Valentina

Settling In Your Colors | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

13 Jan 2019 8 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #BohemianColors, #BohemianDecor, #BohemianHomeFashion, #BohemianStyle, #MosaicFloor

I am so very pleased to see colorful home interiors circulating on my social platform pages these days. For a long time, I have wondered why people want to live in mortally boring beige homes when we live under a blue sky filled with the light of a yellow sun, surrounded by brown mountain, green grass, thousands of colorful flowers and food available everywhere (so I said in my book: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors).

Listening to realtors who want your home in a beige or white tone is deleterious to your spirit. A few times I have been indirectly involved in the selling process of homes. One time a client passed away and I had to take care of all her stuff. She surrounded herself in colors and not for one minute I thought it was going to be difficult to sell all those colors. Another time a client moved quickly to a new work in a faraway city leaving me and the realtor in the selling seat. The realtor preoccupied herself with the notion next buyer wouldn’t accept all her colors and she was so wrong. The third time I added colors in a totally white home I staged for sale. In all three cases, the houses sold in a week time.

(Click on each photo to view it larger)

My new-found Facebook friend posted this colorful, vibrant, imaginative set of her homes, and I jolted for joy. This is a person with courage, I thought. The feel is Bohemian style, it is a playful style, not a matchy-matchy style, and difficult for some people to live in. Bohemian style is a mixture of textures, colors, shapes, and style. It is the style hippies of the ’60s adopted for their free-living concept and before them, it was the style of poor gypsies roaming around in the Bohemian area of today Czechoslovakian Republic. The chair, in particular, struck me. I remember reading her post, this is a chair remade from upcycled fabric, trims and decorative pieces found in vintage or second-hand shops.

Photo: Robbie Coole

Why does the Bohemian style still attracts many people today, including me? It’s a free-form style, it has no boundaries, no rules, and no constrictions. Most of all, it is a very personal style, a reflection of creative people who like to express themselves through colors. So, well done Robbie! I know the rest of your home is as colorful as this room.

Photo: Robbie Coole

Another true shocker this week was this stunning mosaic floor. Although many people commented positively and added so many likes on this post, I doubt many of them would do it in their homes. It takes a lot of courage to cover in mosaic the entire floor and three walls of a room, in this case, a bathroom. I can already hear someone says: “I don’t want to clean all that grout!”.

Decorating a home is fun, but then comes the challenge of cleanliness.
Who will dust all the items in a Bohemian style? Can you keep the Bohemian style orderly and organized in its “designed chaos”?
Who will clean this beautiful mosaic floor? Can you live carefully enough not to break this delicate work?

If you want to be yourself these questions should not discourage you from pursuing your dream home. Hire a cleaning person to help you or be diligent to do it yourself. This style will make it easier to accumulate items and will put you out of control in no time. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior Designer working in the USA and Europe since 1990, specializing in interior and exterior, color analysis, kitchen, bath, wine cellar, and outdoor kitchen designs. Often people describe her as “the colorist” as she loves to color her clients’ world and loves to create the unusual. “Vogue” magazine and many prominent publications in California featured Valentina’s work. RAI–Italian National TV invited her to appear in Cara Francesca Show and she has made four appearances on T.V. Comcast Channel 15. Author of four published books, one of which is on the subject of colors ©RED – A Voyage Into Colors.
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The newly published book is ©The Road to Top Of The World –

https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

Stones Or Rugs? | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

05 Jan 2019 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ColorfulRugs, #DecoratingWithAreaRugs, #FloorDesigns, #FlooringSolutions, #StoneFloorDesigns

Wall to wall carpet is slowly disappearing from homes and I am very happy. Smelly, unhygienic wall to wall carpet has never been one of my favorite items for home décor. I have seen horrific carpeted bathrooms and laundry rooms or foyer that made me cringe every time. I am glad all of that nonsense is going away. My title asks a question stones or rugs, referring to a floor of any room. This is not a hard choice, as people know what they like most of the time. If it was up to me, I would never ever propose area rugs, and wall to wall carpet. The dust and germs under the shoes brought in the house from the street, or even the dead skin under bare feet, are two sufficient facts to decide against it and yet people still ask for carpet and rugs. The health of a room depends much on the cleanability of each item to avoid dust mites from making their nest everywhere and create allergies.

Stones or rugs are two different looks with two different textures. A stone floor is washable with soap and water, stays clean and fresh, keeps the room cool in the summer heat and lasts forever. One way to muffle the echo when a room is large like a salon or a cave is to decorate it with upholstered furniture, pillows, throws, wallpaper and a lot of wood accessories. A large room carpeted from wall to wall is just a larger opportunities for dust mites to reproduce and multiply. A colder climate area would be the exception to my rules and I would opt for a rug, but not a carpet. I would place an area rug only in strategic places such as bedrooms, living rooms, or home office, just to add some warmth to the room.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

New Wave Rug – Grandinroad

New Waves rug – Hand tufted, 100% Chinese wool with a beautiful sheen that brings a bit of light on a grey floor.

Heather Rug – Grandinroad

Heather rug – The description says: dramatic, vibrant, “pretty-but-edgy” floral design. Large flowers are all the rage today, on wallpapers and on rugs, don’t be afraid of looking at bold flowers, after a while the eyes get accustomed and space becomes joyful.

Jules Rug – Grandinroad

Jules rug – Colorful abstract puts art on the floor.

Ellis Rug – Grandinroad

Ellis – Traditional rug design fits anywhere, even in a modern setting.

(All rugs are from Grandinroad)

Marble Pebbles and Distressed Wood Floor -Valentina Interiors & Designs

My question, however, is a different one. If the floor is created new, it is original and outside the box, made interesting to look at, the room is small (I doubt the stone floor creates an echo in a small room), what is the reason to cover it with a rug? This is the new floor I created for a guest room in a client’s home. It’s made of distressed wood and sinuous shaped marble pebbles by the French door leading to the garden. My preference would be to leave the floor naked as part of the furniture, my client prefers to have a rug and those above are my choices of a rug. If we must cover a new floor, let’s do it with colors.

We are at the beginning of the year, there is nothing going on out there in January, make changes now. Happy New Year. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola transforms and creates spaces realizing people’s dreams in homes, offices, interiors, and exteriors. She infuses your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living. Valentina is well-known for bringing originality on any project and for thinking outside the box. Her interiors are not made with cookie cutters, only follow client’s inspiration, lifestyle, and personality. She offers online design consultations through Skype or Zoom and the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge anywhere in the world. She is the author of four books.
The latest newly published book is ©The Road To Top Of The World. https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8
All books are available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

I Love Surprises | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

03 Jan 2019 2 Comments

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #2019Goals, #LetterFromThePast, #Memories, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor, Dreams

The year has just started, I am back on my saddle with a big smile. I did close the year 2018 in beauty.
First, I am happy to have published my fourth book The Road To Top Of The World.

To add to the pleasure, I received an unexpected article from a newspaper in Italy, thanking me for have cited in my book many well-known artists of Puglia.
The article is in Italian. Read it here: https://bit.ly/2QcA9mo

Article on GioiaNet.it

The Road To Top Of The World

(Click on the photo to view it larger).

Another beautiful news came two days before the closing of the year: one more person registered for my fashion drawing course I have organized for this year.

One of the many surprises I received in December really puzzled me. It was a letter in the form of a chapter for a future novel (maybe) written by one of my lifetime male friends in Italy, who apparently, for unspoken reasons, made me the muse of his dreams.

I am taking a few passages from the letter “On The Restaurant’s Terrace” as he titled it:
“The terrace of the restaurant where we had lunch, had a pergola with lots of chairs and some chaises long, placed there as an invitation to nap. I placed one of the chaises long in such a way to have only my face lapped by the sun and closed my eyes for a few minutes. I found myself floating in an indeterminate space and the light with its colors was the only perception. I saw dazzling beams of light changing without interruption, chasing, crossing and tying themselves in sudden tangles, then finally disappearing into a gigantic prism. No landscape, no seas, no mountains, no city, and no geographical place belonged to that experience. Was I living a sidereal adventure, a journey into the galaxies or was I looking at the reflections inside of a soap-bubble? Then, I noticed that my sensations gradually began to produce signs defining those lights, shaping those colors, and composing the features of a woman.

Her figure, soft, relaxed and gently relaxing on the green lawn, attracted me. Her golden face expressed delicacy, wrapped in an invisible veil that seemed satisfied. Without taking a single step, I joined her and met her blue eyes, bright and open, in a smile that struck me like rain with golden reflections. We danced barefoot on the grass wet by dew. (…)

She circled in the air, inventing dance steps, following music only she heard, and her inebriating voice transformed into a harmonious song. She went down the slope towards the sea, inviting me to follow her, with a slight movement of the hands and a cheerful smile.

That song fascinated me, for the magic moment it created and how it drove me into her dream. She entered the water fully dressed and soaked her clothes immediately. The grace of her casual gestures overwhelmed me,(…). I felt attracted to her and presaged it would have been forever. (…)
What’s your name? I asked her. Live your dream and call me LOVE, she answered.

The lights went out, the colors lost their strength, my eyes returned in the present to find more emotions.

I looked away searching for an imprint of two rolling bodies, but the waves had erased everything. Dreams are beautiful, but they are short-lived!”

What is my friend trying to tell me? Does he have some regrets? Is he still leaving in our teenage years? Perhaps, he knew I had my mind set to live somewhere else in the world and never asked me that fatidical question. Harsh as it sounds, if he did, would have not made a bit of difference, I wanted to conquer a different world and nothing could have messed up my plans. Today, however, it is very nice to read these words, knowing that the dream of me is keeping someone escaping his grey life. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. She is the author of four books, all available on
Amazon – http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The latest book just published is The Road To Top Of The World – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

Letter To The Parents | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

30 Dec 2018 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ChristmasCelebration, #ChristmasDinner, #ChristmasLettersToParents, #ItalianChristmasCustoms

Certain gestures are like fleeting moments to which we pay little attention, but the memory of them is sculpted forever in our mind.
I was enjoying a tasteful Christmas dinner when in a small moment I had a vision of a custom of my childhood, which repeated every year until I was 10 years old: the Christmas letter to the parents.
It was a letter all the pupils in elementary schools wrote for their parents in class with the aid of the teacher. Everyone wrote his/her thoughts, just one-page or a paragraph that expresses all the gratitude to the parents for raising us the best they could. Some letters were funny and comics and some others were very serious, they followed the kid’s character and personality. The teacher only corrected each letter and had no part in composing it, basically, we forced ourselves to find something good to write that made us look good with our parents.
In this letter addressed to both parents, we promised not to do the bad things we did during the year (often it was an empty promise, we forgot it as soon as the holidays passed), we promised to bring home good grades and keep the parents happy with good behavior. Mainly we praised them for all the good things they did for us, and we thanked them every five words.

Both parents knew about the letter but acted as if it was a surprise. Here, I recreated the table in the simplicity of the era: two plates, two glasses, and the necessary dinnerware, no Christmas decorations on the table, nothing spectacular, not even close to how we decorate holiday tables today. It was an essential table, real food and conversation took all our attention.

The letter was hidden under the father’s set of plates. After the first course, generally, a pasta dish, one of the women in the family removed that plate and pushed the letter out to make it more visible. The father accidentally pretended to see the letter and with a surprised voice exclaimed: “It’s Christmas and the postman came!” Then, he checked whose signature was and invited the author of the letter to come closer to him to read the letter out loud. Followed applauses and compliments from the members of the family sitting at the dinner table. In richer families, the kid who wrote the letter received some sort of gift or money, in less rich families, the kid received lots of kisses and hugs.

I have not had this vision in my life before this past Christmas. The scene was so vivid, real and all the people in it, now gone from this world, appeared the same, immortalized to the time I was ten years old.
It was my film, nobody saw it, I had slid through time, it felt like I had stopped there for a long time, but it was a brief moment and I was happy. A voice in my house brought me back to reality: “Can I take your plate and are you ready for the second course?”
Has this ever happened to you? Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. She is the author of four books, all available on
Amazon – http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The latest book just published is The Road To Top Of The World – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

Christmas My Way | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

10 Dec 2018 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ChristmasCelebration, #ChristmasColors, #ChristmasDecorating, #ChristmasLights, #ChristmasThemes

This week, business coach Georgia Lee London interviewed me on BeLiveTV, an online TV feature of Facebook I use also for my business. The topic was Decorating Christmas. We spent the first few minutes talking about my business and personal life just as an introduction to her audience, then we moved on to Christmas and how to decorate it.

I like to admire all the joyous display of lights around the towns, highly decorated stores and homes illuminated over the top, just like everybody else, to me this huge display of lights is another form of art expression. The bigger the better is what most people think Christmas should be and that is fine. I can’t imagine Christmas not being so lit up anymore. There was a time in my life when my native country went through an austerity period of many years.

Now, I am here in the wealthiest country in the world, where people don’t mind spending $5,000 for Christmas decorations, I want to soak it in as much as I can, taking tours through neighbors and enjoy their labor to put up such a spectacle for the public. I saw a program on the Italian TV dedicated to the transformation of homes in Brooklyn N.Y. every year at Christmas and this is a photo I found of one of the Italian homes. Stunning, it looks like Disneyland. Their electric bill, I imagine, is huge for a couple of months.

(Click on the photo to view it larger).

Deep down inside I have remained a person who likes “conservation”, moderation and classy décor. I would never have such a display of power even if I had servants, labor, chauffeurs, and butlers.
To me, Christmas is about lighting up a way to our new self, welcoming a new year of opportunities to realize our dreams; it’s about resting, renewing our family and friends’ ties; share food and allow our “Supreme Being” (whomever or whatever it might be) to enter our life. Everything else is just consumerism.

Here, in this video, one can see my ideas of decorating Christmas the easy way, easy on the pocket, easy to put up and take down. I care to create pleasant atmospheres around the home by displaying interesting vignettes in different corners of each room. The most important thing is to find a theme, choose the colors, sculpt with various light levels and never leave corners in the dark.

Your Christmas can be anything you like and if this event is not in your belief, celebrate your life. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

It’s my hope that through my writing and my suggestions I am enriching your aesthetic sensibility towards design, style and inspiring you to live in beauty. I love to encourage my clients to show their personality through various expressions of décor, or the clothes they wear. I have loved my profession as an interior-fashion designer since 1990. I am here ready to offer consultations on-line if you need. Check out one of my books on the subject of colors, the third in line of my collection, ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors.
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The Road To Top Of The World, fourth book recently published is also available.
https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

Exceptional Colors in 2019 | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

01 Dec 2018 Leave a comment

Some things are not born together, perhaps are born in a different era or meant for different purposes and like magic, they look good together when I see them together.

This beaded collar with golden stones was born in the ’40s way before my time, I found it at an antique store, fell in love and brought it home with me. I have worn it ever since I spotted it, almost twenty years ago. I have worn it alone, over a white shirt, over an open generous décolletage, paired with other jewelry and lately with this ceramic face designed by a local artist. It seemed expensive twenty years ago, it was a frivolous buy, I have made so much use of it through the years that it is part almost of my everyday dressing up.

Beaded Vintage Choker

Trends to me mean nothing, it feels almost as if someone wants to pull me by the nose to make me do things their way. I use trends as guidelines and from there I make my own choices and style. In my TV show, you will see how I am using the 2019 colors dictated by the industry and how I steer away with my solutions.

My love for colors extends beyond the meaning of each color. It’s about the power, the vibration, the energy each one brings and how I can stay on track with harmony, health and internal peace using colors. Next year, I will start new seminars on these subjects and colors. For now, enjoy the video and visualize you in the new palettes I suggested. Your beginning next year should be fresher, renewed, unexpected for all reasons in the world, not because you need it. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

It’s my hope that through my writing I am enriching your aesthetic sensibility towards design, style and inspiring you to live in beauty. I love to encourage my clients to show their personality through their home décor, or the clothes they wear. I have loved my profession as an interior-fashion designer since 1990. I am here ready to offer consultations on-line if you need. Check out one of my books on the subject of colors, the third in line of my collection, ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Video by Valentina

Mid-Century All Over Again | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

01 Dec 2018 Leave a comment

It was just yesterday we wore hats and gloves sets, bright colors, belted pencil skirts and cigarette ankle length pants. Our homes reflected the same colors and boxy furniture, then called modernism filled the spaces. It was a total rebellion from the previous traditional style, a kind of self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expressions. New colorful gadgets and home technology inventions came out in 1950-60s. The advertisement of the era focused on making a woman’s life at home easier than ever, to allow her more time to dedicate to family, friends and social activities. The mid-century kitchens are still very modern today in terms of layout and design. I am so surprised to see that not much has changed except the choice of materials and colors.
This kitchen below could very well be one of the kitchens today with different colors, of course.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

I am wondering if the people of 1950-60s thought their furniture would become pieces of antiques in a short time of only 60 years. If they had kept it, today they would be valuable. A week ago, I visited a CB2 store, where I can find upscale modern furniture and this was exactly my consideration.

All the vignettes in the store incorporated the new retro mid-century style, colors of the new furniture collections are no longer so bright and abrasive as in the early original style, the shapes of the seating arrangements are a bit more round and everything seems to appeal to a younger population.

I love this semi-circular white maple desk by Brett Beldock.

Semi-circular desk by Brett Beldock

The Étagère is a classic of the era. This kind of furniture started as a set of open straight shelves for holding elegant tableware and vintage crystal decanters, with a cabinet at the base. It was a nice piece made to enjoy drinks. Later it became a bookshelf with shelves going in every direction.

Étagère

I sat on this ample leather Shell shaped chair, cognac color. This is a real beauty, comfortable, buttery soft, hand stitched, $2,000.

Shell Chair by Estudio Bola

This peacock-blue, feminine Récamier re-evoke the 19th-Century fainting chair. The corsets literally took women’ breath away. Now, we can just pretend to faint on a sofa lounge.

Récamier by Julia Von Werz

This year mid-century style is mostly about black and white, sleek, urban, minimalist with a faint interjection of brown and natural colors.

Round Table

Black Chair

Dining at CB2

And black is Christmas décor as well, this year. Christmas means many things to many people. It doesn’t have to be red, green and gold. A black Christmas décor is definitely not for me but I understand the sophistication of black.

CB2 Display

The logs on a leather carrier look really elegant and unless the fireplace is an existing one, grandfathered in, the logs will remain a decorative item due to the clean air conservation program many cities have adopted.

Leather Wood Holder

If Mid-Century is your style and you are thinking of upgrading your furniture, start your selection here. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola transforms and creates spaces realizing people’s dreams in homes, offices, interiors, and exteriors. She infuses your everyday living with a certain luxury without taking away a comfortable living. Valentina is well-known for bringing originality on any project and for thinking outside the box. Her interiors are not made with cookie cutters, only follow client’s inspiration, lifestyle, and personality. She offers online design consultations through Skype or Zoom and the traditional in-house consultations, helping people with their design challenge anywhere in the world. She is the author of four books. The latest newly published book is ©The Road To Top Of The World.
All books are available on all available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Image by Valentina

Horsefeathers | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

19 Nov 2018 2 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #AccessoriesCoordination, #HomeDecor, #OversizeAccessory, #VisualImpactDecor, #whimsicalDecor

In Europe, I was used to leaving the house, stroll the streets filled with many shops of a different kind, sit at a cafe or do window licking if I didn’t have anything to buy. Go out to walk at leisure, it’s the way of life in Europe. Shopping over there happens when people really need things, discounts come at the end of seasons, not every day, thus window shopping is a pastime. I love the feel and relationship I could create with small shoppe’s owners. However, due to the massive online buying convenience, even the structure of European streets is slowly changing and small stores are capitulating to online giant merchant corporations. A few days ago, in a networking event, I was telling a group of business women that the life of a designer doesn’t stop at 5:00 pm. Designers are in the constant “mode of searching” for clients. Sometimes, not all the accessories and artwork are in place when we finish a major remodeling or decorating. Choosing artwork is a very personal thing, is like choosing perfumes. Usually, at the end of a project, clients want to take care of their artwork selection, but if something is left open, we will keep an eye open for those details left to complete.

I just remembered this episode. I was walking in a small American town, doing window shopping and spending the afternoon of leisure with myself. Horsefeathers, I exclaimed! I spotted a huge wooden horse through the store window display selling Italian ceramics. The horse was placed in a dining area as a suggestion, I couldn’t help noticing it. It would have been perfect for the dining room in a client’s home. She liked horses and was looking for a gigantic one for her dining room, a type of playful horse, very whimsical, an icebreaker and a conversational piece. Why putting a horse in a dining room? Why not? The store must have read my mind. I took a picture, sent it to the client, told her the price and voila’ she got her horse.

(Click on the photo to view it larger)

This is just to say feel free to have an ordinary house, it’s your space, but if you want to have an extravagant, unusual and tasteful décor, the sky is the limit and nothing stops you from showing some personality, or whimsy. Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

It’s my hope that through my writing and my stories I am enriching your aesthetic sensibility towards design, style and inspiring you to live in beauty. I love to encourage my clients to show their personality through their home décor, or the clothes they wear. I have loved my profession as an interior-fashion designer since 1990. I am here ready to offer consultations on-line if you need. Check out my book on the subject of colors ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors, or my latest travel narrative: ©The Road To Top Of The World.
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

One Day In Albuquerque | Valentina Cirasola | Designer and Author

15 Nov 2018 4 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #AlbuquerqueArchitecture, #AlbuquerqueHistory, #AlbuquerqueMemories, #FilmingInAlbuquerque

I arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico on a Friday of last year for a speaking engagement the following Monday. I arrived earlier to be a tourist, get to know the area, take some photos, do some shopping and discover food. Discovering food in the world is my original thing to do when I go to new places, I want to know how and what people eat.
I discovered a cozy coffee shop where I could get my Italian style espresso coffee every morning for the time I planned to stay in Albuquerque. The day for me doesn’t start unless I have a couple of shots of electricity from the espresso. The coffee shop was next to an original French bistro and I thought it was well planned. In one establishment I would take espresso, in the other, I would have a nice French crêpe breakfast.

Albuquerque is a quiet town, not crowded even on working days, I admired the silence and totally enjoyed the colorful mural on city walls. Weekends are even quieter, not much goes on downtown, but something funny happened on that Saturday. On the opposite corner from the coffee shop, I noticed a white Gothic Revival architecture, a bit odd building to find propped there among the heavy South-Western style architecture. It is very white and stands out among all the brown and terracotta buildings. It is the Occidental Life Building, a historic 1924 office building. In that quadrilateral between the coffee shop and the odd white building, I noticed women in the streets wearing black burqa and men wearing either turbans or Keffiyeh. In the French bistro, some men were hanging pictures of the Ayatollah. This was so odd and very weird, but I kept minding my business.

(Photo Wikimedia by Camerafiend)

Something funny happened on that Sunday. I left my hotel and directed myself to the cafe’, but only a few steps away from the Occidental Life Building, I saw men in military uniforms with machine guns in their hands, the streets filled with a lot of women wearing a burqa, more men in turbans and streets blocked by militaries. I was so scared, I thought a coup d’état had happened overnight. Frantically, I took my iPhone, searched on Google and nothing, I searched on Facebook and nothing, I checked most of the news and no mention of war, no coup d’état, nor a military operation. Timidly, I approached one of the militaries to ask what was going on… I never have drawn such a deep sigh of relief like that moment. All those people in costumes were actors filming one of the TV episodes of The Brave, a show never knew existed.

(Tobias and Marcos – Actors)

I was told that the landscape of New Mexico and especially Albuquerque is so generic that makes a good place to film any subject. Hollywood, in fact, has had a good presence there for many films through decades and still continues.

I had never heard or seen The Brave TV series, I was curious to learn about it, and perhaps see in action my two new friends, Tobias and Marcos the extras in the film. I watched it a couple of times and soon forgot about it. The series is too violent for my taste, but the picture with my friends in military clothes remains a good memory.

I can still remember how I felt that day, the sun was high in the sky but my heart was very dark, I felt the agitation inside of me, I feared to lose my freedom, I felt helpless, I felt trapped, I was restless for three-four days after this episode and a year later, I am still talking about it, I will never forget it. Often, we take for granted what we have, our freedom has no price, let’s keep it that way.
This post is dedicated to my friend #TeaganGeneviene https://teagansbooks.com who is trying to relocate to New Mexico, maybe she will find some movie set to write about it. Ciao,
Valentina
www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola is a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. She is the author of four books, all available on
Amazon – http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w
The latest book just published is The Road To Top Of The World – https://tinyurl.com/y7tuyfh8

Craving Rich Purples | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

03 Nov 2018 2 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #2019Colors, #BerryColors, #PantoneColors, #PurpleToneColors

Welcome to November Friday Fashion new episode.
I knew in this 2019 coming year, colors take inspiration from food. With all the talk of organic, farm to table food, slow food movement and colorful food to help balance or activate the chakras, I was waiting for some of those colors to reach our fashion and our interiors. It will be fun to see raspberry and all the berry colors combined soft pinks, saffron, salmon, chocolate and a light green just to refresh the beautiful warm colors of 2019. Now, we can focus on the memory of food and the sensory experience we have with real heartwarming foods and transfer those experiences in out clothes.
Ultra Violet continues to rule not alone but with rich gold, brandy color, camel color, and tan color.

roksolana-zasiadko-i07ss4dGzIo-unsplash

Photo: Roksolana Zasiadko – Unsplash

Combine all berry colors as you like. Add coffee, chocolate, caviar, gold, and some amethyst dust.
Purple increases intuition, it calms psychological disorders, balances physical and spiritual energies. For these reasons has been called the “color of wisdom”.

Enough of minimalism, these are glorious colors, let’s make our clothes in 2019 filled with timeless opulence and bring to light our femininity and power.

Ciao,
Valentina
Fashion Services
https://valentinadesigns.com/services/#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style surrounded her since the beginning of her life. Her many years of experience led her to offer consultations in both specializations and now she can remodel homes as well as personal images. She is passionate about colors and encourages her clients to express their individual style in their homes and with the clothes they wear. To better help people all over the world, she offers consultations online. She is the author of four books. Get your copy of Valentina’s book on colors: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w