#CasualFashion | Valentina Expressions

Looking For Fashion Vibes

03 Mar 2023 6 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #CasualFashion, #Fashion, #PastelColors, #SpringFashion, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor, #ValentinaCirasolaFashionDesigner

Roaming around one of the most fashionable zone in my area left me disappointed. After all the heavy rain, I was looking forward to seeing new Spring fashion and vibrant colors to give me fresh vibes, but I returned home empty hands. Shop windows showed no creativity in visual display and didn’t encourage me to go in and browse. The colors of the clothes hanging lifeless on mannequins were so drab, the shapes resembled pajamas or house robes and the style….what can I say….I would bury it at the bottom of the sea.

While I was walking in this fashionable area, I envisioned Via Condotti in Rome, or Via Montenapoleone in Milan. There, the streets of fashion are stylish, colorful and people dress as they are ready for a photo shoot in a fashion magazine. They stroll with poise and coquetry with the intent to be seen and be admired. A long trail of perfume follows them, they wear original jewelry and the well thought out outfits are the elements that makes each one of them unique. Italy is always Italy and will always be the top for fashion, perhaps I expect too much from other countries.

The fact remains that I have to make triple summer salt to find what I like. Boutiques, family-owned stores and various other stores, not just fashion stores are closing steadily since the economic recession in 2008, forcing everyone to buy online items poorly made in China that often don’t fit or are defected and have to be returned. In fact, the streets of every satellite town around the main cities in America are lined with nail salon, hair dressers, restaurants and bistros, nothing else. Perhaps, this is the government design…..

My day of window shopping or window licking as the French say it, was unfruitful. Looking for fashion vibes didn’t happen, I better continue making things the way I like. I returned home without any fashion items, but with a few pictures of the environment, flowers, food, architecture and curiosity. Give me your thoughts, please. Is it important to you get dressed everyday as it is for me or a simple sweatsuit will do? Ciao,

Valentina
My books on Amazon

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Doors To Wildlife

13 May 2022 15 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #BassStore, #CasualFashion, #NaturalLiving, #NaturalProducts, #OutdoorActivities, #OutdoorSports

A friend invited me to this American place, she was sure I was going to like to see the wildlife. Wildlife lives outdoor, I thought, why are we going to a place with a door? Why didn’t she call it a zoo?
We approached an impressive sturdy wood door with antlers as the door pulls, the building didn’t show as the structure was surrounded by large rocks. I remember the cement floor had amusing imprints of bear paws and fish stenciled on the cement as directions for people. A small bridge with cascading water and real birds bathing in the water gave a pleasant feeling to the shopping centre, as if I was somewhere in the mountain for real. Well, I thought if the outside looks so natural, the inside of this place will be just as attractive.

The vestibule that divided the outer door to the street and the interior door to the store made me smile: “Welcome fishermen, hunters and other liars”.

Inside, the animals on display seemed to be real and embalmed. My impression of this place? It seemed like a taxidermy museum with clothes for sale, quite interesting and amusing.
The entire shopping centre is dedicated to natural activities, organic products, outdoor sports equipment, organic or fusion food, fish restaurants and it has been designed with symbols of nature.

I think by now, most of you living in the States have recognized this place is the Bass Store, of which some major states have at least one branch, I am sure.
Dan Antion is the organizer of the Thursday Door Challenge.
Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon’s Author Page

Colors Matter | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

07 Apr 2017 Leave a comment

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #BlueandCharteuse, #BoldFashion, #CasualFashion, #ColorTalk, #DressWithChartreuse, #HowToCombineChartreuse

Welcome to a Friday Fashion episode.

The question is always: black clothes or color clothes? The answer for me is always color clothes and I will never stop saying this, people wearing black, to my eyes, look as if they are mourning their life.

The youth of today prefers black as the uniform of the century and they wear it 24/7. The youth of today want to fit in the crowd and don’t much care to be original. The youth of today follows a current common to all and want to be approved by their peers who all wear the same style and the same colors, black, grey and beige.

Then, there is the crowd of adults who falls in the same category of the “army of people dressed in black” as I call them. They think black is elegant, easy to wear and slimming.
True, black is elegant, especially for evening events and glitz, in the day light it take energy away.
True, black is easy to wear, because it doesn’t need any thinking or artistic skills to match it with something else and more black items. It’s also easy to wear because it doesn’t show any dirt….
As far as slimming….. it will work if you believe it …. Black doesn’t receive or reflect light, thus a large person dressed in black looks like a dark large box. (Click on each photo to view it larger).

In my life, I never wanted to fit in. I dress in all colors, I put on what I like and looks good on me, regardless of fashion rules of the moment. I don’t paste myself with well-known signatures to feel important or rich. My everyday clothes are colorful, smart and stylish, enough to push two guys working in a grocery store to talk about my colors for an unusual long time, even disregarding the line building up behind me. One was a cashier, the other one helped bagging the grocery.

They were dressed in black, both had faces decorated with rings and tattoo covering arms and necks. They smiled and greeted me, I smiled back. They looked and kept looking, I smiled and kept smiling.
Then the cashier guy unexpectedly bursted in compliments. It seemed everything on me had caught their attention. They described my blue sunglasses (from Sorrento, Italy) like a blue sky on my face. They couldn’t believe such bright green apple pants combined with the night blue crocheted sweater was matching so well. It was almost like going through an x-ray machine, they scanned everything I had on and declared I was the best dressed woman passing in front of their eyes that day.
I thought I was only dressed casually for grocery, what would they say if they seen me really dressed for an occasion….

The conversation evolved from my colorful fashion to my colorful food and what I was going to cook with the items I bought. The guys were truly surprised that I had crocheted my sweater and I could cook as well.
Well, I will leave this last issue to a different post on Lost Art.

Front side – https://www.etsy.com/shop/ValentinaExpressions

Back side – https://www.etsy.com/shop/ValentinaExpressions

This only tells me one think: if these guys see an army of people dressed in black, gray and beige, day in and day out, what is there to be excited? The same would be in offices, in the street and any other place. Then, someone trots along with color energy, suddenly people smile, feel happy and inclined to start a friendly conversation. It means colors open people’s eyes wide and wake them up from the sedated colors they see every day.

Fashion should be fun and invigorating, it should give us confidence to express ourselves, it should make people smile and wanting to admire us.
Be a leader with a contagious personality. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

I am Valentina, a trained Fashion and Interior Designer, born in Italy in a family of artists. Style has surrounded me since the beginning of my life. My many years of experience in design business led me to offer consultations in both fashion and interiors, so much so that I can remodel homes as well as personal images. I am passionate about colors and I encourage my clients to express their individual style in their homes and with the clothes they wear. I am the author of three books, one of which is a book on color theory: ©RED-A Voyage Into Colors available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w