Hello everyone. Today I want to talk about elegance and inspirations.

What you think Elegance is.
When you think about the word elegance or elegant, you normally think of someone living in a mansion. It is a palace or castle. You probably think of someone who is rich and wears designer clothes. This person has people who clean, cook, and take care of the kids. They travel first class or have a private jet. Someone you complain about and secretly are jealous of.
I know that I had some of the same thoughts when I thought about elegance in the past.
Yet, after learning about elegance, I have completely switched my mindset about it. Now, I embody elegance in my everyday life in a normal house. I live in a small town in northern Norway.

The Definition of Elegance.
The definition of elegance from Oxford languages.
1. The quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance or manner.
“a slender woman with grace and elegance”
2. The quality of being pleasingly ingenious and simple; neatness.
“the simplicity and elegance of the solution”

What is Elegance then?
Elegance is more about how you take care of yourself, how you show up for yourself and the world. You put on pants and a blouse instead of yogapants/sweatpants and a hoodie. You say please and thank you, you don’t shout or yell out in public, you are being polite. You spray a dash of perfume on each morning. You are clean. You are being intentional about who you are. You consider what your values are. You think about how you show up and how you speak about yourself and others.

You can live in a small apartment and still make it elegant, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Among my most cherished belongings is a mirror. My late grandmother gifted it to me for one of my birthdays. It was really affordable. One of my candleholders I thrifted and one of the other candleholders I bought at a 70% discount. Some of my finest pictureframes is thrifted. Some of the furniture’s we have is repainted.

If you go to Pinterest and search for elegant homes, you get many different results. This is because we all are different and have different views on what is elegant. For some, a minimalist home is elegant. For others, it’s a home that looks like it is taken out of a magazine.
For me it’s more about the colours we use on the walls, the colours on the furniture’s and decor. That everything has it’s on place and that it is tidy. For me an elegant home is warm and welcoming. It needs to show that the people who live there have love for their home. It should show that they love to spend time there and that children and animals are welcome inside.

Inspirations

I use Pinterest, Instagram, google and sometimes TikTok for inspiration.
Still, I am very specific about what I save and use as inspiration. Some that says their content are elegant are more on the:
“don’t do this for this is not elegant“, “you need to do this because everything else is not elegant“.
That is statements that don’t resonate with me.
I look for the content that says:
“this is how we renovated our bathroom and it feels luxurious and calm“, “I took a shot with this colour that everyone warned me about and I couldn’t be more happy about the result“.
I follow people that have the same values that I have. I ask people that I admire about advice and tips on things. I look at how others have their homes and if it is something I would consider for my home.

Since we are talking about inspirations I need to talk about this one thing that made me smile. The other day I had a nailappointment. On my way there I walked past an acquaintance and she told me my dress was beautiful, I smiled and thanked her.
When I came in to my nailappointment I got complimented for my dress again, and told that I always look beautiful and have so many beautiful dresses. I smiled again and said thank you.
Also, I like to have some kind of decor on my nails (not necessary on all of them). My naillady feels herself that she’s not doing her best work when she does naildecor. Yet she always tries her best and they always end up amazing. At this appointment she told me that by me challenging her in how I want my nails. She’s been inspired to take a naildecor course.

So in the end, if you keep being your best self and show up as her. You could be inspiring others in ways you would never think of and probably never hear about either.

What do you consider elegant? Tell me all about it in the comments!

Love
Emilie Cathrin