I can be anything my heart tells me to be... I'll be Frida Kahlo today

I have always loved Frida Kahlo's free spirit.  Her style in clothes and hair spoke openly and freely of the woman she was.  She rejected fashion, and it didn't matter where she went—NY, London, Paris, she always wore the style that captured her deeply felt connection with her creative heart.  Her style told the story of how she made clothes part of her identity.  They were much more than the sum of their fabric.  Her brightly colored garments then, seemed impossibly bold even among Mexico's society.

Embroidered dresses, bright pink boots, cat’s eye sunglasses, I love them all.  Her clothes, the flowers in her hair and bold, beautiful jewels speak of a woman who dressed to please no one but herself.  how could you not fall in love with her?

Long long time ago I decided I can be anything my heart tells me to be...  

so today, I am Frida Kahlo...

(if only for an afternoon in my backyard ) ;)

I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of ‘madness’. Then: I’d arrange flowers, all day long, I’d paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: Poor thing, she’s crazy! (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else’s – my madness would not be an escape from ‘reality’ – Frida Kahlo

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world, but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you – Frida Kahlo

To feel the anguish of waiting for the next moment and of taking part in the complex current (of affairs) not knowing that we are headed toward ourselves, through millions of stone beings – of bird beings – of star beings – of microbe beings – of fountain beings toward ourselves. – Frida Kahlo

I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better. – Frida Kahlo 

Several years ago, The Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City finally opened Frida Kahlo’s closet and put it on view for the world to see.  Frida's clothes and personal things were put in storage by her husband Diego after her death, and hidden for 59 years.  Trunks filed with dresses, shawls, and accessories were finally opened, restored and put on display.  Can you imagine? The clothes of a style icon finally opened 59 years after her death? Inside were not only articles of her clothing but hundreds of personal items, including photographs, love letters, medications, jewelry and shoes. The curator, Circe Henestrosa, talks about how emotional it was for her staff to open up Kahlo’s closet to see the dresses, to smell them, and even to see all of the medicines she took. “You feel them, like the essence,” she says. As a lover of old things and another Frida admirer, I can only imagine how exciting and awe inspiring this must have been.

This video is worth seeing...

 

Do you love Frida's style?
Her paintings?
Do share!