grafted, which takes us on a journey of discovery to celebrate twenty years following the thread of another very pure light, that of diamonds. "Namibia has a very pure, minimalist aesthetic. It is nature to the nth power, primal force, inspiring,' sums up Valérie Messika, hostess together with her brothers Ilan and Ben. Founded in Paris in 2005 by Valérie, artistic director, with her father André Messika, historic diamond dealer, representing its technical and commercial memory, the maison is today one of the most recognisable names in contemporary jewellery. Over ninety boutiques worldwide, a head office in Paris, a perfectly organised family structure. And a clear identity: essential frames, protagonist stones, an idea of luxury that favours movement and precision over ornamentation, as in the now iconic Move collection. Of a natural elegance, cosmopolitan like the whole family and genuinely passionate about these landscapes, Valérie is also luminous, constantly on the move. "Namibia enters my collections not in a figurative form, but as an atmosphere of light, pure essence. I have collected colours, shades, animal forms, which I do not draw precisely, but evoke. I work by subtraction, as if I wanted to distil this land'. As we chat, the quiet luxury of the Zannier Omaanda Lodge is an oasis of calm. Linear architecture, raw materials, low volumes that seem to rise out of the earth and an obsessive attention to detail, which can be found in the raw materials, the punctual but friendly service and the spacious rooms with windows wide open to the bush, where light floods in and the vintage bathtub gives off My Africa style vibes. And it's easy to see animals passing by just a stone's throw from the glass.
