Groningen, the Netherlands (photography: Toopie)
Renate was the first person that I’ve interviewed. I know her from our friend who has taken her as a trainee in his company. As I knew her from the beginning, she’s very independent person with a fun personality, I invited her once for a dinner at my place and that the moment that I got to know her more. She’s a very interesting person. She’s studying facility management at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. At the same time, she’s also a volunteer at an underground club which is called “Vera”. So, after the dinner we had an appointment to make this interview.
I picked her up around 12PM on the day we’ve agreed to meet, we had some lunch before we started our interview together with my girlfriend, Sam. I asked her to bring some favorite clothes along. So we could know her personal style more. The first favorite piece is her lovely blue dress with the sexy tied up lines on the back that she’s got as a present from her mother. Together with the dress she picked the bright blue earrings.
“ I feel very feminance in this dress and I love the bright colors, I think it’s really cool!”
We made a couple more pictures of Renate and talked to her a bit about her lifestyle. So she told us about Vera where she works as a volunteer the she’s seen a lot of people there with their own styles and that effects her how she looks at the fashion. She finds that very fascinating. For herself it depends on the period of times that everyone learns about themselves.
“… I was into hippie style, gothic style and
when time went by I just mix the things that I like from each style and create one of my own. The biggest factor is the experiences that I’ve made in my life.”
“…My style is kinda from everything that I’ve been in my life. Most of the time is very feminance and strong at the same time. I’ve never been influenced by the commercial world, if I see something that I really like I just buy them, mix and match with whatever I have in my closet.”
Renate is one of a kind that we’ve known. She’s very confidence about her choices to create her own style. We could hear that from the answer she gave when we asked her about the girls who sticks with the commercial looks in average magazines.
“I find it a pity when the people are wearing exact same clothes on the street. I don’t like to wear a t-shirt that hundreds of people are wearing. But for some people who don’t really have no ideas about what to wear, they could use a little bit of creativity in themselves when they look at a magazine. But the most important thing is that they feel happy in their clothes.”
Muziek is also a factor in her personal style, she loves music, but particularly metal. Rock and roll, shaking head along with the music. I was with her at Iron Maiden concert, she could sing almost every song that they’ve played on the stage.
She was telling us furthur about her music hero, Bjork.
“ Her voice is just incredible and I find very interesting when I look at her and yes her style, her clothes, being different. That’s really fascinated, but the looks I always think it’s really really cool, it always comes from great bands like Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and The doors, their style is great!” Renate said with a big smile on her face.
Of course tough chick like her has a tough hobby. She loves climbing sport. She tarvelled to France this year to climb up some boulders.
“It was really cool!”
After our lovely conversation we went outside to get some more pictures of Renate. We stopped bij a very small narrow street in downtown, it was only quiet place in the hot summer in Groningen. There were people everywhere trying to get tanned. Renate was wearing her another favorite black dress with lovely gothic jacket. After we finished, we went get to have some ice-cream. It was really a fun day.
Renate is someone who’s really fun to be with. She’s full of personalities and very ambitious in her life. I thank her a lot for being really honest in the interview. What she said was just right and exactly who she is. The first star by o-ster.com, Renate Rowaan.