Home made Love: Red Abaya and Tassel Earrings

This past week I traveled to New York City for a lovely tea party honoring two amazing bloggers, my beautiful and insanely stylish friend Jean from Dross Into Gold and the adventurous and eclectic Judith from Style Crone. I was so honored to be invited by Jean for this amazing party hosted by designer and artist Carol Markel of Femme et Fleur.

This is the outfit I put together for the party.  Photos were taken by my husband Anthony in New York at a park near where we were staying. Love looking at these and remembering the aura of New York (miss it!!).

I had been contemplating making this linen dress that has been in my head for months and I finally had an excuse to go ahead and make it. I was trying to decide on a color before I found out about the party and once I knew I was going I had to go with red. Red is just a color I am always in love with, my couch is red and I love red lipstick! The color of passion. My mom sort of held my hand throughout the process of cutting out the shape and how to put it together because I only ever made one thing before this dress. The design was simple enough though, and I just had to put in the time. It came out pretty well for my second ever creation. It's interesting that I made it with my mom because it almost felt like a Abaya or Kaftan arab dress inspired by her motherland Lebanon. The head wrap style and accessories echoed the feeling. I felt amazing in it and it kept me cool in the heat without sacrificing the more modest look I feel most confident in. I styled it with some earrings I also made on the bus ride into New York. I started making these tassel earrings last summer but it felt like the perfect time to finish them up to go with this dress. Talk about last minute, but I'm happy I went ahead and made them. I missed the feeling of creating things you imagine in a more tactile way. Hope you enjoy this summer look!

I will post some pics from the party up next. I had an amazing time and loved seeing Jean, meeting Judith, Carol and the many fabulous women I will gush about in my next post. Stay tuned!

Linking this post with Judiths June Hat Attack on her blog Style Crone. Happy headwear art!

XO
Feda

Outfit Details:
Headwrap: White Tassel Scarf from H&M  (recent purchase so you should find it there)
Dress: handmade
Earrings: Handmade/Upcycled- silver piece was from an earring set I was gifted- from Spain
Rings- all collected over the years.
Afghan large stone rings are from Avizeh Jewelry
Silver Filigree ring from Zamarut Jewel
Bag & Shoes- TJ Maxx a few years ago

Badass Frida

"I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you."
Frida Kahlo

So I've been taking this awesome class called Photographing People at New England School of Photography and we have assignments every week based on a different theme. I couldn't help but do a self portrait for this particular assignment where we had to reinterpret an iconic image. I have always been very intrigued by Frida, the way she expressed through clothing and art and also because we share similar names! I knew right away when we got the assignment I wanted to do Frida. I started doing some research on her to just get a better feel for things and ended up spending days reading about her life. I was in awe at her ability to channel pain and raw emotions into self portraits. I was also fascinated with her transformation into the iconic image we know of her today. I found out Frida was half German and born Frieda, later changing her name to Frida. As a teen she actually experimented with men's clothing and wore modern clothing of her time period up until she met Diego who influenced her to reconnect with her Mexican roots. In many ways she dressed that way for him because he loved seeing her in the cultural clothing of Mexico. After their divorce (later remarried him) she cut off all her hair to spite him. The styling I did was inspired by the masculine and feminine traits she explored both in her clothing and spirit. I feel like if she were reincarnated she would be pretty ‬bad ass so I did a black lip to show a modern take. I stripped the color out of the flowers and clothing and wore a men's button up shirt (Thanks Anthony!). The background color was inspired by an image I love of her in front of a dark turquoise wall. I really love how it came to life. Channeling her into a personal self portrait was pretty 😎

I wanted to put this up as I haven't posted in a while! If you follow me on Instagram (which you should!) you may have seen it already. I've been editing client work and keeping busy in a good way with some fun shoots I can't wait to share! I hope to get back to documenting some of my outfits on here though.

XO
Feda/Frida for this post at least :)

Papaya! Collaboration Photos!

SO happy to finally share these on here! I was so honored to collaborate with Papaya! on this creative adventure. It was an experiment on both ends coming together and seeing what happens. These self portraits are inspired by the colors and positive affirmations that I resonated with in Artist Anahata Katkins beautiful artwork. I played off the teals, pinks, reds mainly in the pieces when styling this shoot. Of course I had to add flowers which I love and see floating everywhere in her artwork. The beautiful leaves were added by Papaya for their lookbook which you can check out on their site called Temple Rose! Love how it came together in the end and hope you enjoy them too!

XO

Feda

Turquoise Summer

I have been basically living in this maxi dress and lightweight cotton top all summer. It keeps me cool and breezy and it's soo comfy. The necklace I put together with a pendant I found at my local craft store. I painted the center with my turquoise nail polish! I love the ornate details in it. I'm not big on the evil eye/hand protection theories but I love the symbol of the hand.

Little Birthday Adventures

I turned 26 (July 22nd)! It feels older...a little.. but man I'm glad my early 20's are OVER. I had some cookoo times in my life in my early 20's, lets just leave it at that :) I feel like you grow into your own skin more as you get older. You feel more confident and able to be YOU despite what others think you SHOULD be. I'm loving nurturing my inner being, doing things I was always afraid to do, going after and pursuing my goals and feeling the LOVE. Here's some words of wisdom I have learned over the years taken from my pinterest.

Sooo...for my birthday I decided to pierce my nose. I had been staring at pictures for some time and decided I would wait until my birthday to do it. I read reviews online for different places in Boston but ended up going with Stingray in Allston. The piercer was friendly and the place and equipment was clean. I picked out a little turquiose stud as the ring because I'm on a turquoise/aqua kick lately. It did hurt when it was going in, I won't lie, but it was over in like 10 seconds. It has healed nicely so far and was only a bit sore for the fist few days. I really lovee my nose ring!

Afterwards I went out for a date/dinner with Anthony at our favorite veggie place in chinatown Buddhas (called My Tai Cafe now but I never liked the name change). I was starving from fasting all day so I could only take so many pictures but here's a few snaps from the night.

Have a beautiful day!!
All my love,
Feda

Rebirth

Through the grit and grain in our lives we embrace our imperfections, challenge our fears, and emerge from our cocoons the butterflies we were meant to be.

These were taken a few months ago on a trip to Cape Cod with my family. Will be posting some pictures from that trip in my next post. I wanted to share these because they really represent to me a feeling of rebirth or transformation that I've been going through. I'm posting these on my birthday in honor of these changes. I've been overcoming a lot of my personal and business related fears. Letting go and feeling more refreshed and light because of these changes. I'm feeling really excited to start a new. This year has been already so rich in growth for me with my project life series.  (I know I'm behind on posting some project life photos but I really needed a break from it! I update more frequently on instagram so please follow me there @fedfooda. I also tend to share more personal photos and stories on there for all you nosy people ;) ) I'm excited to challenge myself, make mistakes, and most of all learn from them and grow!

Hope you are all well and for those of you who are Muslim, Ramadan Mubarak!

Much love to you all,
Feda

Photos of me were taken by my lovely sister Neda. All edited by me.