There is something irresistibly charming about a beauty product that feels as though it belongs in the palm of your hand. Rhode has built much of its appeal around this idea: beauty made simple, tactile and covetable, with products that slip effortlessly into the rhythms of everyday life. Its latest collaboration with Alexandra Leclerc takes that intimacy one step further, transforming a handful of tiny beauty essentials into something resembling a pocket-sized self-portrait.
Rhode <3 Alexandra Leclerc is a shimmery, playful collection featuring the brand’s tiniest Pocket Blush yet, accompanied by shades and accessories that feel distinctly personal to Alexandra. There is Gemini, a shimmering candy pink inspired by her star sign; Monaco, a warm terracotta shade that pays homage to the place she calls home; Monet, an apricot inspired by her love of the artist; and Sweet Apple, a shade with a sweeter story, referencing her favourite desserts. Rather than simply attaching Alexandra’s name to a selection of existing products, the collection takes little fragments of her life and turns them into colour.
That is precisely what makes a collaboration like this so compelling. The most successful celebrity partnerships are rarely about the celebrity alone. They are about creating a world around them, and giving consumers a way to step inside it. A shade becomes more evocative when it has a story; a tiny blush becomes more desirable when you can imagine it sitting inside the handbag of someone whose style and life you already find fascinating. In Alexandra’s case, the references are unusually easy to picture. Monaco, art, sunshine, sweetness, femininity and a touch of sparkle all feel completely at home within her aesthetic.
The collaboration also feels like a natural progression of Alexandra’s relationship with Rhode. She was already a fan of the brand before becoming a collaborator, and her relationship with its products has always felt aligned with the effortless, skin-focused beauty look she favours. That familiarity is important. In an era when celebrity collaborations can sometimes feel overly engineered, there is something far more convincing about a partnership that appears to have grown organically from an existing affinity.
Alexandra has become one of the most recognisable women in the Formula 1 paddock, but describing her simply as an F1 WAG doesn’t quite capture the reason she has become such a compelling figure in fashion and popular culture. The modern Formula 1 paddock exists at an unusual intersection of sport, luxury and celebrity, and the women surrounding its drivers have increasingly developed their own visual identities and audiences. Alexandra, however, has cultivated an appeal that extends beyond being photographed alongside Charles Leclerc. Her presence is soft rather than overly constructed, polished without feeling inaccessible, and glamorous without losing the little details that make her seem relatable.
That balance is part of her charm. There is an obvious glamour to her life: Monaco, international travel, fashion weeks, Grand Prix weekends and the heightened spectacle that surrounds Formula 1 but Alexandra’s public persona is often defined by the smaller things. Her love of art, her affection for her miniature dachshund Leo, her favourite sweet treats and her appreciation for beauty all offer glimpses into a personality that feels much more personal than the polished photographs might initially suggest. Vogue’s recent look inside her handbag, for instance, revealed exactly this combination of luxury and everyday intimacy, with the contents telling a story about the woman behind the perfectly styled image.
That is perhaps why she makes such a natural partner for Rhode. The brand has always understood the appeal of turning ordinary beauty rituals into objects of desire, and Alexandra has a similar ability to make the details of her life feel aspirational without appearing entirely out of reach. Her world is undoubtedly luxurious, but it is communicated through small, recognisable pleasures: a favourite blush, a beloved shade of pink, a sweet treat, a dog curled up nearby. The collaboration takes those details and makes them tangible.
There is also something particularly clever about the scale of the collection. Rhode’s Pocket Blush is already designed around the idea of beauty on the go, but making Alexandra’s version even smaller turns it almost into an accessory. The accompanying charm and carabiner play into the current appetite for beauty products that are as much part of an outfit or handbag as they are part of a makeup routine. It is makeup, but it is also a little object of personal style.
And that is where celebrity beauty collaborations have become so effective. We no longer simply want to know what celebrities wear; we want to know what they carry, what they put on their faces, what they keep in their handbags and what their everyday rituals look like. Social media has made intimacy a form of aspiration. A product becomes desirable not only because it is beautiful, but because it appears inside someone’s life.
Alexandra is particularly well positioned within this culture because so much of the fascination around her comes from the contrast between the extraordinary and the ordinary. She can exist within the highly polished world of Formula 1 while still presenting herself through small, almost domestic details. That contrast makes her feel like more than a passenger in someone else’s celebrity story. She has become part of the visual culture surrounding the sport in her own right.
Her aesthetic is also remarkably compatible with Rhode’s. Neither is particularly interested in beauty that feels overly complicated. There is a softness to Alexandra’s style, a preference for luminous skin, pretty colour and understated polish that mirrors Rhode’s own minimalist approach. The collection therefore feels less like two unrelated names coming together and more like two existing aesthetics finding their natural overlap.
Even the names make the collaboration feel intimate. Gemini is playful and distinctly feminine; Monaco feels sun-warmed and glamorous; Monet brings in Alexandra’s artistic side; Sweet Apple introduces something whimsical and personal. Together, they create a palette that feels like a collection of memories rather than a conventional shade range.
Perhaps that is the real appeal of Rhode <3 Alexandra Leclerc. It doesn’t ask us to believe that Alexandra has suddenly become someone else. Instead, it gives us a concentrated version of the person she has already shown us: the Monaco-based art lover, the Formula 1 fixture, the fashion girl, the dog owner, the beauty enthusiast, the woman who can move from a Grand Prix paddock to an art-filled afternoon and somehow make both look effortless.
In a beauty landscape increasingly driven by personality, that sense of specificity matters. The most interesting collaborations don’t simply sell a product; they sell a point of view. Alexandra’s collection gives Rhode a little more colour, a little more storytelling and a distinctly personal sense of place, while giving Alexandra a beauty object that feels like hers.
It is small enough to disappear into a handbag, but the world it represents is considerably bigger. Monaco, art, sweetness, shimmer, Formula 1 glamour and the quietly magnetic appeal of Alexandra Leclerc, all distilled into something tiny enough to carry with you.
