Pearls and Dreadlocks: Our Own Style Statements

CARRIE McCARTHY - REFINED TREASURE
I can’t deny it (though I’ve tried). I am a WASPy girl who grew up on the right side of the tracks. My mother and grandmothers were refined women – which doesn’t mean that I didn’t choose freely to be who I am today. That’s exactly what I’ve done. But I struggled with my own nature for a long time. I’m complicated and I’m okay with that. My twin sister is funky and I have some hip ‘n’ groovy friends, but when I’ve tried on their clothes, I’ve felt like a bad painting. Whenever I’ve tried to be cool, I end up feeling like a dork. I’ve finally surrendered to what it means to be me: Refined.

Good manners are everything to me. I send a few thank you cards a week, always on great quality paper. I am punctual. I don’t like fart jokes. I find most stand-up comedy too disrespectful and degrading. I like observations more than criticisms. And though I am very open about my feelings, I think some things are just meant to be private.

My Style Statement is a wonderful distiller that I run everything through. It’s like making really fine wine – you filter out all of the bad stuff and you end up with something smooth and pure. And that’s how my choices feel now, smooth and pure.

The Treasure of my Style Statement supports my refinement. I’m very sensitive to other people’s feelings and the environment around me, so it’s been a great learning for me to treasure my own feelings and intuition. And when I am being my best with my husband and friends, it is because I am truly treasuring their needs.

Treasures are a huge part of my aesthetic expression. I am always treasure-hunting for old-world trinkets, smoothed rocks and branches. I feel incomplete without a piece of sentimental jewellery on. The gifts I love to give are often re-packaged treasures.

My current home is innately Refined Treasure. White, clean lines, open space, and cherished objects. On my white lacquered shelving I might do a vignette of primitive pottery and an old mohair scarf, or some black & white family photographs with a beautiful twig I picked up on my morning run. My dream homes are very different but both reflect my Style Statement. I’d love an old Georgian house in the city and a contemporary rancher on a rural property.

On the deepest level, my Style Statement reminds me that it’s always valuable to refine the plan, and that treasures always show up. Not being refined – not exercising, not being respectful to myself or others – is just bad for me. I suffer when I’m not myself. When I treasure myself, I find the treasures in others.

My Style Statement helps me to be present. And when I am being Refined Treasure, I am connected to my past and creating my future.

DANIELLE LaPORTE - SACRED DRAMATIC
I’ve always been Sacred Dramatic, I just never had a name for it. The times when I have felt most empowered could be called sacred dramatic times. In solitude and on stage. Learning and teaching. Making meaningful, monumental commitments both in love and in business. And when I have been less than my best, I have been the opposite of my Style Statement. Easily glamoured, disrespectful of my own intuition and either too stifled to speak my truth, or forcefully doing so when my own silence became unbearable.

I translate Sacred Dramatic into “meaningful expression” and “compassionate impact.” It means that everything in my home has a story behind it; I never buy something just to fill a space. I am a vigilante consumer. I like to know where something came from, what it’s made of and the manufacturer’s ideals. I love linen, organic cotton, soapstone, and ancient colors like sand and saffron and mud. I avoid medication. I’m terrible at small talk, and I can’t bear to do anything just for the money. I believe that relationship is a path to holiness, and that my life is one of service. Gratitude is the basis of my success. And yet…

I am insatiable. I love rare steak, milk chocolate, and trashy magazines. My husband and I “attachment parent” our son, and we make space for me to be the driven entrepreneur that I am. I am truly intrigued by people; and am energized in the spotlight; yet also within my heart lives a profound craving for monastic-like solitude. I dig hip-hop and chants – the louder the better. I dress in quiet, simple designs finished off with killer boots and chunky gold rings. I am a generous, self-centered white girl with dreadlocks.

I no longer consider my traits or desires to be irreconcilable…thanks to having my Style Statement as an affirmation. I’m not particularly interested in relinquishing or banishing parts of myself in order to become more ideal or good. I’ve come to learn that evolution, personal and otherwise, happens through inclusion and integration, and that is what I am interested in – accepting myself, and the people around me, at the deepest possible level. When I get it right, I am my own phenomenal force of nature.

And when I leave part of me behind – when I neglect to make some contemplative time in the day, or when I get melodramatic with my man or my opinions, I’ve got my 80% Sacred and my 20% Dramatic to harness my better judgment. Before I put down my money, speak my piece, or suit up for the day, my Style Statement reminds me to include all of me in my choices.

Copyright  © 2008 by Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte