About alternative

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My name is Natalia Lavrishina, I am an image consultant and a writer.  I develop personal style strategies for individual clients based on their facial bone structure.

My style blog dates back to 2008. This is also when I started providing personal style consultations online. I loved helping women find their best heels, hues and hems to be bold and elegant and channel their best, heels or no heels. But I also found myself extremely interested in an ultimate “Why?”  Why does one style of shoe works for one person and does nothing for another? Looking for cues I  realized  there is a  distinct connection between one’s facial bone structure and their personal style. I got so interested in bone structure I found myself in my home office with my nose buried in books on forensic…  And it all started so suave: heels, hues, hems.

Several years later  I  was diagnosed  with UARS (hypopnea) at the Stanford Sleep Center. I had an epiphany and a very personal shock therapy: the way  facial bone structure affects our health is very congruent with how it affects our personal style.    My further research proved that this subject is not only fascinatingly deep and interdisciplinary,  it can also get extremely political, as it affects all aspects of our lives, including our life as a society.

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to bring awareness to this connection and develop the language to speak about this very complex matter.  My style blog branched out into several  sections. Right now my articles cover these four broad subjects that intricately interweave.

SKULL features my observations  about facial bone structure and how it dictates our personal style and our life style choices.  The changing trends, history of fashion,  beauty standards in art and media, gender roles, societal shifts and personal health,  all become part of this conversation.

STYLE  this section hosts  a collection of my styling tips and  clients makeovers. There are color stories, proportion sagas and nods to  trends.  I own an extensive color lab and provide color consultations for individual clients based on Susan Caygill Seasonal Analysis method.

SEX  the subject of image invariably leads to matters of self esteem.  This is where questions of relationships and sex become relevant.  I explore this subject  using Greek Gods archetypes, a Jungian approach elaborated by an American psychiatrist Jean Sinoda Bolen. Before my blog took a style route I was writing  about the vibrant salsa dancing scene of Los Angeles.   I started that project  in 2003 and  collected stories  about passions and drama of the dance floor and beyond.  A lot of my readers report reading my blog from those days.

USSR I was born in what was to become the last decade of the USSR.  Though it only covered my childhood and early teens, I pretty much consider myself a Soviet. Not in terms of ideology. Soviet to me means being heavily influenced by the World War Two, despite the fact I was born several decades after that war was over. Soviet means to me being  multicultural, because my country of birth embraced dozens of ethnicities and religions. It also means a certain gender dynamic and issues it brings up, something  that   Western society has only recently begun to explore. Films, books, stories and music from the Soviet era is something I feel constant need to  include in my writing and share.

 

My Instagram is my most interactive channel.  This is  where I share my personal style and raise topics of interest. By modern standards it has a small following of 10K, but it is a very loyal one.  Most of my readers have stayed with me since 2008, when I blogged on another platform. I pride myself for creating the safe and respectful environment online where people can exchange ideas and opinions on an array of topics, including some very difficult ones.

 

BIO: I have danced, loved and cried on three continents.  My life journey started in St.Petersburg, Russia, where I also received my BA in Political Science from the University of Space Engineering. From there I embarked on exploring the world, making extended stays in Los Angeles, Milan and Buenos Aires.   I speak English, Russian and work on my  Spanish and Italian. I am a  salsa dancer,  an aspiring GA pilot and a mom of two. Residing in California since 2001.

 

The list of my Style Consultations is available here.

 

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