Real is real, and fake is fake, you think? I tell you it isn’t: Fake gold is still shining golden and fake nails can also scratch. Fake moans make (if convincing) a similar sound to real ones. Even a fake smile is still a smile that might charm some fools.
But other things are just nothing when they are fake: Love, for example. Because if love is fake, it’s not even love at all. It’s just nothing but a sad, evil show that breaks precious hearts.
So my sisters follow my advice: It’s ok if your gold is everything but a precious metal. If you like, may your lashes be out of the question to be designed by nature. But there is one thing: Keep your feelings real and beware of falling for shiny fake emotions served by people with hearts made out of not even fake gold but ugly stone. Those people behave like bulls in the china shop and destroy all the delicate things by pretending realness where there is only a fake.
We deserve real, pure and honest! We don’t deserve our beautiful hearts to be broken, and we earn a love that is more than emptiness wrapped in shiny paper. Being real might not get you the most in life all the time, but it will grant you that you can always look into the mirror, hold the stare of your own eyes and admire how pretty the golden coat looks on you.
My outfit: All Clothes by Maya Seyferth, Sunglasses: Craig & Karl x Quay
Just like Charlie, I found the Golden Ticket. I am the lucky one, I made it. Here is this moment everybody is longing for, where everything is dipped into gold.
Every morning I open my eyes and ask myself “Could it be my lucky day, could it be today?” and the Golden Ticket is a YES. Not just a yes, but a YES in capital letters. It’s the kind of moment when all your fears and troubles suddenly don’t feel frightening anymore and all you are is a body full of bliss.
Can it last forever? Oh, darling, I’m afraid it can’t. But it will come back and you will have more of those moments. Don’t be so greedy! Remember how you set your goals? Remember that you asked for one time wearing a dress like a queen, remember when you asked just for one kiss by the man of your dreams? Can you still recall how you wanted to be covered in glitter just once?
So there we go: Dreams come true, and not just once, but several times. The one-time-only turns into please-don’t-let-it-be-the-last-time and the carousel moves on. Every morning arises the question “Could it be my lucky day? Could it be the Golden Ticket?”.
Just relax, if it isn’t. maybe it’s tomorrow or next week. Just keep on going, keep on having that sweet anticipation tingling in your veins and keep on wishing. There is not just one Golden Ticket!
Love can feel like salvation; love can feel like a curse. It all depends on luck, the level of your personal growth and if you’re in love with Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde.
Everything is here, but nothing is like it was supposed to be. I roll my eyes, frustration and melancholy dripping into my thoughts like a sticky syrup. It’s not the nice sweetness, but the almost unbearable one. Life could be so beautiful. Things could be so easy. Growth is what I aim for, yours, mine, ours.
All I want is love that feels like soft fur and weightless feathers. Love that goes deep beneath my skin and warms my heart. Love that feels light, warm and caring, without claws ripping my flesh apart. I want to feel safe, to show my good and bad sides without the fear of punishment, rejection and shame. In return, I will not judge, observe with love in my eyes and be honest and genuine.
I feel tired. I cried enough tears, healed wound after wound, and built heavy armour when confronted with violence, toxic behaviour, abuse and narcissism. Oh, you countless sleepless nights and tears I cried! You might say a lot of wasted energy. I don’t see it that way.
I believe there is a reason we are where we are, and challenges are chances for personal growth. Sometimes we need to fail several times until we can rise, as frustrating as it is. I discovered some abysses I wish I wouldn’t have seen, but I feel grateful for the impressions, knowing that I can master a lot more than I thought and even far more than people imagine.
If you are from the more aggressive kind, you could see me as weak. I might appear calm, adaptive and resilient, but don’t take it as a fault. It’s a strength to stay loving and peaceful and not give up dreaming. Inner peace is a force that is far more significant than screaming at people and hurting them intentionally. For me, true love excludes the desire to break the beloved one. Love wants to bathe the object of devotion in fluffy plush toys and make that person feel happy and cosy as often as possible. Love here is my door. It’s wide open for you.
Plush Minuki is designed by Taina and can be bought at Unuh, Coat: Vintage, Swimsuit: Calzedonia, Earrings: Cakes & Troubles
Pictures: Daniela Bologna Produced with the help of Greta Schoop
Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Sara’s Penny Dreadful. We expect calls from ghosts making eerie sounds, mirrors with reflections that move on their own and darkness creeping in like thick black ink.
Will still work today, what was enormously popular with the Victorian public? I guess yes, since I always dreamed of pirates, adventures and haunted houses. There is an almost magnetic fascination that draws me to dark gothic tales. I love the tension they create and the goosebumps on my skin they sometimes cause.
It’s linked to the curiosity to know what’s behind the curtain or hidden in the dark. What does the neighbour hide and is the barber next door maybe Sweeney Todd himself? While I beware of meat pies and poison I can’t keep my eyes of the pages. Does the good win or will evil prevail?
Did you ever notice that darkness makes colours pop even more? It doesn’t swallow my pinkness, but makes it stand out even more. The high collar of my dress feels like right from a shop in Victorian London’s dusty streets. A look like this needs a certain amount of drama and lavishness. Lips as red as blood, glasses as black as the darkest night and a generous amount of gold. Of course chunky chains too, maybe a ghost will be inspired to rattle.
Oh, Cinderella, why do you feel so blue? What makes you want to lie down in your tower, sleep and dream of a better world?
Once upon a time, a girl had a lot and missed a lot. She waited in her tower for her prince (or princess) to storm into the room, kiss her and make her feel alive. But the one who was meant to rescue her didn’t, and she cried a lot behind her heart-shaped glasses. She looked at the sky and asked the stars for guidance. They glittered so so pretty but stayed silent.
It was a hard way with a lot of sleepless nights, but eventually, she learned that her happiness couldn’t depend on a mysterious prince. All she needed for a rescue, she already had in herself. She was bold, and she was bright. She was alpha, beta or omega, whatever she imagined. The world didn’t know because she possessed a smooth power, not the roaring aggressive kind. But it was not burning less bright, don’t you be mistaken.
So she gave up the wait and discovered the world and its wonders. She still cried, but she learned to laugh more too.
Finding the person to spend your life with can be easy or almost impossible, and we can’t choose. Some of us meet the love of life at school and stay together forever. Others have to date a whole village until Amor shows sympathy, and some give up on love. It’s an adventure. So let me tell you a few things about adult love I’ve learned.
I was not lucky enough to make my school love last, and I always refused to date the whole village. Tinder and similar apps always seemed a nightmare since how can you feel the chemistry in a picture? Finding somebody in the real world seemed like a hopeless task: Where do you even start to look? Shall you hang around the supermarket for days, move into a museum or ask all your friends to introduce you to their friends and create something like a snowball system? On top, there is this widely spread belief that when you are determined to fall in love, the possibility that it happens is almost zero. Amor likes mischief, apparently: He plays hide and seek and strikes when your mind and eyes are elsewhere.
Therefore my strategy was to be creative, go out and keep to myself without looking for something. I felt like I was not particularly eager to settle for somebody who didn’t blow me away and turn my world upside down. And I am not that easy to impress, I tell you.
But the miracle happened, and somebody managed the almost impossible: Love! Oh, wait, with the clapping: Even in my newborn euphoria, I discovered that a happy end is not the first kiss but just the beginning of the story. Adult love level two begins.
As a teenager, it was so easy: Oh, I love his eyes, I want to hold his hand, ok, this is great. Do you remember? It’s nothing like that for adults. Everybody (including me) seems to have a massive list of requirements and no-gos in their head. The life structure has been settled for years, and a potential love has to cope with it. As teenagers, we just lived, and nobody knew about life anyway. The beginning of adult love is not the smooth process it was as a teenager. I must have forgotten that for a while, and maybe some of you too. There are a thousand things you have to cope with initially, and it’s far more complex than it used to be. Everybody brings their traumas, broken marriages, children from past lovers, habits that are rusty and packed schedules.
Sometimes there is a lot of frustration: I experienced moments with two people in a room who desperately tried to love each other and ended up in a bitter war with heavy weapons. Yes, me too, so guilty. The temptation to give up sneaks in. That ugly voice whispers in your head when the lights are out. Maybe this is not enough. Perhaps we are too different. Perhaps we can’t talk.
But another thing I learned: It’s worth not giving up, worth still believing in love and embracing the new world a new person brings into your life. Oh my, the surprise might be so sweet, and you might be baffled by how good it can feel to make it. Let’s try to be brave, patient, open-minded and spread love.
My outfit: Blouse: Coster Copenhagen via Custommade Modeagentur, Leggings: Vintage, Shoes: Alexander McQueen Vintage, Earrings: Tukadu, Swimsuit: Calzedonia, Handbag: Jolie Laide
The Minuki Plush is designed by Taina and can be bought at Unuh
Pictures: Daniela Bologna Produced with the help of Greta Schoop
First, there is a yellow sunset with a pink dream on the horizon. Then a black dot appears, just a tiny little spot. But oh my: It grows, and what was one becomes two, then several, then many. Darkness grabs my heart, flows through my veins. Greedily I suck on it because I know this poison so very well.
Sometimes I wonder how one does attract happiness when so much is rotten with a deceiving sugarcoat on top. Why does yellow not stay yellow? Why is pink often not pure? Dots, and dots, I have enough of them. I like my apples without wormholes and my heart without aching pain. But in reality, I don’t eat apples at all, and I don’t know my heart to be beating without lingering pain, always on the edge of being broken.
I drink the poison, this well-known friend, but I crave for healthy, for real. That is just love, for happiness that comes without a sea of tears for every smile. Not the life of a fighter, but the life of a happy, careless girl. Do you think that kind of life exists? Or maybe just for some people and probably not for you or me?
Don’t take me wrong: You might think I complain why all looks so pretty here. But you never know what’s happening behind the scenes as I don’t know what’s happening behind your scenes. All I know: I long for happiness, for the disappearance of dots, and I wish you the same and keep my fingers crossed for both of us. And for a world without black dots.
After a long early morning drive, the car approached the water, the slightly rose-tinted saline lake was straight ahead and the horizon was wide and illuminated. Something remarkable for one girl was about to happen.
And there it was: In the water. Standing on thin legs, like laughing at gravity. Flamingo, oh my favourite animal. My eyes went big and circled, discovering more of the birds. Real flamingos, wild and free. Seen by me for the very first time ever. For them it was a completely normal day, they were eating, flying and just hanging around. But for me, this tender moment was something I would carry in my heart as a precious thing.
Little things are sometimes the biggest things. Yes, I know there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, horrible things. I am not a politics or news portal, so I don’t write about them. This doesn’t mean my eyes are closed. If you are close to me, you might see a worried look on my face late at night, or sadness defeating my smile, but then I fight back for a piece of happiness and joyfulness.
I see this page as a tiny, tiny island. An island of beauty, fashion and inspiration, often very happy, sometimes full of melancholy. This is what I always did and I guess this is what you come here for. I hope I am your break from the tough news when I try to make you think about flamingos just for a second, It’s not much you might say. But it’s better than nothing and if everybody would offer something beautiful, the world would indeed be a more beautiful place.
So take care, spread colours and dream of flamingos, whenever you can!
Dress: Khamals, Belt: Moschino, Bag: Jolie Laide, Shoes: Pandemonia x Camper, Jacket: United Colors of Benetton Earrings: Tukadu, Sunglasses: Simone Rocha x HM, Tights: Fogal
Wear as much clutter as you like, but when it comes to communication, clarity is key! Or how do you expect to be understood?
Wear as much clutter as you like, but clarity is essential when it comes to communication! Or how do you expect to be understood?
From the observation point, misunderstandings, many fights, and troubles happen due to a lack of communication or communication that went wrong. Something that could have been a minor thing suddenly blows up and turns into a big issue if you don’t pay attention.
Communication is such a powerful tool. It can almost change everything. We don’t have to share one opinion, but if we share our reasons, stories, and thoughts, we can understand each other in almost every situation.
Communication creates understanding, compassion, knowledge. Those are far more important than sharing one opinion. It’s ok to agree on disagreeing and let opposite ideas coexist next to each other.
Of course, I am talking about clear communication, respectfully and positively, not about speaking your thoughts in a destructive and hurtful way. Be clear in your message, but choose your words in a way that builds trust and positivity and doesn’t make the listener feel small and wrong. If you share a conversation, it is supposed to be among equals. I wish we would all keep this in mind more when we communicate. More understanding, less trouble.
A girl who grew up next to a quarry went back there. But she was not the little shy thing with the blond braids who wanted to ice-skate on the frozen water between the stones anymore. She came back for a fashion show. Bold, brave, and with her head up.
The quarry next to my parents’ house always attracted me in its strangeness and eruptions and sound of blasting in progress was something I was used to since I was born. It’s is a dusty place that feels like a wound in the earth where life doesn’t exist anymore. A quarry is a sourcing place, a demonstration of human power to claim the stone in the ground for their ideas. Weird but fascinating.
We entered the lorry with a long rail full of fashion from global online store By Adushka, bringing life and colour. By Adushka offers luxurious and sustainable fashion, focusing on craftsmanship, consistency, and international inspiration. I like their selection because of their exciting mix of boho, vintage, and artisanal clothes. If conscious shopping is essential for you, this shop will speak your language.
We aimed to create inspiring looks showing how to wear spring items during colder days. I think we all know that feeling: Longing for warmer days, for being kissed by the sun, and exchanging thick wool scarfs with the new pieces we just added to our wardrobe. Layering is one of the best tricks to make almost every item fit for colder weather.
Fashion: By Adushka (shoes and sunglasses from my private collection)
