Hello my dear readership,

flannel meets summer goth, well behaved meets the free-spirit. Check out the early spring/summer trends and see how you can combine these two extremes.

Breaking the rules is not cool, being disrespectful is not cool, ending up with bad grades and a thousand people who will not have your back when you need it is most of all not cool. No, I am not a typical mom who tries to educate her kids in a modern way. As I recently said: I am one of yours, my school time is not far off. So in fact I am a person still considered young still learning, relearning but also having made my experiences. Also I have to conclude that a marriage, children, education and work-life have changed my mindset completely. Not that I had ever taken aim to be the so called “bad girl” (even if it may be another questions if that would have been possible with my parents) but also I never had interest in doing trash and be celebrated for that. I never had interest in being anything to anyone anyway. All I wanted was living my life as freely and peacefully as I could trying to fulfill my dreams as much as possible.

But in fact there have been moments when I considered myself really cool or when I was thinking “man, this person is so cool” and I started admiring them and taking aim to achieve this coolness which I admired while rolling my eyes about people who were the stereotype “cool”. The coolness I admired and recognized about myself were kindness, a down-to-earth-attitude, … about myself I recognized how cool it was to just be myself and having gained so much self-confidence with all the knowledge I received during my studies. Having a hero or heroine in everyday life was overly cool just like I felt cool about myself when I could help someone in need, bringing up a good, lively mood and continuous things like these. Also I consider it so cool to do what I love within surroundings I love. I realized how admired I was for that and throughout the years I realized how boring obvious wannabe cools actually were.

“[…] wherever there is Grunge […] flannel of course could not be far off […]”

Trend: Flannel

Flannel is something for woodcutters and their apprentices as Al Bundy (portrayed by Ed O’Neil) always used to say about the most famous flannel-shirt-porter of the 80s/90s Marcy D’arcy (portrayed by Amanda Bearse) in “Married… with Children”? Flannel is something for well-behaved, boring momma-children as Tim Taylor (portrayed by Tim Allan) the handyman-king hinted about his assistant Al Borland (portrayed by Richard Karn), the most famous male flannel porter of the 90s in “Home Improvement”? The Grunge movement which has begun in the 80s and gained popularity one decade later showed us that flannel can also be cool. So wherever there is Grunge (such as last year here) flannel of course could not be far off and belongs in every closet to every occasion.

Make-Up Trend: Summer Goth

The summer goth refers to one of the make-up trends that are going to be celebrated this season. This particular make-up style consists in strongly black painted eyes covering the whole eyes and soft, discreet colored lipstick that hardly lifts up from the natural color of your lips. Personally I have used my most favorite “Bois de Rose” (“Rosewood”) lipstick by Dr. Pierre Ricaud throughout the whole season. I cannot go without lipstick, even if I am not wearing make-up the care and accentuation of my naturally full lips is important to me and often is enough for me too look and feel well on my skin. In addition I prefer to accentuate my eyes with black make-up anyway even if on my basic make-up it is not as strong I like it a little bit more for special occasions.

My Look in Details

• Cardigan by H&M
• Blouse by Orsay
• Skinny chino by Orsay
• Hiking boots by s.Oliver
• Belt by Esprit
• Earrings by H&M
• Lipstick “Bois de Rose” by Dr. Pierre Ricaud

Love, Johanna