Ok, so I am not leaving for Korea yet. Just after packing up all of my things, waiting for my ride to the airport my phone rings. “I just happened to see your flight info right now”, my mom says. “Your plane is not until tomorrow, Paula!”
Great.
noona blog: SEOUL
life in a city that never sleeps
Fashion, style and trends
To me fashion is a big field, under which style and trend are included. Fashion as a concept, is everything from a very expressive form of art, to a big industry more or less controlled by economic factors, such as demand and supply.
Trends are what happen in between. The designers produce a piece of art which is then a subject to the market. Trends are, as far as I am concerned, nothing more than a result of what is best advertised. That is why I am not that interested in them. However, I am not saying I am not affected by trends to some extent, as this is what mostly is available around us.
Style, to me, is making the available trends personalized. It is not only about looking as unique as possible – because I think that is a TREND at the moment. People seem to just through on all kinds of crazy outfits to just stand out from the crowd. Of course like all forms of art, fashion and what you choose to see it as, is highly personal. By that I am trying to say that I am not trying to claim that I am right – it is just my opinion. But I think that a person with style, is someone who knows what type of shapes and lines look good on one’s own body, basically, and knows how to make the best choices of outfits from the available market to suit our own needs.
The reason why I am writing about this is that I was thinking about our crazy consumerism society yesterday while picking flowers. If you know what flowers you like, or clothes that fit you, you can have that as your base and just modify the overall appearance with stuff that you have available such as trends of accessories. This makes it so much more personal than the flowers or trendy outfits you can buy in a shop. And another thing – trends come over and over again. Save your old clothes so that you can take them out again, as these are clothes you already know looking good on you. And most probably you would save money by doing this which means that once you buy clothes, you might as well spend some more on good quality and materials that last longer.
This way fashion can be sustainable for the environment and you can have a personal style that you are comfortable with.
Noona going retro
Since fashion week ended I have been busy with doing all the things I tried to escape by going there in the first place; paper work, closet inventory, gardening, kitchen and bathroom cleaning, and selling a bunch of stuff.
While sorting out what clothes to bring when I go to Korea on Saturday I ended up digging through my old favorites in the cellar too. Looking through all of these beautiful dresses and realizing what a great base I have for reinventing my own style, which is something I am known for doing quite regularly, I got quite excited.
This year, also based on what I already have, I seem to be going in the Mad Med-style direction. The last two years or so, the time it’s been since my last 50’s based wardrobe, I have been everywhere between tom-boy and rock chic in terms of style and I am now craving for some elegant and polished fashion. It has also been a while since I was into the retro style, which I really like, and I think this fall is going to be all about the classics, which is a perfect excuse for taking out all of my Audrey and Marilyn dresses.
As I said earlier, the stuff I sold resulted in me being able to buy a wonderful camera. I bought it second hand from a guy off the internet, which is always a gamble. But he was very friendly and showed me how the camera worked and it seemed as if he knew what he was talking about. The objective is really good and has an incredible zoom. However, once I get to Seoul I think I might have to invest in a smaller objective for close up pictures, and which is not as inconvenient to bring to parties etc. But now finally, for future fashion shows I am all set!
Tags: fashion
Can love conquer all?
Yesterday I was reading through some old blog posts from February. I have never even thought of my blogging in the same way as writing a journal, but when I come to think of it, that is exactly what it is. I have written daily journals by hand all my life from the moment I was taught how to write. Its always great to digg up old diaries and follow your own development into adulthood. While reading you get transported in time to the feelings you were experiencing at the time you were writing, which is quite emotional. Some memories are as equally as embarrassing as others are nostalgic.
It is great to have this reference back in time to everything that you have gone through. And yesterday I was especially reading about the first month or so of dating my boyfriend. I can remember so well at this time, that I was dreaming about the day when I would truly know what type of personality he had; learn what he loves and hates; what kind of person we would be to one another. All the questions I now know the answers to. Reading the words you wrote while wondering these sort of things just makes all those old uncertain but exciting feelings come back up to the surface.
I miss him more than ever and I never thought that it would become this serious between us. He is such a genuine guy who just compliments me so well. Sometimes I try on purpose to dislike certain things about him and start quarrels just because I am scared of falling deeper in love with him, as we are really not an ideal couple in terms of future planning. But he just seems to answer all of my bad thoughts and doubts in a way that I just can’t escape from being touched by.
Is our future as impossible as I think? Can love conquer all?
Tags: love, relationships
I need a new camera
I have always thought that its not a great camera, but a great photographer, that takes good pictures. This past week, however, I have been proven to be very wrong. To take great pictures with a bad camera is really not a good feeling.
I have concluded that the next investment I make should be a new camera. There is no way I can do this blog as well without it. Therefore I am now in the process of selling stuff I don’t need to save up some money, so that I can buy one as soon as possible…
Tags: camera
Gabriella Loeb debute
My good friend and fantastic designer is wraping up this fashion week with showing of her first own collection – Gabriella Loeb SS 2011. I know that she has been working hard and I haven’t seen much of her all summer, as she has been busy putting it all together. I can’t wait to see the final result, and I know that many with me are excited to see what her creativity has brought us this time.
This is the beautiful invitation card. Look forward to some photos tomorrow!
a fashion STATEMENT
Since its fashion week after all, I might as well take the opportunity to make a statement. Fashion is a major industry, and just like any other that turnover a big part of an industrialized country’s economy. Since this sector involves so many people as well as raw materials and all other necessary resources for production it is very important to bring the question and awareness of sustainability into the industry.
Yesterday I met up with some friends at Berns after the shows, who were in company of some other people whom I had never met before. One of them was famous and talented actor and director Rafael Edholm, who at the moment was making a movie project together with Emma’s boyfriend. His lovely wife Daga, who I just hit it off with right at the start, was with him, as well as her mother. Daga’s mother Ingmari Lamy has been in the industry for decades and has an influencing position in the world of fashion which makes me really happy, as she shares my opinion on how important the idea of sustainable development and eco-friendly fashion is.
We came to discuss this matter by accident, when I mentioned my educational path and what I have been studying in Seoul last semester. We have the same foundational idea that the responsibility to create a sustainable fashion industry is more down to each person, rather than leaving it to the larger corporations. Our styles to go about this matter, however, differ a little. Her personal style, I think, is to use mainly environmental friendly materials and to avoid pesticides. Of course I too think this is very important to promote, but my style is more centered on re-using. I don’t want to say that I don’t like shopping, but still I find that my creativity, style and budget is less restricted if I use stuff I already have laying around. I think that the major problem in our society is that we consume too much. Even if I completely agree with Ingmari on the fact that using too much eco-friendly materials rather than using too much of something else is a whole lot better, I still stay firm on my belief that reduction of consumerism overall is the goal that we should be reaching for.
Stockholm Fashion Week 2010
Yesterday (Monday) Mercedes-Benz Stockholm FASHION WEEK SS/2011 started. Most shows are held at Bern’s, which is a beautiful 19th century building. I was only supposed to go to the fantastic Camilla Norrback’s show, but ended up going to Ida Sjöstedt’s show too, as I met up with my good friend Emma (emmamattson.blogspot.com) who was going there. Ida Sjösted uses fabrics and patterns I am not that comfortable with, such as silk hotpants in leopard pattern (which I tough didn’t fit the model’s body very well) together with a blouse with butterflies on – a sort of mix and match style where there is no harmony what-so-ever in the outfits. But that’s just my oppinion. Luckily all people doesn’t have the same style and I know many people like this designer. Camilla Norrback uses a more plain palett of colours, such as beige and black, but makes the clothes interesting with uniqe details and cuts. She has a romantic but modern style in eco-friendly materials.
After the two afternoon shows we moved on to see the Young Fashion Industry AWARDS. There were alot of people mingling and drinking wine. I always love watching new up-and-coming designers and their creative ideas. Some really good and some not so good. The designer who won the competition was Karin Malm who has studied fashion in London for four years. Her style was modern with grounded, urban colours and interesting details. I really enjoyed her show.
There are some pictures from yesterday on the “photoblog” page, but as my camera is not that great and I didn’t figure out until the end of the pictures come out much better if I zoom they are quite blurry and not so good. But Emma has a better camera, and I will update the page with better pictures when I get them from her.
Tonight I am going to the Cheap Monday show which I have been looking forward to very much and if I have time, I will go to Carin Wester’s show after that. I have a feeling this week will be awesome!
Tags: fashion, stockholm fashion week
IRL Korean DRAMA
It’s not always a “walk in the park” having a much younger boyfriend. Not that an age difference directly affects your love in anyway, but it can easily make your relationship highly inconvenient.
There are several reasons why I would be better off with another guy, and just as many reasons to why Yoongul would be better off with another girlfriend. The fact that I am a westerner is not a great thing in my boyfriends’ family’s mind, and that is a reason that can’t be overlooked at all in the long run. To me Y’s young, unspoiled, and optimistic and yet stable mind is a great complement to my own irrational thoughts and mood swings. Still, also due to communication difficulties, we cannot always talk about what’s on our minds. Because of his age, he has different thoughts about the future than me. Our final goals in life to be happy and have a loving family, are the same, the problem is just that this kind of future will be a reality much earlier for me than it will for him.
But what I want to talk about today, mainly, is the devastating fact that our relationship is time-limited. In the spring of 2011 he will go off to the army for two years, and there is no possibility to change that. I think many Korean couples live through this same heart wrecking reality, and I would have been very happy not having to personally experience this part of Korean culture.
”Even if you can’t wait, I know that many girls can’t, please say that you will even if you are lying.” What am I supposed to answer to that? ”I will wait for you.”
The hard fact however, is to once again realize that he is four years younger than me and that I will be 27 by the time he gets out. He will be 23 and just at the start of his modeling – I will probably be at the start of family planning. Even if it, against all odds and statistics, would last between us for two years apart, would our lifestyle differences in the end not kill our relationship anyway? We have already both secretly concluded that it would probably not last.
It would be so much easier for me if we broke up long before he left; but so much easier for him to go off to the army if he knew I would be waiting for him to return during a break. I often find myself trying to be irritated about things he does and think about how annoyingly naive he can be at times. But whatever I do I just can make myself love him any less. In the end, against all reason and sense; when you are in love, what else can you do than to be together until it fades away?
// 우리 Paula
Tags: korea, korean military, love
HONESTLY….
I haven’t written anything the last few days, and that is not because I am lacking subjects to write about. It is because I have been asked to write about something particular, which is something I am not used to doing. I don’t work that way. I have an arty mind, meaning that inspiration does not come when you need it; it comes randomly and especially not on a specific subject. I was asked to write a quite advertising statement on why foreigners should come and visit Seoul, which is really not that hard. I have just been unable to find a way to write it without sounding like a flyer on the amazing sights to see and by that feeling like a total sell-out.
I think most of my readers by now must know how much I love Seoul. It is an amazing city. Korean modern culture is so interestingly unique. It is as if a quite traditional mindset has been implanted to a modern way of living due to this very rapid and resent change in the country’s economy, or at least that is my way of seeing it. There is a fantastic contrast between the old and the new, without one being less interesting than the other. The reason to why Seoul is easy to adapt my own lifestyle to, is that it has so many modern features. You can basically find the kind of foods, things and amusements of any other developed country. Still, Seoul is in Asia with all these “strange” characteristics that you never see at home, which makes it impossible not to be surprised and have new experiences each and every single day.
I don’t really feel that there is a need for me to advertise Seoul. Isn’t the fact that this is a place which now lies very close to my heart and a place that I consider my second home a statement in itself? I am not in any way running away from home by being in Seoul – I love Sweden too – but I have just come to love this country to the extent that I could well see many years of my future here.
Bloging as a way to make money would be amazing, but I would never let my greed control the things I write. I want to stay true to my style and the purpose of this blog. If I wanted other people to tell me what subjects to write about, I would have chosen another media. A blog is a fantastic opportunity to publish your free mind to people all over the world, and that I what I intend on doing. Something that I discovered during these days of thinking about what aspects of Seoul I should advertise, I couldn’t get the thought of how boring a hobby gets when it is turned in to a job where people expect something from you, out of my mind. Hobbies are hobbies because it is something you do for fun. If not, it is a job.
