1. S(w)ing when you’re winning is what Robbie Williams used to say in his songs circa 1999. Life is a game. You win some, you lose some, they say, and for that matter, most of losses are wins too.
2. The writer’s condition is inextricable. You want to be published, you long to touch someone, to deliver your allegiance of fate to whomever is out there. Then, when the show is done, you realize nothing can save you, not even writing. Sorry Buk.
3. Being honest, and honest as an artist can bring you a lot of trouble. Like alienating friends, pushing people away, giving way to a lot of paranoia. Something you’ve written can turn tables every moment of your life because today’s general perception is so much oriented towards the author’s own life and its translation in art through writing, and not towards the manuscript. I see this all the time. I’m not gonna say – okay, I can write anything, don’t take me so serious ’cause it’s not real. It’s fucking real, but once reality took its toll, it’s just a good or bad piece of writing. Meant for people to read and connect with it. Made for others to criticize or enjoy. And people who truly know you should never be affected by what we still call today postmodern fiction.
4. Any torture chamber is better than the chamber of your own mind.
5. Remember, every woman dressed as a playboy bunny or a sexy nurse once dreamed of being a Disney princess.
6. If you have a hard time letting go of a painful moment in your life, pour yourself a class of champagne and sort it out with your own mind. Or just engage yourself in Cheekybingo.com fun. And win.
I saw this trend on Facebook and blogs where people in the creative industry make tops and lists of their achievements at the end of the year. I was lazy busy enough to skip that in December but then I thought any time is a good time to brag in public count your blessings rather than no time.
Before I get this started I want to explain myself a bit, because in 2012 this blog has taken multiple directions and for a long time it was actually hard to focus on only one or two of them. Which isn’t half bad, when it gives you the chance to discover hidden places of your personality and deep ends of your possibilities.
Ruffles for Breakfast began in 2010 as my style diary. I would post outfits friends photographed me in in the city and post them here. I have to tell you it was boring as hell. So I changed turns and put a bit of life into this spiritless website by adding sketches and short notes from the novel(s) I was working at to the pictures, now themed.
This got me much more readers than fashion pictures ever did, and I was happy to see what a deal breaker writing is. I met many people through the blog. I got encouraged to write even when I had a shitty 1 year time of writer’s block.
In the beggining of 2012 I styled the first editorial for a local brand, ZAZA Boutique. Collaborations with LaChatterie, BIPOLAR, Alina Ene and Coolta, Macramoi and other brands followed.
I basically tried to use the blog as a platform for aiding uprising young brands in fashion to get promoted.
This short campaign for SUBSET t-shirts is one of my dearest projects in 2012, because it speaks truly and authentically about the nature of things we love. It was also my first attempt to make a short movie. I still need to really learn Premiere pro.
Alexandra Diaconu and I did a couple of shoots for the pretty clothes at IDELIER. And there’s more where that came from, just wait for the surprise to land.
I was asked to write a column for the ALL HOLLOW blog. Seasoned with pictures of me. It had my name on it, which was fancy, but not motivating enough because as 2012 was reaching a start I realized I want to stop with the modelling and use any experience I gained in becoming a fashion stylist. And I did, and it’s the most challenging and practical experience I’ve had since I started to properly work in publishing and online. Ruffles for Breakfast will keep all the prose fragments but the fashion posts will be replaced in 2013 by editorial work.
I ended the year at the DALLES GO Styling classes with Ovidiu Buta and a bunch of wonderful people I am really glad to have met. My colleagues are now chilling via Berlin Fashion Week while I am home writing this from the comfort of my bed. I raise my glass!
Since the 4th of January I’ve been getting busy with things of all sorts and got in that strange mood where a tiny time off leaves you feeling weird because you have FINALLY nothing to do. I think that’s happening when you’re a workaholic, no? I hope not.
As for me, myself and the other people who live in my brain, 2012 was an awfully changing year. 90% of my friends left the country to greener pastures. I miss them a lot, flights are expensive and that’s all I have to say about that. Places and people changed around and even if this was a HARDER year compared to 2011 (I hear this a lot and I actually think it was the shittiest year in the history of mankind from oh so many points of view), I was grateful to rediscover flowers where dust laid on. I saw some of the best concerts in my life and traveled, and wrote new pieces of a novel, and met miraculous people, and loved.
For 2013, I have made up a list of resolutions in my head starting with last year, but for now I’d rather keep it in the privacy of my mind and add up various things on it as time goes by.
I can say however that I hope to eat a lot of avocados with butter and pepper,apple tart, fish, ice cream and pasta, because food is AMAZING and I am a gourmand and the simple thought of feasting on a plate of anchovies with champagne makes my mouth watery.
I also hope to learn how to ride a horse, because in a dream world, people would take horses to the club at night instead of cabs (like Bianca Jagger) and stroll on them to work (I REALLY ENVY THE POLICE PATROLS IN BUCHAREST); ride a bike and play tennis because it’s the only sport I would do without being bored.
I wish to read more books and see more films and get the chance to leave the country or the city more often so I can gather inspiration to turn into more captivating visual stories for you to see (and for potential magazines, you hear that, ALL HOLLOW, ELLE, HARPER’s BAZAAR, COCKAIGNE to hire me).
I wish you all a lightweight year and a lot of beauty of sorts to hang on to.
Am retrăit, pe repede-înainte, toți ultimii trei ani pe care mi-i amintesc. Mi-am crescut și mi-am colorat unghiile și părul după asemănarea celor de atunci. Am făcut și am simțit lucruri atât de asemănătoare că m-a înțepat rutina sub coaste. Am învățat pe de rost circuitul oamenilor în viețile noastre și mi-am amintit de Ioana Nemeș și de ale ei povești pe care lumea le repetă de când pământul ca pe anotimpuri, fără ca noi să putem face, cu adevărat, prea multe în privința asta. Aș vrea tare mult să îmi tai părul și să arăt iarăși ca un băiat de 17 ani, dar n-aș face decât să sădesc semințe suficiente pentru încă trei ani de repetiție. Aș putea să dansez cu și mai multe fete cu care am împărțit, fără să vreau, farfurii, furculițe, săpunuri, șervete de bucătărie și locul din dreapta al saltelei, dar asta nu mi-ar dezlipi etichetele de fostă cea mai bună prietenă.
Când am mers pe podul Basarab aveam LittleBlack Submarines în urechi și șoferul băgase cea mai oportună viteză, de-mi fluturau aproape urechile.
Jumătate de raft de măști de păr pe care le țin în baie îmi aduc aminte de momentele în care am dat bani pe produse scumpe ca să nu par mai puțin snoabă decât cei cu care împărțeam canapeaua, patul sau prosopul de plajă.
Când m-am îndrăgostit mă gândeam la pantaloni oranj Marni și a trebuit să înghit în sec și de sete, de parcă nu aș mai fi vrut niciodată să sărut pe cineva pe nepusă masă.
Prima întâlnire ne-am dat-o în față la biserică și tot acolo ne-a găsit și prima ceartă.
Tristețea e o virtute de care, personal, m-am săturat.
Sfârșitul lumii m-a prins la ora 18.30 în Mini Prix, luminile s-au stins când eram la cabina de probă cu o cămașă lungă și neagră din mătase pe mine, afară câinii au început să urle ca la lună, clienții să se foiască ca termitele și eu să mă întreb dacă asta înseamnă că fac cumpărături proaste.
La Marea Neagră aveam costum de baie ca de la Cannes din 1967 și l-aș fi lepădat oricând pentru că în fața celui mai bun prieten nu îți vine să te ascunzi niciodată.
*Altfel, mi s-au mai întâmplat o seamă de lucruri bune, rele, frivole, tragice, comice și simbolice, dar chiar nu simt nevoia să mă laud cu ele.
We all have a ghost, or more, tucked under the pillows of our chest. A dark romance which dissipated and took the shape of dust and choked us with remorse. A runaway bride in the shadows of the night. The flaming face of jealousy. The rotten nerve of scandal. L’innocence perdue. They awaken at Christmas, in a whirlwind of sensations and emotions, like a hurricane that reverberates through the heart and the mind in one base root note and vibration: “If we do not have peace then we have forgotten we belong to each other“.
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS is a very dear film to me, so making this pictorial was a labor of love and huge acomplishment.
The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 American comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson and co-written with Owen Wilson. The film stars Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston, with Danny Glover, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, and Owen Wilson.
It follows the lives of three gifted siblings who experience great success in youth, and even greater disappointment and failure after their eccentric father leaves them in their adolescent years. An ironic and absurdist sense of humor pervades the film.
The main story centers on step brothers Margot and Richie Tenenbaum‘s secret love affair, which we interpreted as consumed after Royal’s death.
THE AMAZING TEAM who worked on making this shoot come true:
RUFFLES FOR BREAKFAST 