In this maiden edition of the RICARDA Journal’s ‘Digest’ - brief notes about fashion, people, travel, interiors and other possibly delightful interests - we feature our convictions that life should be lived in a manner that takes itself none too seriously.

 

Fashion: In-Between

The world moves along its constant orbit and we find wherever we may be, our days shifting themselves into warmer or cooler temperatures. Caught between these moments of seasonal transitions, are our settled routines of dress. We’re thrown into a slight state of disarray as newer re-considerations about layers or to make do with a lack thereof, reveal themselves - some things just cannot be for everything when weathers are in flux.

Facing up to this task requires an embrace of resilience with a measured balance of sophistication and utilitarian practicality. The much mused about British fashion editor, Camilla Nickerson, manages as such with a deft gesture of tying tailored jackets or coats ever so nonchalantly by her waist. The way a structured garment becomes transformed into a delicate thing, to cling almost desperately onto lithe hips, emphasises itself as a cerebral act that finds root in a sensibility displaying confidence in irreverence.

 

People: Greta Gerwig

The hour has arrived for Greta Gerwig - who recently related her past 10 years of working in film as being her version of the mythical ‘10,000 hours’. Quite undoubtedly in this moment, the reigning representative queen of women who live on the course of a tangent. She's achieved this by way of completing an artistic trifecta of having acted, written and now directed in film. It’s a unique position for Gerwig considering the momentous period we find ourselves in regarding women working in the film industry. This, in light of the succession of films whose stories shine on resilient women driving serious agendas that have independence from tired stereotypical arcs about romance: Three Billboards, Star Wars, Wonder Woman.

Yet if those stories hinged on cataclysmic events, Gerwig’s filmography of enigmatic women depict a certain strength out of trying to settle life’s minutiaes in relationships, paying rent, or the uncertainty of work. A counterbalancing cast who manifest awkwardly eloquent monologues - poignant in their wistful observations. Most beloved of them all, is Frances Ha. A New York-based struggling dancer but in one magic scene, there she appears suddenly, twirling balletically down the Big Apple’s gritty streets to the tune of David Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’.

Oh to be so wild and so free.

 

Travel: Child's Play

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The voyages we make to cities and landscapes of a thousand miles away, as immersions into the unfamiliar are at once, journeys of self-discovery. Where beyond the reach of our closer radiuses, dispersed along vast geographies, are diversely rich cultures to experience and learn from. Growth arrives from humbling realisations that our local lives have their limitations and need the enrichments of other languages, customs, cuisines and climates. Thus, we may learn to be better versions of ourselves just by learning different ways to be.

Yet if these fleeting travels deepen our sense of selves through engaging with the broader world and its histories, then it may be as well, ideal space and time for us to reflect back to our own histories. As much as we travel to destinations, self-discovery may also find itself in travelling into the past. Think of childhood memories of travel and their more innocent itineraries, such curious games did some of us play; hide and seek at the art museum; bed-jumping in hotel rooms; and as a particularly Parisian souvenir, running down the River Seine with arms outstretched as human airplanes.

What we may learn here is to embrace the joy and sweetness of liberation in being a child again - a manner of kindness to ourselves that we not forget who we’ve been along our ways of life.