dear soul,
why is it that i find smoking so incredibly sexy on a woman? visually.. nothing else. i hate the smell, the health consequences, the financial invest, also smoking men -ewww. i’ve smoked maybe 20 cigarettes in my life and 16 of them out of peer pressure in my early twenties; same goes for alcohol. definitely had more of that than cigarettes because i grew up in a small village in germany: all you had to do by the age of 13 (yes, 13) was drinking one day and playing bratz dolls with your younger sister the next.. and quite frankly, i’ve never felt like carrie bradshaw or serena van der woodsen looked like while doing both either. so why do i still think smoking and drinking looks sexy?
because it’s giving “i know it’s bad but i don’t care” energy. it’s the conscious ignorance of one’s awareness. and that’s the feeling, the sensation i find sexy and aspirational - not the smoking or drinking itself. yes, i am swinging the hammer and come with nothing but the truth right away, bummer.. again, why? because i give a million fucks about everything and anything and i am ANNOYED by it; it’s so boring i want to vomit. don’t get me wrong, i’ve come to terms with my hyper sensitivity, awareness and emotional being. in fact, i’ve created a career from it and use it for my benefit; still i’m here wishing that i could care a little less sometimes.. just sometimes..
i will not start smoking or excessively drinking again at the age of 32 but i will definitely enjoy a little fridge cigarette* so i can consider myself a *baddie*. no, but for real: how does one create carefree-ness? let’s look at a paris bistro situation. that - for me - represents a whole effortlessly, sexy, chic mood and a woman that is: whole. and whole in other words is abundant. so maybe we’re actually not looking for effortless or carefree. we can find abundance and wholeness in personal style definitely for sure. there’s yet again another component that plays a big part in it.
i talk a lot about awareness here. and while i think that it’s the most important part of my work, we also need to talk about letting go and live life. similar to my entry about high self awareness and low embodiment: we created an environment where we are praised for emotional labor, the inner work and pressure to grow. therapy and inner work became points on our bucket list and things we have to achieve by age X in order to be considered a decent person. and while i agree that everyone should work on their unconscious or at least spent time to look at it, we often forget about the fact that abundance also includes our “bad habits”, our “flaws” and our “weaknesses” - in other words: our humanness. making decision from that part of abundance is not always the healthiest option, agreed. is it necessary to be aware of it when it happens? yes. however, there is no need to punish ourselves for it.
how i think about abundance is more like a radio station. it’s a frequency that you can tap into, tune in and vibe with. that energy only waits for a body to match it and create with it, from it and through it. that energy doesn’t actually care about your imperfections, all it wants is a vessel (aka human) to match it. abundance wants you as a whole. personal style is the textile version of abundance. personal style is the energy that wants you as a whole. personal style actually doesn’t care about your stretch marks, the fat in places you don’t like it to be, your height, weight or shoe size. all it wants is to be expressed.
so, can bad habits, flaws and weaknesses make you effortlessly-sexy-chic? no, but the awareness about them does. but didn’t i just say we need a little less of that? this is where things get a little complex - it's simple though. when i talk about awareness in personal style in context of our humanness, i don’t mean it in a “realise what you have to correct”-way but more in a “see it, name it, accept it and move on”-way. we all have habits or parts of our appearance that we wished to be different but if it would really bother us so much, we could change it (invasive or not) and if you’re not willing to do that the healthiest option is acceptance and then move the fffff on.
when we talk about parisian fashion or scandi fashion in personal style there is one word in particular that is dropsped the most: effortless. the word itself origins from old french “esfort” which is ultimately rooted in the latin word "fortis," meaning "strong". so, effort essentially traces back to the concept of using strength or force. and effortless style is so fascinating because it basically indicates the same energy of “i don’t care” that we talked about earlier. only when we emulate an ideal of how effortlessness has to look like it becomes everything but effortless. again, we can’t fully revoke ourselves from that dynamic. but we can be aware of where we put our effort in. we can use the strength or force from within to express ourselves instead of said emulation of an outside ideal. how do we create a sense of carefree confidence without sabotaging our well-being?
not everyday has to be a slay: whether by accident or not, use small imperfect elements to outfits. something undone, ironic or unexpected - a nod to your humanness
express, don’t emulate: it’s not about being parisian or scandi - it’s about not trying to be anyone but yourself. effortless style doesn’t replicate, it translates your wholeness outwards
awareness is your superpower: your personal style doesn’t ask to fix you but see you. dress with your “imperfections” not despite them
presence over perfection: it’s not the exact clothes but the way you inhabit them that makes you stylish
abundance loves the real you: you’re worthy and enough no matter the outfit, the brands or the body. style doesn’t care about your “flaws” - it just want's to be expressed through a human
coming to the end of this entry i want to emphasise another angle especially on the effortless part in our humanness. i think our society is actually obsessed with effortlessness. so, why is effort so “unsexy”? because it indicates the availability for everybody - iiiiiif you put in some effort. abundance aka personal style is limitless availability for everybody. yes, we’re born with and under different conditions (and i am absolutely not talking about fairness here) but we can all achieve the same if we really run for it, we really can. effortlessness is connected to easiness and almost laziness, whereas the actual conversation is about simplicity. effortlessness in fashion and beauty is about unapologetic and radical abundance. it’s not “i know it’s bad but i don’t care” it’s “i am whole and act on it”. abundance aka personal style isn’t asking for perfection it asks for presence.
effort is only important for you and when you focus on presence and what feels good to you then that’s the only effort you need. and honestly, what feels good doesn’t necessarily need much effort - human needs are so basic.
welcome to the (nicotine free) smoke show,
lea
love it yesssss to a lil fridge ciggy soonnn in the sunnn