Love x Style x Life

The best time to start thinking about writing a book review is while cleaning your rabbit's poop. 

It was almost 3 years ago when I read my very first book on personal style. During the semester break I was on my way to Vienna and Mum bought La Parisienne by Ines de la Fressange. Little had I known about the author. Or to be painfully honest, I had no slightest idea who this lady was. Apart from my quite correct guess that she must have been French. 

I know, as for someone with so much passion for all things couture, I should had read some style guides earlier. But I hadn't. Fashion blogs and my favourite bloggers have always been my fashion guides (until I discovered how fashion blogs work and started missing the early times of fashion blogging when we had no idea how powerful business it is). Anyway, I had heard about the book before. I came across its rather sceptical review on one of the blogs and thought the book wouldn't teach me anything new. I was wrong. It took me only a couple of hours to read La Parisienne and I instantly developed a crush on French lifestyle (from fashion to leisure activities to interior design). It all seemed so effortlessly chic and I started dreaming of living in an old tenement with big windows and fresh flowers on my desk. That's also how gristrianon came to life. I decided to keep my inspiration in one place (even though it's not always all about the frenchie things) and never forget about my perfect vision of life.

Ines de la Fressange taught me many many things and I sort of tried to steal her style at first. Of course life itself verified my perfect tumblr visions and I underwent many personal style revolutions in the meantime. After all, I'm still young (or at least I'm trying hard to convince myself and start thinking like that) and fashion shoul be fun and now it's almost the best time to make fashion mistakes on my road to perfection. 

Hold your horses baby! Perfect is boring and I prefer to forever stay perfect in my imperfection.

As it has already been stated, fashion is a big industry and the blogging revolution was a serious change of power. I still sort of dream of having my own fashion blog (if there's one thing I can say about my style right now is that it's 100% effortless so maybe some could learn something from me too) but my love for exploring the world wide web and sleeping until noon is bigger thatn this dream so excuse me for now. Anyway, if I had ever wanted to get some serious advice on how to start any career, last night was the time I got it. For the first time in forever. From a book I bought because I saw bloggers and my friends obsessing over Garance Doré's Love x Style x Life. I went to the bookshop and searched the shelves trying to decide between spending money on this piece or maybe some other album on interior design. In the emd I succumbed to the thought of allegedly getting the only style guide I may ever need in my life. 

I'm always kind of sceptical when it comes to such grandiloquent slogans as they usually turn out to be nothing but empty words and chances are the only thing that I may ever need in my life is sometimg I definitely do not need. That was also my thogught when I was flicking throught the pages and enjoying the smell of a brand new book. Anyway, I took the plunge and felt for a moment like really being a teeny tiny part of this fashion circus.

I didn't expect much from a book screaming me in the face that it's the only one I want and need. I'm far from believing such a book may change my life cause as someone with an eating disorder I know that all changes start in the brain. In other words: I may be told billion times I'm irresistibly fuckable and still you'll have me standing in front of the mirror, pinching the fat on my stomach (yesterday I heard it was skin not fat) and regretting the first dinner I cooked for myself in a year (even though it consisted of salmon and brocolli). 

But Garance didn't disappoint me. Last night I decided to read the first few pages of this magical life guide and it was around 3am and I was coming to its very last page. To say I felt inspiration falling on me like the Holy Spirit would definitely be too much. It was a good read though with nice illustrations and beautiful pictures. Beautiful in their simplicity, if you know what I mean. 

The rules it gives are also simple. Less is more, make mistakes and enjoy life, fall in love, have sex, don't force anything upon yourself because it's never too late to make your dreams come true. Garance started her real career when she was around 31. Now she's 40 and having the time of her life.

Now I have no real excuse to put off becoming a fashion blogger. Who knows where it can get me in 7 years time... .

Garance is real and her book reads like a diary. A diary of a small (or maybe big?) personal revolution spiced up with some love stories which could make really nice gossips (because we all gossip, don't we?). The beauty section made me smile a few times cause I had always been the girl with short hair and can relate to the comfort you have when the styling consists almost only of combing the hair. I can also absolutely agree with the idea of mixing high fashion with what we can get in chain shops. That's one of my favourite things to do. I also do have my favourite pieces from ZARA bought years ago but still looking perfect and making people's jaws drop. I do love wearing sneakers (my very first pair of Converse was expensive and made of leather. I still have then and treat like a treasure cause they're almost 7 years old) and recently I won a lottery and bought a pair of slip-on in H&M for 30NIS. I go vintage shopping to find unique pieces everyone is always jealous of. I apply loads of blusher to make my face look alive (I'm naturally terribly pale unless I get some tan). I still don't know how to look good in some photos and my face sometimes resembles a big round potato but I'm gonna figure it out soon. I'm sometimes afraid of my high-waisted jeans. I don't always wear a lip gloss. I used to fear wearing sandals in the summer. In had my emo phase in high school. I kept wearing all cool things when I moved to Warsaw cause I wanted to look chic (did I really?). 

In less than 4 months I'm turnig 24. Garance is 40. The age difference between us is bigger than between me and any most popular fashion blogger landing the next cover of Grazia or Vogue. But somehow I feel more connection to Ms Doré than any of them. Just as it was with Ines. Maybe it's  because they're old enough to know they no longer need to prove anything to anyone? They're a league of their own and whatever they do inspires thousands. 

As I'm writing this it's almost 3pm. I'm still not dressed. There's a pile of work to be done. One of my uni papers is due tomorrow and I still need to put some final touches on it. And what am I doing? Just like Garance I'm taking it slow, drinking orange and ginger tea and eating unhealthy chocolate with chocolate chip cookies filling as a substitute for breakfast (or should I say late lunch at this time of the day?). I'm enjoying life and that's what Garance wants all her readers to do. 

So, if you're in your life crisis or still at the point of making new year's resolutions, this book may come in handy. Start where you are and live the moment (while I'm slowly planning to finally get up and face reality).