Dear Viviane, I didn’t know you, but I imagine you were beautiful, strong and smart. Sadly you passed away before your time, cancer stole you from this world.
While the world is a more silent place without your laugh, your memory stays with us. You found immortality through fashion, in Jacqueline Loekito’s collection Viviane’s Last Kiss that is a celebration of your life. And what a collection it is: Full of colours, bold shaped and the unambiguous message “Fuck Cancer”.
Here I am, Sara, standing in a (more or less) enchanted garden in your city Basel, wearing the wedding dress from your homage collection. My face is hidden behind a pink veil, so I am halfway Sara, halfway Viviane – like a ghost between the worlds. I’m borrowing you my skin for a moment, turn into a symbol of you for a few minutes captured by the camera to remember the people who loved about you. I step into your shoes and walk a path your feet might have touched when you visited your friend Jacqueline. Dear Viviane, what we have in common is the love for pink, a dear common friend called Jacqueline and the kiss of a pink veil.
Thank you, Viviane, for letting me be the bride for an afternoon.
Fashion designer Bill Blass said “Whenever in doubt, wear red.”, can he be right?
Did you ever notice that in movies there is often a woman in a red dress that plays a small, but not insignificant role? She is usually the sensual, beautiful vamp, that makes heads turn when she enters the room.
Just think of the scene in “The Matrix” when they enter the agent training program and there is this woman in red in the crowd, catching the eyes of the subject and smiling flirtatiously. Or Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit in her sparkling sequin dress, the probably most well-known animated sex symbol ever.
There is absolutely no way Jessica Rabbit could appear in a blue dress and still be the same! So what is it about a red dress that no green or yellow can do? Fashion designer Bill Blass said “Whenever in doubt, wear red.”, can he be right?
I read there is a phenomenon called the “Red dress effect” which says that people wearing red clothing are perceived as more desirable and attractive. I wanted to know more and put on a red dress myself, and what I experienced was surprising indeed: My outfit seemed to be an attention catcher, people noticed my dress by far more than most other looks and in a positive way.
To not be too blatant, I toned my outfit down with a turtleneck and an oversized coat. One doesn’t want to lose her reputation as a man repeller 😉 But I think the red dress might have won and the colour of fire, love, and passion does its magic. Yes, we do need more red dresses in our wardrobe!
My Outfit Skirt: Devoi, Jumper: Asos, Coat: Vivetta, Kneesocks: Becksöndergaard, Shoes: Ego, Bag: Mama Tierra, Sunglasses: Asos, Hat: Lack of Color, Belt: Vintage, Flamingo Ring: Animazul, Rose Quartz Ring: Tenebris
Pictures: Marco Borromeo. This post contains sponsored products.
Let’s just close our eyes and dream of places far, so far away In a bamboo garden, we mingle with the pretty Chinese girls Look how their delicate fans move through the damp summer air And their silken kimonos move with the slightest hint of wind
Let’s just close our eyes and far away is suddenly right here We have all the exotic wonders of the world at our feet Fans are dangling on my ears while my chopsticks clap The pink kimono is revealing the secrets of our Chinese dream
My Outfit Earrings: Tukadu, Sunnies: Vintage, Dress: Mukzin
Round and round goes the colour wheel, with no beginning and no end. The most delighting of attractions at a funfair with its blinking lights and its light-up candy floss. To me: the colour wheel is a kind-of family get-together of colours where nobody is missing, and no member goes forgotten. The harmony of green joins with the calmness of blue, the optimism of orange mingles with the passion of red, as does the universal flow of purple when the humour of yellow shows up. What an exciting cocktail of united moods, you could call it the Long Island Ice Tea of colours!
I read that the total number of colours the human eye can perceive is about 10 million. So why, I ask myself, why does the majority of people stick to a very minimal palette when there is a vast variety without any legitimate need of restriction?
In the language of the Inuit, there exist 50 words for snow, imagine if we had a name for every shade of colour: How rich our language would be! Poets would be busy their whole lives describing every single nuance without ever reaching an end. Goethe‘s Colour Theory – which is 102 pages in length– must be replaced with ten heavy books to cope with the variety. And last but not least, dating would not get easier: Girls wouldn’t just expect red roses, but their favourite shade of red – the shade of red number 245. How many dates would end in a tragedy? If we are honest: It doesn’t even work with flowers on dates nowadays…
Ok, I admit: Maybe life is easier without a name for every shade of colour, but wearing all of them is undoubtedly a lot of fun!
This one is dedicated to all the strong women out there. To the women who made history because they went their way without being stopped, not listening when people said they should behave, shut their mouths, busy themselves with being pretty and live a conventional life.
A few of them turned into icons and those are the ones who inspire thousands of women, including me, day after day to keep their back straight when they feel weak and vulnerable. I want to name three of them in this post:
Hatshepsut
who ruled Egypt as the second female pharaoh. She is considered the first great woman in history and one of the most successful rulers of Ancient Egypt. Hatshepsut made herself immortal with a breathtaking temple, showing her power.
Frida Kahlo
the surreal Mexican painter refused being stopped by livelong chronic pain, several miscarriages, and fatigue after a horrible bus accident that changed her life. She put all her soul and heart into her surreal and very personal art and had herself carried to her own exhibition with her bed when her legs didn’t carry her.
Umm Kulthum
the Arabic singer who dressed as a boy at the age of 12 to sing on a stage. She became the most famous Arab voice of the 20th century and no other Arabic singer ever reached the glory of this diva. When she was buried in 1974, more than four million people attended her funeral in Cairo and until now, her songs are loved by a lot of people.
There are many more female icons I l admire and I intend to tell you about more these very soon. But let me tell you one more thing: Besides the famous women and not less important are the amazing women I can call friends and family. Yes I mean you out there, you don’t build temples or have millions of fans, but you master the difficult task called life day after day. You are independent and even if you don’t have an easy time you are kind and have always an open ear and a shoulder to lean on for your girls. We laugh together and sometimes we cry together, then lift our chin and face what we have to face without fear in our eyes.
You are heroines in my eyes and I adore you and your stories! Let’s continue to empower each other, share support and watch each other grow! I couldn’t be more grateful for having you in my life what makes you better than Hatshepsut, Frida, and Umm!
Since I am wearing a skirt so short and tight I wouldn’t have chosen it last year; I think it’s the right moment to talk about self-confidence and my relationship with my body! I am telling you those things because I hope some of you might find comfort or inspiration for more self-love in this article.
Let me go back to the times when I was a teenager till my early twenties: At this time I used to feel very disconnected from my body and didn’t consider it as an inseparable part of me, but more as a vessel I haven’t chosen but was given without having a choice.
Sometimes I saw it even as a cage that kept me from being who I’d like to be and doing what I wanted to do with its restrictions. When I listen to the song “My body is a Cage” by Peter Gabriel I can still feel a hint of my emotions from back then. Living like this is not easy, I am sure everybody who experienced the same will agree.
Only in my mid-twenties, something changed: I came to recognize that there is nothing wrong with my body. I told myself even if it might not be the best body in the world, that’s fine since I can work on it and we can be a good team.
I never had a particularly unhealthy lifestyle – I’ve been a Vegetarian since I was fourteen, never smoked and didn’t drink excessively – but now I started to look even better after me. I began to eat more consciously, started to do sports and came to recognize and accept the stop signals my body sent me when I was using up my energy and resources without taking care of myself. I live plant-based now and genuinely enjoy working on myself.
Today I believe that the way people react on you is to a significant part based on what you radiate: If it’s excitement and positive energy, chances are good you get treated with those emotions too. From my own experience, I can say, that being kind to yourself and working on your positive energy is a powerful weapon that makes you happier and stronger.
Get 25% on all tops till next Sunday at Cléo Ferin Mercury with the code SARAISINLOVEWITH.
So please girls: See the good in you and work on yourself instead of spending your time being unhappy!
It’s kind of funny: Most girls I know wear trousers all the time and rarely go for a skirt or dress while I am the complete opposite. Last year we did a group picture with about 150 people and while looking at it I realized I was the only one wearing a skirt. Me and the trousers, it’s a very short story with only small numbers: In six years of blogging I only shot four looks with trousers, two of them sports outfits with leggings (no chance to wear skirts), one of them a hotpants look (which technically doesn’t really count as a trouser), one with palazzo pants most people mistook for a maxi skirt and the last one was a look with a jeans hiding under a kimono.
So let’s be honest and face it: I never did a genuine trousers look before and even if my wardrobe is massive I only got two or three pairs of trousers (besides my gym leggings) which are all stored on the bottom and get rarely touched. This makes today’s look quite a premiere, doesn’t it?
Finally, I found a pair of trousers I like and it hit me completely by surprise at nearly eleven o’clock in the night at the Fashionhotel shortly before the shops were about to close. I tried them on and was absolutely happy, felt pretty and my rather short legs looked twice as long wearing them.
Probably it has to do with my better body shape thanks to the sports program I started last year as well, that I finally feel well and confident enough to wear trousers. I’ll stick to loving skirts, but it’s great if you find out you can wear more things than you thought and your body is probably better than you actually thought. Dear gym, I’ll continue to visit you!
As my trousers would say:
Look pretty, play dirty! (Ok maybe I will not play dirty, but whatever ;-))
Let’s talk about something I never did so far: The difficulties of meeting other bloggers. As an introvert person (some people might be surprised to hear, but that’s just because I work very hard on being outgoing) meeting new people is a little challenge for me every time. It’s not that I don’t enjoy company or don’t like people. But as an ex-mobbing victim, I never entirely lost the fear of people disliking me and maybe even reacting nastily. It’s nowhere as bad as it used to be, thanks to many positive encounters.
Here comes the but: Meeting other bloggers is sometimes a tough test for my confidence. While there are a lot of lovely, friendly blogger girls with hearts full of girl power, I also experienced discouraging reactions.
I met bloggers who immediately checked out my Instagram account after saying hello and lost interest in any conversation when their number of followers was higher than mine. There are some bloggers I regularly see who don’t ever greet, not even if I take the first step. Blogging seems not just a world of pretty pictures, but as well a world of competition. Isn’t it sad? Isn’t there space for more than one blogger and wouldn’t we all benefit from being supportive and kind?
I refuse to join the ranks of competition, and I work hard on not losing faith in myself after every negative encounter. If we meet at an event in the future, please say hello and let’s have a good time together! I don’t care how much followers you have, but I am interested what kind of a person you are and would like to know where your creativity lies and what drives you. Let’s have a glass of sparkling wine together and turn a blogger business event into an evening with friends. After all, we share a big, big passion and I think there must be a lot we could talk about. Thank you and cheers.
My Outfit:
Jumper: Essential Antwerp, Skirt: Ana Ljubinkovic, Bag: Maison Martin Margiela x H&M,
Shoes: Ego, Turban: Jazzafine, Bangle: Bought in Amsterdam, Sunglasses: Maude Studio, Earrings: Capn Mueller, Eye Ring: Swarovski, Green Ring: Miaki
Bloggers from Paris, London and New York have one significant undeniable advantage: They live in cities with a fashion week and therefore are at the pulse of our most beloved industry. Fashion week, the time of the year when all eyes turn the same way and whoever has a say in fashion has its picture taken walking in extravagant looks through puddles showing an “I don’t care” attitude. This fashion week it’s Alexander Wang’s last show in New York, Bottega Veneta leaves Milan and goes big apple, JW Anderson goes co-ed, and I am sure we will all be talking about Balenciaga. So much buzz!
It seems like everybody is excited, on their feet and having their heart beating with the pumping sounds of the shows. Everybody? No, almost everybody but one: Sara is at home in good old Zurich, watching shows with untidy hair in bed on her computer and doing some compensation shopping on Farfetch. Great! Just like every year I get invitations to shows in Berlin, London and New York (ok never the big ones, but rather the quirky ones that I love most anyway) but let’s face it: I can’t just take off from my busy work life as a design director and spend a fortune on flights to get from a 20 minute show to NY to the next 20 minute show in London. After all, Sara is a reasonable girl, and I admit: Taking the liberty not to brush the hair on a Sunday is priceless too.
Supermarket and local Lebanese you can be happy: Otherwise you would never see me wearing my crazy stuff visiting you. I didn’t make it to New York, but hey:
I can make it everywhere 😉
You do not see double: I am two Lolita (or almost three)! No, they are not standing next to each other holding hands and wearing both the same like the twins in Shining. Both are one: I am twice (or even close to three times) the age of sweet teenage Lolita from Vladimir Nabokov’s book, but still, in love with heart-shaped glasses!
Just like the novel about the middle-aged professor and his obsession with a young girl is a classic, me wearing heart-shaped glasses is. I had my first pair when I was probably four or five. My mother might have bought them in a souvenir shop during our family holidays, I can’t remember for sure. What I do remember is how proud I was and how I liked to wear them.
Nowadays my latest pair has a Saint Laurent tag on them, and I couldn’t but fall for their retro-cat-eye-chic. I was on the hunt for them for a long while and so lucky when they were finally mine. There are so many fakes popping up everywhere, but I wanted the Saint Laurents, the real thing. I think they are a wonderful pair with this luxurious red cashmere coat from Swiss label M.Luna and the cute Hello Kitty shoes. A playful cute look, but as well with a grown-up air of luxury and good craftsmanship.
Next season, heart-shaped glasses might be so out of fashion, but I’ll stick to them. They are an essential part of my style and I’ll never grow too old to wear them.
The number of Lolitas inside of me might keep growing, but that’s ok!
