Up in my lonely room when I'm dreaming of you

Soooo here I am again. Breakfast was nice, my guy and me always have a nice sunday breakfast with fresh rolls and a boiled egg. It is one of those traditions I have had since childhood. My father used to work abroad for a few weeks and then return home for about a week, and whenever he was home, it felt like 7 days of weekend: having a perfectly yummy breakfast with the entire family (mom, dad, two brothers, a sister and me), and we all contributed to the awesome work that goes into preparing food for a large group of people, among who 2 teenagers who could eat and eat. We boiled entire trays of eggs, squeezed bags of oranges, ate dozens of sandwiches and had two fridges filled with food. Dinner was an equally ambitious undertaking: we had huge saucepans for our spaghetti bolognese and whenever we made any type of oven dish, we had 2 ovens baking at the same time just to be able to cook enough food! Having a big(ish) family is something that requires lots of energy and improvisation, and the house always was too small for all of us, especially when I got in my teenage years and started fighting with my brothers. But it also meant being a tightly knit group of people, playing video games together, having my brothers introduce me to amazing music and films I would not have picked up myself as a 13 year old (which doesn't mean I didn't watch Footloose 8 times. One day I'd watch cinematographic history in the form of a Kubrick, the next I'd swoon over Kevin Bacon), having heated discussions on politics and culture and learning that we all had to do our work to make our family function. I vacuumed the living room when I was 11, or cleaned the chicken pen. My brothers made our roof leakage-proof when they were still in their teens. We were all very hands-on, and while I hated it back then because I was a lazy teenager, I thank my parents for it today. I can fight my own battles, and they taught me how to have my own opinions and be rational and critical. Right now, my family lives all over the place: one brother in Arkansas, one in Holland, my dad on the other side of the country, me a half an hour drive away from my mom and baby sister. But mutual history keeps being an indestructable bond.

Ok, that had nothing at all to do with fashion, but I feel like my parents made me the person I am today, and the person I am today influences the way I dress. My mom and dad used to have a clothes shop back in the motherland (The Netherlands :D) and they have always been very style-conscious. This love for style and beautiful things (their shop was accordingly named "something beautiful for yourself", in Dutch ofcourse), along with their devil-may-care hippie slash bohemien attitude made me not care about what society expects of you, be it in terms of appearance or in terms of dispositions. I'm me and I can make up my own mind about what I think is right/beautiful. I live in a tiny village in rural Belgium, but I am not at all afraid to wear crazy stuff out. I won't be confined to sweatpants!

Does your background have any influence on the way you dress or the way you approach fashion?

shirt, headband, ring: h&m

shorts: diesel cutoffs

wedges: texto

flower ring: alex monroe