But in the April 23 edition of the Kyiv Post, I came across an article by staff writer Yuliya Popova, which I couldn’t but agree with. It was about the way Ukrainians dress, about our Ukrainian fashion. While reading the article, I recognized some of my personal opinions and persuasions.
As I make my way from home to the university, I meet lots of women. What really makes me happy is that all of them try to look bright yet different. They follow fashion and care about their appearance. They wear makeup, have their nails and hair done. They form a society where we respect etiquette standards and requirements.
I’m happy to know that women in Ukraine devote time to themselves, to their appearance and to self-development. But there are also negative features in all that glamour.
First of all, women often try to look unique. But the truth is different. Their clothes are the same style, distinguished only by color. The type of jeans they all wear is the same too. Can’t you see the paradox here? They try to be different but they end by all being the same!
In my opinion, this happens because ladies believe in fashion too much. I mean they wear the same boots they’ve seen in a store don’t even try to create their own original style. They trust their stores too much to wear something different – something that wasn’t featured on fashion glam pages.
High fashion should not determine all the clothes we wear. It only gives us some general imagination about stylish clothes in this or that season. Designers only point out what’s hot this season in terms of colors and outlines. But if some of the colors from the Italian catwalks don’t suit people, why do they still wear it? Often such fashion addicts just look funny and awkward.
Second of all, lots of stylish Ukrainian girls are elegant and posh only on the outside. What I mean is that it’s quite common to find less glamour on the inside compared to the image of tender beauty and shine they wear.
For instance, few chic women can impress you with deep knowledge in any sphere or even good manners. I don’t mean that every beautiful woman has to be very clever. But I’m sure that you have to find at least one thing you have in common with her, to discuss it, to make the center of your conversation.
I believe that beauty is more than skin deep.
I see lots of fashionable ladies with cigarettes in their hands daily. I also often see those girls with a bottle of beer or wine sitting on a bench in a park with bad-mannered young men. At first glance, they don’t match. But then I realize that they are, in fact, a perfect match in terms of their intellectual abilities.
Any time you take public transport, you see lots of blond women. Again, at a first glance, this Marilyn Monroe trend is lovely. But, if you look carefully you see that the blond hair is in very bad condition. It seems tired of constant experiments, of being died different colors and hues. The nails look too artificial. Their skin is also in poor condition because of the lifestyles they lead. Bad nutrition, constant cigarette smoke and so on make these amazing women wilt too young, too fast.
I’m very sorry for those, who couldn’t recognize their astonishing natural beauty.
Beauty, in my mind, can be corrected a bit. I try to create my own style which really makes me feel confident. Identical looks eliminate our individualities, our unique outlooks on life.
I hope that in a few years glam girls will realize that glam is not what you seem, it’s what you are.
Angelina Overchuk is a student at the International Economic Department of the Kyiv National Vadym Hetman Economic University. She also works in Kyiv as a translator and copywriter. She can be reached at [email protected].
