Wine & Pearls

We women, always always try to look tougher than we are. À la Olivia Pope, suppressing the emotions from our facial expressions when everything goes wrong and pretending our lives are all wine and pearls. Because nowadays, it is all about being a badass, a boss lady, someone who doesn’t let her heart overrule anything because oh well, we all know how that always ends. We grow a collection of “#GirlBoss” books, we watch the shows to emulate the behavior of someone that got her shit together like no other but wait until the crowd is gone to release this whole lot amount of emotions we have buried inside. Three years after starting Persian Brunette, I realize that this has been an idea that have been coming back many many times. Be confident, Be fearless, Be a badass. I now pose in front of the camera with a certain attitude and say fuck it to everything, maybe because I have realized that is what people expect me to be sometimes. This is what people expect us, women, to be. I would love to tell you that I am in fact like the girl you see in Instagram squares, that it all comes so easy when you work hard and that you believe that everything will turn out the way you want. I would love to tell you that I have never let nobody make me feel bad about myself, that my heart has been broken but I have recovered like a champ. But that would be lying. At that point, it felt important to remind you and myself, that I’m still here. As fucking flawed as the first day but with higher skills to hide my vulnerability. I spent so many years believing that there is this one person that will make you feel like you own the world, that you are invincible, that you are the best version of yourself. I believed I found that person and I have loved so much while feeling insane for holding on to these feelings at the same time. Because I wasn’t entitled to feel this, because anyone else would have given up considering the conditions, because someone can’t have such an impact on you, because life had clearly made its choice. I perceived what everybody else called my strength to be my weakness to finally learn that nobody should make you feel bad about something as powerful as love, and I am glad that the women of my life were the light that made me see things clearly. See, we put so much importance in finding that one guy without realizing that the women of our lives are just as important as he is. I am a lucky girl, there are so many different versions of Olivia Pope in my circle; women that empower me everyday by sharing their singularity, their ambitions and their struggles with me. I recognize Olivia in myself too: there is this whole duality about me that has grown over time where I hold the powerful vulnerability of love in one hand and the fire of a badass in the other. We all have that bit of wine and pearls within our hearts as we women, are so human yet so powerful all at once. Don’t ever be ashamed of what you hold in both hands as it is the one synergy that makes  you a boss lady.   

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TODAY I’M WEARING: SHEIN dress // ZARA blazer // STEVE MADDEN sandals

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 All pictures by Darius Boustantchi