Oscar Glam (Part II)

In my second post about the Oscars, I will talk a little bit about the red carpet. This by itself is a big event for which the whole fashion world is waiting. The night of the Oscars is always Sunday. My sister and I have a tradition to watch it together even when we’re in different countries. We have conference calls and discuss everything that happens from the red carpet up until the end. Our only problem is that we live in Europe and that means that the Oscars begin in the middle of the night. Usually, they finish around 7 AM and we sleep only a couple of hours before going to work/uni. After all, it’s Monday.

Embed from Getty Images

The day starts with a big coffee and for me – with the “Best dressed” articles of Vogue and Elle. My sister is more into movies than me, so she’s analyzing the movies that received the statues. At one point when I got into Pinterest, I created a pin wall with all the gowns that I thought are red carpet worthy. For this year, I selected outfits from the Haute Couture Fashion Week (21-24.01) that you can check out here:

I went through every fashion show and selected the best outfits. My personal favorites are Dior and Zuhair Murad who I discovered a while ago and immediately fell in love with his feminine designs. In my opinion, his gowns are just made for the red carpet and they leave a long-lasting impression on everyone. That’s probably the reason why more and more actresses and singers choose his designs for special occasions.
Overall the nude tones prevail. Every outfit from the Dior fashion show that I would wear on the red carpet is in the rose-gold palette. The theme of the show was “circus” and as usual, there were some elements of dancing/performing. I’m a big fan of Dior, but that was not one of the best collections.

Embed from Getty Images
Alexis Mabille is a French designer, who previously worked with Hedi Slimane, chose more vivid colors – dark blue, red, yellow.  Stephane Rolland took a page from Beauty and the Beast’s notebook while creating the beautiful yellow gown. I hope we’ll see it on the red carpet, even though Rihanna already had her Bell at the ball moment a couple of years ago on the steps of the Met Gala. Another remarkable outfit resembles Cleopatra’s gown, that’s why I thought that it deserves an honorary place in this list.

Embed from Getty Images

Alexandre Vauthier shows outfits for the badass women that we all are. My personal favorite is the one with the black scarf. Even though I’m a big fan of Chanel, I didn’t see any outfits that potentially would end on the Oscar Red Carpet. I still chose two outfits; just to show the high heel mules and you know… Kaia Gerber is awesome.

Embed from Getty Images
Givenchy is one of the brands that inspire me the most. At the moment their artistic director is Clare Waight Keller who did a tremendous job. A lot of latex, interesting shapes and giant blazers – the whole collection is designed for the strong, modern, businesswoman. I would love to see at least of the pieces on the red carpet this year.

 

 

 

All pictures are from Getty Images.

Why ballet isn’t the best activity for young girls

They say “A leopard can’t change its spots” and in most cases they are right. I came to realize this when I watched a video of my Dance school from 10 years ago. It had nothing to do with the #10yearchallenge, but with pure luck. One of my friends, which I met in the Dance school, showed me the video as something cute and funny from our teenage years. Instead of making me laugh, the video made me extremely mad.

The video contained mostly pictures of different groups and different dance styles. The first thing I noticed was that 1/3 of the pictures was of only one girl – the favorite of our teacher. I started thinking about my experience and realized that my memories were mostly bittersweet. At one point I was dancing in two different groups, going twice as much to classes as the rest of the girls and studied twice as many routines. There was a routine made especially for us by an American choreographer and this was our best dance, the diamond in our crown. The routine needed only 4 girls and so we had to audition for it. After we all learned it, we had to perform it for a month, before any decision was made. They chose 4 girls that would perform it for competitions and festivals and 8 girls for our internal concert, organized for our parents. I didn’t make the cut.

Now I find it stupid that this little thing mattered so much to me and that I cried for months about it. But the thing is – the dance was purely ballet and the girls who auditioned were everything else from hip hop to contemporary. The 4 chosen ones were all girls that were in the Dance school 3-4 years longer than me and I had accepted it. But the other girls were in no way better than me. They were simply part of the “advanced” group and I was new to this group because I had danced ballet for the last 8 years.
10 years later, nothing has changed. At least not in the concept. I’m not going to dance class, but I’m going to work. Instead of a routine, I auditioned for a manager position. Again the guy who got the job was just a sleazebag, who was BFFs with one of the 3 people who were interviewing us. As an excuse, I got the feedback that I had never done something similar to the manager’s tasks. As a “bonus” I got the opportunity to help my manager with her tasks so that next time I’ll be more familiar with them. Joke’s on me because now I’m my manager’s assistant (don’t get me wrong, I like these tasks) and I’m doing my regular tasks like everyone else in my team. Basically, it’s twice as much work with the same salary. I’m pouring my heart and soul into both types of tasks because I’m a perfectionist and I simply like doing them.

I saw a pattern here and I need to change something. The fact that I like working hard and not slacking like most of my colleagues is usually the reason why people are taking advantage of me. Learn a lesson from my experience – don’t let your boss make a fool out of you, just because you’re a good person.

 

PS: I’ll keep you posted if I ever break the circle.