The secret to Audrey Hepburn’s timeless style and magic

There’s so much to say about the greatest style icon in history. This is why I’ve written two articles about her style and her humanitarian work. Today would have been Audrey Hepburn’s 92nd birthday. Her style was timeless and she’ll probably always be the biggest style icon there ever was.

I believe what made Audrey Hepburn so enchanting was that she had much grace, integrity and a strong sense of self. As film star in Hollywood’s golden era, she changed the landscape in the 1950s by being herself, instead of playing up to the unsavoury narrative which most women were subjected to at that time. She enjoyed the glamour but she never seemed vain about fashion. The clothes did not define her. Instead, she brought a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to her outfits. She presented herself with a lot of empathy for people and authenticity which compounded her style and made her even more memorable. She was simply who she was. Her integrity is what torpedoed her style into timeless, iconic status. And it’s the reason that the magic of Audrey Hepburn is still just as fresh as it was in the 1950s.

There’s a major lesson to learn from Audrey’s example. We’re in an era where our external image defines the lives of many of us. The obsessive, narrow focus on what we look like, the size of our bodies and all the other physical, external stuff has become extreme. It seems we’re forgetting to develop the internal higher values along with the external. Things like genuine empathy, real connection, personal growth, authentic kindness, care for the environment, etc. Without all of this, there’s a chance that vanity becomes the driver for our decisions. In which case, many issues occur which are unhealthy for people and planet. Attaining the perfect wardrobe and body might be fantastic but the full package is really complete when you’re also diligently working on those internal values. Without them, we’re in danger of just being like a shell. Empty. Albeit a good-looking shell, but still shells nonetheless if we’re not growing internally.

Audrey had an abundance of beauty (internal and external), style and integrity. She was not perfect but her influence and memory are still strong even six decades after she came onto the international film scene. It’s likely her influence will remain for many decades to come.

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

Earth Day 2021: bringing back environmental harmony

Image: Lukasz Szmigiel

The very first Earth Day to support environmental protection was in 1970. Earth Day is an annual event on April 22nd that has gained tremendous momentum globally since its inception. So, let’s look at a few environmental facts about the current state of the earth in 2021:

Paris Agreement - with the promises made by countries under the agreement, it sets us on a trajectory of about 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, where 30 – 50% of existing species could go extinct by the end of the century.

Food agriculture - average yields of food crops are likely to reduce by 30%, triggering famines in several parts of the world which will cause political and social disasters.

Displacement from climate change - according to Nature, about 1.5 billion people (climate refugees) will be displaced as some regions will become uninhabitable.

Deforestation – 50% of the earth’s tropical forest have been cleared off in the last 50 years.

Soil depletion – Industrial monoculture has destroyed 40% of global topsoil used for food agriculture faster than it can be replenished. We have 60 years of harvest left with our topsoils at the current trajectory according to UN scientists.

Biodiversity loss – between 1970 and 2016, we’ve destroyed 83% of wild mammals and 50% of all plants with an average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. The extinction rate is up to 1000 times faster than prior to the industrial revolution.

Emissions causing climate breakdown – the global North (richer countries) is responsible for 92% of emissions that cause climate breakdown, while the global South (poorer countries) is responsible for 8%.

Capitalism – it’s the reason for these high emissions. As the only economic system that demands constant material growth, it means endlessly plundering the earth for raw materials. It peddles the myth that we need to keep consuming a lot of fossil fuels & raw materials in order to thrive. But this lie is killing the planet and will destroy us too.

I’m inspired by the resolve shown by many people this Earth Day to protect the earth. It’s noble to see many people joining the sustainability movement and changing their lifestyles. However, based on the current global economic trajectory, consumer action alone is not enough to avoid total ecological breakdown. We need to change our systems. And implement a law of balance in all areas to bring harmony back to the earth's ecosystems and with people. The narrow focus of material growth and accumulation as the pinnacle for human life on earth needs to change. Material things are tools to support life on earth, not the purpose of life itself.

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

Harriet Tubman

Image credit: National Women’s History Museum

With absolute and total reverence, they called her ‘The General’. Or ‘Moses’. At only 5 feet, 2 inches, Harriet Tubman was an African American woman born into slavery (circa March 1822) in USA, who achieved the impossible.

HerStory

What makes Harriet Tubman’s story so fascinating is that she was born into what’s possibly the lowliest circumstance a human being can be born into. As a black female enslaved in 19th century US, she was supposedly worth less than any other category of human. As a child, she was abused, beaten and whipped by several slave masters. Yet, she escaped slavery in the American South to become one of the world’s most renowned icons of bravery, freedom and possibility. Harriet Tubman was one of the country’s leading abolitionists before and during the American Civil War (1861 to 1865). In 13 highly dangerous rescue missions, she led 70 enslaved African Americans to freedom in the North along the route known as the Underground Railroad.

In a move that earned her the title ‘General Tubman’, Harriet Tubman created the strategy and plans to help fellow abolitionist, John Brown, in the Harper’s Ferry Raid. The raid freed over 700 enslaved African Americans. It’s a historic and powerful precipitating event that led to the American Civil War.

Oh, and did I mention she did all of this after suffering a traumatic head injury that caused pain, dizziness and bouts of hypersomnia throughout her life? The injury happened when a slave master threw a heavy metal object at another enslaved person and it hit Harriet on the head.  

There was a bounty of $40,000 for her capture which today would be the equivalent of about $830,419! After the war, she became a political activist, humanitarian and activist in the suffrage movement.  

Deeply moving

I first heard this Shero’s story in school when I was about 8 years old during Black History Month in the US. Up until that point, no other story had stirred me so deeply to the point of making me tremble with inspiration. Looking back on that moment, I dare say it was a mature reaction for an 8-year-old. Which is a testament to the power of a story such as this one.

Can you imagine the level of love, courage and pure chutzpah it took in order to selflessly dedicate her life to service in the way that she did? It’s almost unimaginable but I think her intuition guided her to victory. Looking at her circumstances: she had little or no resources, deemed to be of little value by society, potentially had little or no emotional/mental support and I’m guessing at the beginning of her activity, people thought she was crazy! And yet with relentless defiance she literally and metaphorically rose up and forged her own path where it seemed utterly impossible. In the process, she carved a freeway for hundreds and subsequently millions of people to experience physical and mental freedom. Like the story of Moses in the bible, Harriet Tubman’s actions earned her the venerated name, Moses. This is her legacy.

I wrote an article about Harriet Tubman this time last year. My fascination with her story does not diminish. With last month being Black History Month in the US, this week is International Women’s Day week and her period of birth speculated to be in the month of March, it feels like a good time to share HerStory.

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

International Women's Day: the abilities of womanhood

An important ability that women in the world have is the ennoblement of our surroundings. And the ability to ensure a continuous flow of positivity, upliftment and positive change that can direct the progress of humanity in the right direction. So, make no mistake, the existence of women in the world is not merely to have children and to be mothers, even though this is also a very beautiful and crucial task. With intuition, women in the world have the ability to ensure the continuous exaltation and advancement of our species in ways that can shift the entire status quo and change global systems. In this way, women can take the lead in cultivating harmony and balance with people and the planet. Happy International Women’s Day.

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles

A different kind of Christmas

I chuckled when I found this Grinch t-shirt at a clothes swap a couple of years ago. 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' is a culturally iconic story and popular children’s book I read as a kid. In the 2000 film adaptation with Jim Carrey, the Grinch’s home was bombarded with trash from the townspeople’s Christmas celebrations. For this and other reasons, the Grinch hated Christmas. So, he tried to stop the holiday by stealing people’s Christmas presents from their homes while they slept.  

I've never been a fan of the superfluous nature of the festive holiday period with its excessive overconsumption rituals that seem to get worse every year. Christmas has been reduced to the notion of excessive material consumption, excessive food waste, excessive packaging, decorations and presents that people don't need or probably don't even want. Most of it ends up in landfill. Australians for instance wasted an estimated $400 million on unwanted presents last Christmas! Some environmentalists even say that Christmas is the world’s greatest annual environmental disaster. Americans throw away 25% more trash during the holiday season, amounting to 25 million tons of garbage which is about 1 million extra tons per week based on data from Stanford University. And according to the OECD, about 54 million plates of food are thrown out in the UK every Christmas. Food waste and its supply chain is a major source of CO2 emissions. The IPCC report on Climate Change and Land stated that wasted and lost food is responsible for up to 10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. This might be why my Grinch t-shirt resonates. The Grinch is in this way symbolic of disrupting the holiday overconsumption culture.   

It feels like the beautiful things about the holidays like family, culture, connection, community and the opportunity for rest and reflection have been corrupted. Now it’s all about consumerism and directing our efforts towards skyrocketing profits for big corporations. So, what if we redirected all of these resources towards making life liveable for people who are underprivileged or marginalised? What if, instead of going along with the old tradition of giving presents to someone who doesn't really need it, maybe the cost or the item/service can be donated to the people or organisations that work towards environmental regeneration?

I think the moral of the Grinch story was that after lamenting on the stolen presents, the townspeople realised they could have a happy Christmas without the excessive material stuff. We too can create a different kind of Christmas. During the super consumption period that goes from Black Friday through to the holidays and into the January sales, we buy and consume a lot of stuff in richer countries. It’s a good opportunity for low-income earners to afford necessary items and luxurious treats. It’s also a time to shift this modern trend of THE NEED TO BUY things we don’t need. We spend a big portion of our lives shopping and spending. This isn’t necessarily about being frugal. This is about filling our lives with purposeful activities that have a more lasting impact on our souls than just inanimate objects we pay for.

The holidays carry a different meaning for everyone, but I hope the end of this year is a time of positive introspection for all of us. A time we use wisely to do some self-love and self-care by alchemising the things within us that keep us from evolving to our highest selves. And shifting habits like unnecessary consumption that damage ecosystems and hurt the environment. And by doing random things like showing bundles of love and acts of kindness to the people that would never expect it from us both online and in-person.

The holidays done differently

If we choose to resist the status quo and #MakeChristmasGreatAgain, here are a few tips:

Personalise the holidays. It’s important to recognise that we don’t have to stick to doing the same thing we’ve been doing for decades or centuries. We can make brand new holiday traditions that hold personal meaning for you, family and friends. Ones that don’t have to rely on excessive use of things or products to make the holidays fun.

Giving – Have you noticed that people who have a lot, get given a lot too? Consider giving to people who really, actually need resources and things for their survival and personal growth. This is one way to tip the scales towards more balance and equality in society. Seek out people in need within your local community or even in parts of the global South to give to. Giving need not be something limited to the holidays. It can be all year round.

Quit holiday sales – Reducing overconsumption is about finding alternative habits to replace excessive shopping. Buy what you need, reuse, recycle and repair when you can. Place a higher value on experiences over things.

Photos by Madé Kosala

♥ Nina Gbor

Instagram: @eco.styles