It's a coat story (Part 2)

Cinnamon tea with honey, warm blankets and re-runs of Buffy topped with fuzzy pajamas in bed all day... and in the middle of the week.
Sounds like heaven but you're more likely to have flu if you're currently living it. Luckily (or unlucky haha) for me, it's past now so I've jumped out of my bed and rushed into another shoot for the blog. You won't mind my pale skin though, right? It's quite hard to keep color in your cheeks when you're horizontal for a few days...
So like I promised, here's part two of the coat story. It's getting colder and the layers are thickening. Plus the humid air, things got less slouchy and more knitted.

Also, a lot of people have been asking me about my blush, the one used in the last photo set. I've been using it a lot lately, it's called Brown Milly by Dior. It's probably so noticeable because it's actually a dark plum tone, and it stands out on paler skin. Also it stays long so you don't have to put more every two hours. Would recommend to everyone who wants a change from the typical rosy blush :)

I'm wearing Maison Scotch woolen coat, Pimkie leather pants, Zara knit sweater and hat, leather boots are from Lisbon (forgot the brand/store)






Collab

Last week my friend I.M. arranged a collab with NafNaf. It's a cute french brand, and I got to pick out my own styles. I haven't been to their store for a really long time, I remember going there when I was younger, cause of their soft, cute-girly style.
It was for their local campaign and it was fun picking out things and combining all together. They have some really nice pieces- like the pink coat and blue beanie you'll see below. Since I'm sick in bed writing this, there won't be much text, so here are the pics, and will write soon when I get better :)







It's a coat story (Part 1)

Once upon there was a lonely beige coat hanging in a distant MaxMara store... Until one day Kim Kardashian showed up and bought it, and from that day on, the world had gone crazy for that beige coat.
Unless you live in a some distant cave with no WiFi or Internet access, you've probably seen variations of the slouchy, camel, loose coat- the BEST thing to trend this season.
It was a rough battle at the stores, but I finally succeeded and bought myself the dopiest coat (I'm actually doing this little dance of victory while sitting right now).
Okay, yes, call me dumb but I really get passionate when it comes to certain things. It's like with boys and soccer, except here it's me and clothes.
Anyway, after hours and miles walked down through endless stores and shenanigans, it was like heavens opened and a beam of light appeared that led me to Scotch and Soda. There, waiting only for me, was a perfect camel wool piece.
I have a slight feeling that if this was an essay topic I'd get A++, but the world's unfair and I'll never get the chance to show my true passion in writing, unless I do it here.

Anyway, I was doing some shots with a friend for a store (will write about that later), and we took some photos of my combo. Now, the bad luck with me is that all of these 'combo' shoots usually happen unplanned and I'm almost always unhappy with what I wore. It's like everything was better yesterday, from hair, shoes, clothes... But I've decided to do a continuous post with the same piece in different variations. Every once in a while I buy something and wear the hell out of it in a million ways, so I'll concentrate on endless possibilities you can do with one item.

I'll start with, as you can guess, a plain, clean, camel coat.
This is a school outfit, let's just get that straight. It's comfy, warm and has layers so you can go with it from 6 am to 6 pm if you're in a rush and can't change (like I am most of the days...).


I'm wearing Maison Scotch coat, Mango top, Zara grey shirt, bag ans shoes, A&F jeans, Pandora bracelet, Michael Kors watch and Dior sunnies.





Samsara - a visual experience

It's really rare nowadays, to experience something that'll make you stop and think 'wow...damn'.
During endless searches on the TV on Sunday nights, I've stumbled on a 'documentary' on HBO. I put the documentary in prime because it's not a real documentary.
Samsara is an awarded movie- a collection of extremely high quality filmed sequences of varied worlds, sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders. It's non-narrative and followed by composed music.



For the first 10 minutes I was really questioning it and thought I'd be bored- scenes of lava eruptions and airviews of ancient temples-



But then it got interesting and you get to realise what's it's all about after some time. I'll start with the meaning of the word samsara.
In ancient Hinduism and Buddhism, it's the repeating cycle of birth, life and death (reincarnation) as well as one's actions and consequences in the past, present, and future. All we are and will be is an affect of our prior doings. It's more philosophy than religion, and it's kind of the point of the movie.
We are shown long exposures of nights in deserts, ruins of Petra compared to ruins of Katrina, sex blow-up toys in Japan made to look like young girls compared to actual girls and women who are made to look like dolls. Speaking of, there's an amazing, terrific take of a Geisha staring in the camera and a tear goes down her cheek.



It took five years for the filmmakers to finish it. They traveled through five continents, visited most sacred places like Mecca, Tibetan monastery and Jerusalem.
One of the coolest things was the making of Mandala- monks pour colored sand almost speck by speck to make large, unimaginable art





By tradition, once a Mandala is made, it's a tribute to Buddha. It's not for us humans, so monks scrape it of, mix the sand together (as a symbol of gathering the art and something that was once beautiful) and dedicating that sand to Buddha. Trippy, right?



And we get to see the process of enormous producing of noodles (completely made by people), how chicken and cows are grown, gathered, cleaned, killed, packed and shipped to large malls in different countries, later to be eaten by overweight people who's only escape from obesity is surgeon, due to the lack of ability to stop eating.
And you get all of that by just looking at images and scenes, and no commentary or narration.

For me, most amazing scenes were the ones that weren't staged. Nothing was staged, but these massive scenes of army parades, prison dances, karate practice or sulphur mining are breathtaking. You don't get to see those things if you live in a western, modern world.






My brother was really disturbed by the sequence dedicated to weapons. After being shown how guns are made, we see a village in Africa with the most tribal people you could imagine- living in barracks with no water or normal clothing, painted in tribal colors, but every man has a new gun. Makes you think about people priorities and how weapons connect even the most distant people and culture to the trend of killing and the need to be dominant in their surrounding. Plus we see a 'typical' american family with a collection of weapons a small army could use and their daughter with a pink gun. Appropriate, right?



Watch it yourself and decide what you want it to mean to you. It doesn't have a true meaning, it's supposed to make you reflect and the size of this world and how we are specks in life's movement. Seeing all the varieties of different cultures and ways of life makes you feel small in this world. There is so, so much more in this movie. Every take is amazing and award-worthy. Filmmakers produced special cameras to be able to record in such quality, so take that in mind if you'll watch it, and look at the details and colors.
I think it's something really special, a rare thing to leave you speechless.









Will write soon, xx

Poetry and personal thoughts

Rainy mood equals a day in bed and slow day of reminiscence. Being in that mood, I found a great young poet on Tumblr. I was never really keen on poetry until I met Erin Lierl, a travelling poet for hire, who wrote me a poem upon hearing a story I'd told her about some of my experiences with people. Given that it was also midnight and in the middle of Lisbon, it's an memory. I have that poem framed on my wall- it's really personal so I won't be posting it. That got me interested in poetry and literature a little more, so I started appreciating it more and more.
The girl I found today, Ming di Liu, is a New York twenty-something student writing one poem a day, and it's really beautiful--

"I don’t eat desserts anymore," I say
“And I don’t skip class.
I don’t get mad at the world
But I still think it’s sometimes unfair.”

It’s only been a little over six months
But things have changed.
You are still you
But I am not the girl you met in March.

"I’m still busy with work," you say
“And I’m still traveling.”
I understand; it was never me.
It was always you.




I think it's sad how we've spent years and years learning about great poets, Petrarca, Raleigh, Blake..., and about great loves and beautiful women from hundreds of years ago, and how in a few years people will have nothing to learn about this time that's right now. There are no famous poets and no famous affairs that would have epic poems written about them.
Top achievement is reading the meaning of Beyonce's and A$AP's verses on Rap Genius and serious poetry is found nerdy and dumb. It's not that I don't like Beyonce or A$AP, it's just that I think that people have lost the interest in making art with words and at the same time not making a top-chart pop piece. 
I've recently found a collection of poems, all signed by anonymous people and only with initials- it ranges from happy to heartbroken themes. It's really, really beautiful and I love that there's still some people out there that keep poetry alive. I mean, have you ever read a text so perfectly composed it sent chills all over you and brought a memory back you thought you've lost?

Cling
The things you cling to
When you feel like 
You’re drowning
Those are the things
That are worth
Your passion.
Those are the things,
That are worth 
Loving.

KH 

---

Empty
Such an oddity:
not to feel anything at all.
One cannot describe the emptiness
that makes you fall into yourself,
desperately trying to fill a gap
that is designed for hollowness.
Should my heart stop,
I wouldn’t know,
for it already it
half dead
and half invisible.

AJ

---

When a Homeless Person Loves You
I fell in love with someone who had nothing,
someone who taught me that
there’s so much more to empty places than just echoes,
who connected the stars above my head
with charcoal fingertips to create nets
so that when my world’s turned upside down
once more, there would be something to catch
me this time around.
He had cardboard smiles for strangers,
a shy one for me.
Everything he called his
could fit snugly inside my fist.
And when they flew away like butterflies,
he didn’t mind at all.
Because he knew there were echoes in empty places,
cardboard smiles from passing strangers
MJL


There are hundreds more like these- many are so so sweet. I think people should respect literature more, and value its importance. I kind of sound like an old, grey teacher rambling about reading, but it really is true. I don't get much time to read, but everytime I start or finish a book that's great, it's a great feeling. You never know when you'll read something that'll change your mindset or view on things- and that can be rarely done with movies as much as it's done with literature.
Will write soon, xx

All the colors of Fall

Every family has their passion or specific enthusiasm. More of a craze than a passion, my folks adore fall and all the kicks that go along with it. Drying hot peppers for our own chilly spice to freezing pumpkins for cakes and curries- there's a lot of work in the kitchen these days. Imagine the joy when we found out about the pumpkin fair in Ivanić Town- small town near Zagreb. As pittoresque as it gets, it was so so cute. Pumpkins and zucchinis literally everywhere you go, plus pies, cakes, breads, everything savory and sweet- homemade and mostly has pumpkin as the main ingredients.








Colors are crazy and it all seems like a big bunch- but actually there were hundreds of tables filled with their own food and garnish- decorated with pumpkins, of course.






Mushroom exhibit, pony riding, giant pumpkin carriages, biggest-smallest-weirdest pumpkin contest... Like an awesome Cinderella meets village fair experience. 



Really cute and really fun. A nice get away for the day and brings you back to some old vibes. Everyone has a grandma or some relatives on the countryside they spent some time as kids at- reminded me of those days.

Will write soon, xx

Details and personal thoughts

I've been really focused on details for some time now. It's something I need to be, cause of my prep for college and some other things I've been doing. 
It's interesting, how people rarely pay attention to small things that make a whole. Be it a bunch or a lack of details- they make impressions and feelings- make you determine (unconsciously) if you like something or not.

That plus my recent kind-of-romanticized view on things resulted in a collection of pictures mostly from Tumblr that emphasize on details and soft impressions.

(I wish I had descriptions to all photos- unfortunately just for few) 






Valentin Yudashkin made the most feminine collection for 2015.
Ethereal silhouettes with delicate and elegant floral pieces accompanied with juxtaposed metallic filigree looked strikingly luxurious. They reminded me of fairytales or walking vases. Just like princesses or nymphs- the collection is most dreamy and romantic that it could possibly be.





Imagine people focusing on the smallest parts of statues, buildings and clothes- how they worked on those small parts detailing them and making them a whole. It's magnificent how it was done in the past. People had the time and energy to go in for days and weeks working on something. Today everyone's escaping to machinery and looking for quick solutions. 




                 



Balmain SS 2015


Luger, Mauser and Colt heavily engraved in ivory and pearl


It's sad how today's habits made people forget to focus on smaller parts of bigger pictures. We pay little attention to objects and places surrounding us- appearance has started to loose its purpose (hence, the birth of minimalism). Buildings today have only the purpose of holding offices and housing people- not glorifying a certain style. Living the fast urban life makes it impossible to focus on details. Fashion has become cleaner. Architecture has became smooth, detail-less and plain. It's not bad- it's the new style, but it's also a product of the time we live in.



We celebrate art that's hundreds, thousands of years old- but we're unable to produce our own that be worth the same praise. 



It seems to me that fashion and haute couture has started detailing more and more, as everything else from architecture and art, has started declining in the same. Maybe it's because clothes are the something we concentrate on the most nowadays. What we put on ourselves, weather we like it or not, always says something about us and creates an image in other's eyes.



Alexander McQueen SS2015



Chanel SS2014

That's how haute couture was born- unwearable masterpieces that are almost museum-worthy. It's a beautiful evolution- how our understanding of beauty transcended to fashion.



Salvatore Ferragamo 2012


It's the way it should be- everything is evolving and so is art and we're moving ahead. There is beauty in minimalism and clean art and it reflects our state of mind. There's only hope that we'll all slow down some time soon and start paying attention more.

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