A Portrait of Frida

When I'm in the blues I like watching Frida's paintings. The representation of her pain in her paintings is so powerful that reconnects me with my reality and makes me see how fortunate I am. Despite some of my dreams haven't come true -yet- at least I have everything I need to keep fighting for them: air to breath them, healthy back and legs to chase them and, of course, the love of my family.

I spent almost two weeks deciding my halloween costume this year. I wanted something special, but I wasn't feeling very well inside hence, inspiration and creativity didn't show up for a while.

And then came Frida.

I searched Frida on Pinterest and realized that she was not only an art but also a fashion icon. The color of her dresses, her magnificent braids and her attitude... girl that's the attitude: always self-sufficient, secure and confident, I loved her even more!!. So I decided this year, my costume was going to be a tribute to my heroin. 

I started off looking for the perfect skirt in the thrift store but I couldn't find one... but two: one indigo and the other one was a lace tutú. I had to pay $10 bucks for them... pretty expensive ha? considering that it's a thrifty store! but anyways! being arty ain't cheap lady!


At home, I started to adjust the indigo skirt to my size. Because of the idea was joining both skirts to create the typical colorful Frida skirt with lace at the bottom, I had to take the elastic out of the tutu and add it at the end of the indigo skirt. Then, the pinning began.

Afterwards, I sewed the skirts together following the pins with a straight line. It was a challenge to find a threath with the exact same indigo color, so I decided to go with the opposite one: Fucsia, which happened to be the same color of the pashmina I was planning to use to complete the Frida outfit.

After I joined the two skirts, I felt it needed more colors, more shapes and patterns, it's Frida! it's Mexico!!. So I thought it was a great opportunity to try the 'embroidery' features of my sewing machine. Bam!

At the end, I finished my decorations with some colored studs.

I put together my costume with a very mexican shirt and the most important things: the braids and the flowers in my head... and obviously, my joint eyebrows! Perfect for the ocassion!

Scarlett's Curtains

Picture from: http://southernthings.web.unc.edu

If I have to choose just one single story that I utterly love, that would be Gone With The Wind. It’s a shame that nowadays they don’t make movies or write books with stories like that one.

Yes, I have to confess the old-senile lady in me yearns those kick-ass heroines like Scarlett O’hara who had to face real freaking hard situations in life… I mean, for real!... not like The Hunger Games or this girl falling in love with this vampire sort of thing. 

Anyways… sorry, I know most of you love that, it’s just that I don’t get it girl. If you think you have 99 problems, please let this old lady reminds you that Gone With The Wind has at least 300 pages, or if you prefer the movie, well, that’s almost 4 hours. 

But who cares about problems, Scarlett was fabulous! hell yeah!. She knew perfectly what she wanted and no matter how miserable she could feel sometimes, she would never be plain and ordinary. I could give you tons of examples but for obvious reasons I’m going to talk about one in particular: the part where she had to ask Rhett for a money loan, embarrassing enough for a woman but… nevermind… she needed it to save Tara. He was in jail so she had to go there which isn’t anybody’s favorite place to go for a walk but what the hell, sometimes a girl gotta do what a girl gotta do… 

The problem was… she didn’t have a decent outfit to see her crush! THE HORROR!!!! Scarlett wasn’t precisely a ninja at sewing. Before the war started, she was just a young spoiled girl who had never put a button on a dress… and embroidery?? c’mon!!! 

Picture from: http://southernthings.web.unc.edu

Despite of this, she decided to solve the problem in the ‘Scarlett’ fascinating way: taking her velvet curtains and making a stunning dress out of them.

The authentic refashion that made history in the movies, by the way...  Top that Katniss!

And if you think that was easy, just think what would you do if your super awesome dress gets burned with the iron just one hour before your date with the man of your dreams, and you only have nice curtains in your apartment! Lucky you that this blog exists to save you! 

I wish I could see more stories of brave women who demonstrate they’re not what they have but what they’re capable of doing with whatever life gives them. Women that face real challenges in the only way they can: being fabulous women… don’t you think? 

So, back to the refashions… do you remember any refashion that saved the day? wanna share it?