About Rediscovering the Things you Love.

I wanted to introduce you to one of my employers! I've been writing weekly columns for the Swedish fashion magazine Sofis mode since the fall of 2008, so almost three years now. This past year I've also featured one inspiring fashion blogger in every issue, sometimes replaced by a "blogger city guide", where a fashion blogger who lives in an interesting city shares all of her favorite spots, night clubs, restaurants, galleries, museums, bars, cafés - and of course, shopping! - with our readers.

Yesterday, the magazine was relaunched after getting a wonderful makeover. So now it's thicker, with amazing layout, and it's going to be published every two weeks instead of every week. In every other issue, the city guide and blogger feature will be combined, which I think is great - if you get a blogger's own guide to her city, of course you want to know more about her as well!

In this first new and improved issue, I featured the stunning blogger Martina of Danny Rose Fashion, and her guide to her home town Prague.

Yeah, well, this is what my columns look like! (Though I take a new photo every time, of course.)

By some weird coincidence, my column this week is actually sort of on the same subject as in yesterday's outfit post - about how before I started this blog, I rarely put any effort into my outfits, but basically dressed the same every day. It takes place at the very moment when I decided I needed a change, to try and find my way back to the person I used to be before my life took a new direction. The very moment I had the idea to start this blog, really.

I did my best to translate it for you, and remember, don't be hatin' just 'cause my English ain't perfect, eh?

Oh wow, this one! And this one… and that.

I’m sitting on our crooked hardwood floor, rediscovering what used to be my style. Unpacking one cardboard box after the other, all brimfull of clothes I’d forgotten I own. High heels and colorful patterns, tulle skirts, faux fur and velvet, skin tight jeans and sequins, sequins, sequins.

If someone had decided to compare the content of my wardrobe with that of these boxes, no way the idea would cross her mind that it might all belong to the same person. The items now covering the floor have nothing what so ever to do with the plain tops, shirts and loose cotton pants I’ve worn daily during the last year.

Still, there’s no doubt that all these brightly colored, playful garments are mine. Now that I think of it, I clearly remember packing them - late nights in our tiny sublet apartment in the city; how I imagined soon hanging them all neatly on white hangers in our very own house.

And there it is, the realization: oh, right. I used to really enjoy this. You know, this whole… fashion thing.

But something changed.

Maybe it’s all very simple. A move, way out into the countryside where noone complains if you’re keeping your pyjama pants on all day long (hey, you’re going back to bed in a few hours anyway!). A best friend who loves beautiful clothes and who’s laying in a hospital bed, saying: Annika, isn’t it strange. How we search for and spend all this money on the loveliest dresses, only to one day realize that we won’t ever get to wear them again.

I bought an expensive black dress from Stylein to wear at her funeral. October, that was. Since then, I just haven’t been able to find a reason to go shopping. Not that I’d have to – I’d just have to open one of the countless moving boxes marked ”Annika’s clothes” and dig in. But I didn’t. I guess I didn’t really see the point.

Maybe I still don’t. But the boxes are empty now. And sitting in a huge pile of shiny, sparkly and silky stripes, flowers and polka dots, I must admit my greasy pyjama bottoms are starting to seem like a pretty boring outfit choice.

Hmm. What if… what if I should go wash my hair? Put some lipstick on. I do have the day off and couldn’t I, hypothetically, go into Stockholm and have a cup of coffee with someone I haven’t seen in a while? Yeah. I guess I could.

And while I’m at it, I might just as well pick out something from this pile and put it on. Something I used to feel sort of pretty in.

Maybe even something sequined.