Her ancestors were gold diggers. No, not the kind of women the word is used for nowadays, but real gold diggers with washing pans made of iron and cracked dirty hands from the wet mud. Their mouths were filled with rotten teeth, and their smile was also foul.

Just one of their teeth was gold, blinking in the sunlight when they told rude jokes about the women in the village. Their minds were always full of the promises of a shining future that never became the present or the past.

In her sleep, the gold diggers’ daughter heard the sound of moving stones and felt the cold water on her skin. She dreamed of the fingers with dirty nails that touched Welcome Stranger with its body of 72 kilograms of gold. It was the biggest nugget of them all. Her life started as a tragedy since her family was capable of many things, but loving her was none of them. The only problem with her was that her eyes looked like Persian turquoise, while her kin had a lust for gold running through their veins.

Her ancestors hurt the ground with their picks and her delicate soul with their hard words and deeds. She started to wear a veil to spare them from the blue sparkle she was carrying and began to wear fool’s gold because her family treasures never touched her neck or hand. Their misunderstanding was that they believed gold was found when they wounded the earth’s skin, and she would be just like the earth: Revealing her brightest sparkles when injured.

They didn’t know that the earth cried in silence when they swung their picks, and she still cried into her pillow years after she escaped without a hint of gold dust on her cheeks but gaping wounds on her soul. She learned from her past that gold meant no luck and rough hands were not very likely to offer softness. She ended up working in a coffee shop on the highway, serving a little bit too dry cake and a tad too hot coffee to truck drivers wearing lumberjack jackets and calling her Miss Hollywood.

Maybe it was the reflection of the gold of her ancestor’s desires in her eyes. Perhaps it was the absence of it on her alabaster neck or the melancholy that was always around her like a cloud or her very personal perfume. Maybe it was just the desolation of the highway and the lonely life on the road. Something about her made people dream of sparkling things. 

It was so easy to be shining compared to highway reality. On the other hand, the tragedy was that no matter how brilliant or beautiful a woman ever was, she could never outshine the outlandish glam of pure, genuine, solid gold. But she was all left alive, the first in her line of family who was no gold digger and the last one breathing. She smiled, her pink lips moved, and the coffee pot was ready. “What can I bring you?”.

Dress & Hat & Handbag & Necklace & Gloves : Vintage,
Belt: Maya Seyferth, Shoes: Irregular Choice,
Photographer: Roland Urech
Location: Cindy’s Diner

Once upon a time, a girl was searching for her wonderland. She thought she had found the golden ticket until she realised how wrong that belief was: The sad truth was, she didn’t even know her own name. She was called Wilhelmina Wonka.

So she was just a clown; there was no golden ticket. She looked colourful, and unlike other people, her talent to make things joyful ran strong through her veins like an endless rainbow. She inspired people everywhere she went, filling their eyes and hearts with the brightest colour. People looked at her like she was a piece of joy, but they didn’t know that she had a dark void of something missing inside her.

She got up in the morning, filled with colours she collected in her dreams and spilt them onto the world, day after day. People laughed with joy when they saw her, they laughed about her as if she was a clown too, and they laughed with her. She never kept anything back for herself. From Monday to Sunday, she exploded like a colour bomb at a Holi festival daily. What was left inside her then was darkness, hurt, pain and profound loneliness coming to light with the absence of colour. This she kept for herself. It was nothing she wanted to be her legacy. But it caused her more pain than an aching toe or a sore leg. In the dark nights, she forgot everything she knew about colours and her dreams had to teach her like it was the first time she ever heard about her destiny.

She wished so much there was a Willy somewhere out there. He would be just like her, and they would recharge each other while giving their colours away. When the lights of the colour factory went out, she often cried in the happiest place on earth, but nobody ever saw it. Since she covered the traces with happiness in the morning, nobody sensed the odour of a broken heart in the air among the sweet jolly smell of amusement.

This dear reader is the colourful and happy and sad story of Wilhelmina Wonka. She is still out there, looking for somebody to shower her in colour. She has sweets for you all, for sure. And the moral of the story: You never know what’s behind the face of a Wonka, don’t judge it a first glance.

Jumper & Gloves: Anastasia Bull
Blazer: Mugler Vintage, Hat: Chanel Vintage
Skirt: From the Erotic Shop
Shoes: Bordello

Pictures: Tanja Gschwandl
Makeup: Lara Spiess
Styling: Greta Schoop & Sara Streule

“What is the most beautiful thing you can think of?”
he asked. “The moon” she said and closed her eyes.

Oh moon, you make me dream of immortality,
eternal beauty and endless love.
You are the muse of not just one poet and artist,
but you have a hoard of lovers,
worshipping your otherworldly beauty.
Your soft glow feels like magic and covers
a whole planet in a blue shimmer.

Oh moon, every night I try to reach you,
gentle touch your craters with my fingertips.
I wonder if the zillions of myths about you are true.
Do I imagine, or do you keep an eye on me?
Is it you smiling at me in sleepless nights?

Oh moon, you source of wisdom,
you must have seen all secrets hidden
in the darkest dark.
Will you whisper one into my ear,
if I show my naked heart to you on a full moon night?
You have all my attention,
every time you appear in the sky.

Jewellery: Natkina

I closed my eyes and became one with my surroundings. Having a gentle eureka moment with a herbal twist, I realised I was part of the planet, the field, and the ground beneath my feet. I was a flower in a zillion of flowers, with the only abnormality being that I had feet instead of roots. But that didn’t matter to anybody for one precious moment. The soil embraced my toes and told them they were fine just the way they were, and so was I.

While for the outside world, nothing that made it into history books about human achievements and wonders of the world happened, this moment was everything for me. My life, my book. Peace, love, happiness and balance in a nutshell, a perfect world manifesting itself behind two closed blue-green eyes and slightly open lips.

In his moment, when my heart was at peace and I belonged, I was the purest essence of myself. I had my place in the universe next to my loved one. We were king and queen of the endless fields for the sweetest seductive instant we were given. The humming of the bees was a jubilee. Purple took over the world and embraced my pinkness with zillions of arms.

Earth filled all my senses with pure natural delight: My nose was drunk with the beguiling lavender smell, and my heart overflowed with the essence of love. The pink stranger became known as the purple bride; the secret of belonging was to commit.

Every white inch of my skin was stung by bees and mosquitos. It didn’t matter because paradise is perfect, and love makes all imperfections disappear. I was bound to earth, tied to you, finally not running up a hill for the first time in an eternity. The butterfly didn’t feel like flying anymore. The woman it gave birth to was all yours. It was the true me. I came to stay. My toes dug roots into the soil.

All I had on my mind was to cherish our tenderness, dreaming of your lips and mine forever, believing purple clouds would never spill rain on our sacred land. Your laughter was my siren song. I was enchanted. Tears of joy ran down my face, unlike ever before. Life was wild. Life was free. I felt like I don’t need anything else but the love in my heart, the smell in my lungs and your laughter in my ears. Then I woke up, and the scent of lavender was still lingering but fading. I was almost shocked to discover I had toes again. I put one foot in front of another and started to walk.

Dress: Maya Seyferth, Hat: Frollein von Sofa

The pink bunny scurries through the forest in snake lines between the trees on Valentine’s Day. The nimble creature avoids to be caught. Not belonging to anybody, yet not helpless at all.

Once and for ever listen and understand: Harmless and helpless are two entirely different things. Having a mind at peace doesn’t mean to be depending, but the opposite. The missing need to be restrained, possessed or subservient is true strength. If you do understand this, you might touch a free soul once.

Bunnies don’t dream of diamond rings nor do they crave for other symbols of opression. So happy Valentine’s Day, free creature. You do love your own soul, you do know about the worth of your heart and don’t give it away for cheap flowers from the petrol station and kisses that smell of unbrushed teeth. Your goal of life is not to wash laundry for somebody who shouts at you or to close your eyes to betrayal and lies.

So if you want to catch a bunny, good luck.

Outfits/Styling: BAZ Vintage, Mask: Maskaras
Pictures: BAZ Photography

The lady of the flowers dances in your dreams. She dances in your head. Swirls around in your thoughts. Her laughter is a bright sound, like rolling glass marbles and joyful copper bells. In her realm, it’s summer forever, because she lingers in happiness.

She keeps the feelings, hopes and loves of last summer close to her chest. They are her shining treasure. “Do you wanna dance with me again?” she asks and her eyes fix on you, letting the snow melt even on the mountaintops far away.

Blue is the colour of the sky before it falls asleep and blue is the colour of her dress. What she said she says and will say. Future, past and present don’t exist in her dream, only those words and you taking her hand. Night after night. You can dream this dream a million times and always have a smile on your sleeping face when the dance starts again to sweet piano sounds.

If you join her laughter, summer will never end, beauty will sprawl like weed in your garden. She’ll sit down in the moonshine and weave curtains made of love, affection and tenderness to protect you from sun and rain. You will lay next to her on a bed of petals and she will tell you stories about the rabbit on the moon and the pharaohs of the Nile.

She is a fairy that one, only shows herself when she chooses to. If she reaches out it means you have her heart. Don’t crush it please, fairies are delicate creatures. So take her hand, just take her hand.

Dress: Maya Seyferth, Headpiece: Pearls & Swine, Shoes: Vintage
Photographer: Fabiana Nunes, Team: Greta Schoop

And I am a flower. I bloom and blossom again and again. You can rip out my leaves, stand on my petals, and tear my stems apart. Whatever you do, you can’t stop me from blooming again. It might take a while, but it will happen as inevitably as all those beautiful memories you chose to forget have happened.

We seemed the same kind at first because I was a fool who closed my eyes while kissing you. When I opened them and light fell onto my iris, I saw the truth behind a cunning deception: You are entirely different to my kind. What I saw as a similarity between us was only a mirror of myself you were holding towards my direction, pretending it was a part of you. 

I believe in peaceful growth. I believe in caring and want to fill the world with fluffy clouds. You prefer wrathful war and the survival of the fittest. You laugh at me and declare me weak and naive. We suddenly live worlds apart. Day and night, yin and yang but worse: Where they complete each other, between us, a bitter fight that was supposed to lead nowhere but to my defeat started. The lion roared, and the archer discovered the quiver was filled with daisies instead of deadly arrows. But daisies can slip between the lion’s teeth, so they survived. See where we are now:

My garden is full of life. In yours, the flowers run away screaming after discovering contaminated soil. I can’t allow your soil to swap onto my land. My responsibility is to keep my roses, geraniums, hydrangeas and orchids safe. Because I want my garden to be a rainbow place, I want my voice to be heard and my wishes to be planted.

Your mirror shattered when I told you that I was no longer blindfolded but saw the decay you were hiding behind my reflection. Now the shards of glass are overgrown by a bed of daisies. I’m standing in my garden alone, stubbornly preparing my most beautiful blossoms to catch the light of next autumn’s sun. It will be a feast of life, an orgy of beauty and an explosion of joy. Don’t come looking. The fence gate is closed and will stay closed for you. Instead, I’ll invite everybody who sees the beauty of daisies in their delicacy.

Pictures: Greta Schoop
Styling: Greta Schoop & Sara Streule
Editing: Sara Streule

Hat: Lorna Murray, Coat: From a friends closet
Top & Leggings: CeliaB
Shoes: Melissa, Handbag: Jolie Laide
Sunglasses: Swarovski

This post contains sponsored products.

Many kings and queens have walked the earth. Not all of them have worn a crown, and just a few have been carried in a palanquin so their feet wouldn’t touch the ground. Many felt like kings and queens, without royal blood rushing through their veins.

For example, when Jack stood on the rear of the Titanic and shouted into the air, “I’m the king of the world”, everybody felt the majestic energy of the moment. A few hours later, the sea would claim him. But that moment and the feeling will last forever.

Close your eyes and think: When did you feel like a king or a queen? What picture comes to your mind? Ah, I see you smiling. You physically grow by remembering a moment of rejoicing and triumph in your heart. You might have been the reason why your team won a match. It might have been a breakthrough in a project or the realisation that you could turn a situation or argument by changing your perspective.

This leads me to the following question: Have you ever experienced an epiphany? When did something arise in your mind suddenly and miraculously in the mids of an activity? It was a turning point. It could have changed your life, even in a small way. You don’t have to be a magi mentioned in the Bible or Stephan in James Joyce’s Ulysses to experience an epiphany. Maybe you didn’t scream Eureka, but there is a moment in your memory shining like a bright diamond.

A genuine crown is not what you place on your head but what you carry in your heart.

Outfits/Styling: BAZ Vintage
Pictures: BAZ Photography

Oh, Christmas, you merry monster of memories from lost childhoods with faded corners! I only dare to whisper in my most gentle voice, but I (almost) hate you. Even if it’s not a popular statement, that will bring me applause. Christmas, you laugh at me madly and cruelly whenever I dare to open my eyes. You show my hungry soul what it lacks and repeatedly turn the dagger in the wound. I feel tortured by your sparkling lights, cookies with rainbow-coloured sprinkles, tranquil tunes and glittering lametta. This joyfulness is hurting me if I am blunt, regardless of the potential of how much I would be able to love it from the bottom of my heart.

Christmas is easy to love for children with big eyes, for lovers carrying gifts with oversized bows, for families who don’t encounter each other using the f-word and for all the enthusiastic hallelujah singers from the church choir. But what if you don’t fit any of those boxes and don’t come with wrapping paper around your heart? 

The loved ones receive even more love on long December nights, but what about the sad, lonely and lost ones? The ones who don’t come in clusters, pairs or hordes but just as an edition of one? For them, your festivities are like slap after slap in the face, making them feel even more alone and making the lights at the tree the darkest thing on earth. So ho, ho, ho, here we are, the tree is up, I am my own gift, and that’s all. Merry Christmas to you all! Lost souls are always welcome under my tree.

Picture: Philipp Mueller
Model/Makeup/Hair/Set: Sara Streule
Dress: Pepper Row from Hanimanns

Her name was Cindy. She was sitting in a deserted diner in nowhere, asking herself what became of her glamourous dreams.

There was the memory of fresh lemon cake mixed up with coffee and grease lingering in the air—those were her only companions when she asked for fries in the middle of the night. Her eyes wandered to the sign saying the kitchen was open for 24 hours. The guy behind the counter looked at her with big eyes. “Now?” he asked, looking at the pale woman as if she had just told him that her spaceship was stuck in the parking lot. “Yes”, she said, her voice toned down to the dullness of lips not being used on a lonely drive for hours. Still, she looked immaculate, her hair on fleek and the net of her hat slightly covering one blue eye. 

Since fries and coffee were the only things available to warm her cold body, she was craving both as a substitute for a hug, love and belonging. The clattering sounds from the kitchen reminded her of the home she never had, this rootless thing on her own. She thought of lovers she never wanted, the family she ran away from and comfort she never knew. Her body, soul and mind felt tired. Oh, so tired.

But the road went on and on and carried her from place to place without kissing her good night. Melancholy was sitting in the backseat of her car, always asking for candy, never turning into a sweet girl with blond braids and a teddy bear. Cindy shivered until the fries arrived. 

She closed her eyes and let the warmth of the potato sticks enter her body. Ketchup, as red as blood, ran down her lips and onto her chin. Looking like a forsaken vampire, for an instant, she felt peace and forgot there were no flowers on the table put there by a loving husband waiting for her. No dinner parties to attend, no canapés to be made for the birthday parties of the neighbour’s kids. She could drink her Dr Pepper with a straw and inhale the sugar like nicotine; no need to be a good role model.

A girl called Sharon or Mandy might have left the road for a life far from glamorous, but at least. But she was Cindy. She was just alive.

Blouse: Duchessa Piacentina,
Skirt & Hat & Belt & Handbag: Vintage, Shoes: Manoush,
Photographer: Roland Urech
Location: Cindy’s Diner