Dear Reader,
when I was young, I collected books, mainly history and politics – and books about beauty. At the age of 11, I experimented with cucumber face masks and home-made creams.
I adored jewellery, but naturally couldn’t afford it. I loved to stand in front of jewellers display windows and dragged my friends along who (more or less) good-natured followed.
At the age of 17, I went on my first longer holiday alone with a friend to all the northern Italian cities, down to Tuscany, to Florence and Siena. In Florence, jeweller’s Ponte Vecchio got me hooked. I noted my interests in beauty might be a bit more intense than other people’s when one evening we had to cross the river for a restaurant and I said “oh great, let’s take Ponte Vecchio” and my friend said firmly “NO! I don’t want to need another 50 minutes AGAIN to cross the river because you run from one window to the next!!”
I had been totally oblivious that not everybody did this.
It took a while – and a job – to come from collecting history books and for-free-catalogues with beautiful fashion on their pages, to buying art books. Books about the most ravishing collections worldwide, the stuff none of us will ever own, except in dreams. The book collection extended to style, travel and fashion (and various combinations of the 3).
At the same time, I started collecting perfumes and making trips to countries far-away myself.
I was very lucky in life.
My position in one of Europe’s leading multinational companies (in a field totally different from what I write about here) gave me the chance to see the world. Before Corona, I criss-crossed the globe from Bolivia to Mongolia, from Iceland to Australia. I have seen breath-taking beauty and bitter poverty on my trips.
One does not have to travel to the far end of the world to find beauty and inspiration, though, because it is all around us. I guess that is the reason why I started writing about things that make me smile.
If you have any feedback, please write me: info@oneeyedleopard.com
Yours, Consigliere Bellezza