Recently on a trip to Northen Ireland, I discovered a place in Ballycastle, called Giants causeway; a broken basalt concrete path. A term that highly resonates with me. Having recently graduated, I was feeling displaced, lost and completely vulnerable.
I’m sure you have all heard of post graduation blues? That swallowing feeling of existentialism … sinking into crushing hopelessness, questioning everything.
‘If am not a student any more…. Then who am I… what am I ?’ I wondered, musing in a beaten up denim jacket and a beanie hat in the middle of summer.
Exclusive to the unprepared millennial and naïve to the boomer’s, pressure to find out just who you are and what you ‘do’ has never been so pressing.
Whilst others, trotted off to celebrate their graduate status’ in party resorts like Ibiza, I some how found myself in Ballycastle… Northern Ireland, pondering like an age old Romanticist before acknowledging sublimity… ‘who the f***k am I?’
They say an important part of making the causeway is to: ‘Turn on the weather, carve a valley and let plants grow.”
But… how could a plant grow from a broken concrete path? Then, I realized that Tupac said flowers grow from the concrete. I feel like now, I am that flower beneath the concrete, the misplaced self, carving a path in the darkness to let my inner plant grow.
In light of flowers and floral themes, and letting flowers grow I turn to this season’s bold florals. I love how they take sweet, ditsy granny prints and explode them into bold statement bloomed floral prints. This season’s prints show a side that is anything but vulnerable and ditsy. S/SS17 are all for the 1980’s aesthetic with an empowered twist. An example is these prints by Altuzarra and Anna Sui.
These florals seem to me to be concrete florals, the toughened up twist on the timeless floral. Toughening up seems to be an inevitable part of life; as Jessica alba says in an interview with cosmopolitan ‘I’m very sensitive and so I think I’ve developed a pretty hard exterior. Early on, I developed a thick skin…just in life; I needed to build that armor.’
Alba to me, is a prime example of a toughened up flower, after having been told that she wasn’t meaningful, especially as a woman of color, Alba is now a successful actress, business mogul, and Girl Boss.
Are you a concrete flower? what are some of the hardest moments you had to carve for your self before fully blossoming? Leave a comment or like if you’re a concrete flower.
Till then, my loves xo
Tatiana,
P.S have you seen Miley Cyrus’ new song Malibu? Another example of a Miley who famously lost her way has returned as blooming as ever, especially in this interview, how cute are her florals here?
Nyah-Rose. 