Family Ties

Suggested by sachiiiii :










I was so happy to wear these items together. The dress is by far my favorite item from my closet. It's an unmarked, untagged vintage dress that my mom bought when she lived in Portugal in the early eighties. It is SUCH a timeless piece and the fabric doesn't fade or wrinkle or wear out. It's been almost 30 years since she purchased it, she wore it to death during her younger years and now I'm wearing it to death and it's STILL going strong! I may be able to pass it on to my daughter some day :) I absolutely love it though... I want to hang on to it for as long as I can.

The shoes also have a bit of a story to them. My aunts bought these shoes for me when I went to visit them in 2009. Ok, let me backtrack a little bit so you can understand the story a bit better:
Although I'm a citizen of Angola due to my parents being Angolan, I was actually born in Spain, raised in Mexico (lived there for a bit over 10 years) and then lived in the U.S. for 12 years. I just recently moved to Angola (almost 3 years ago) where I'm now living the fast-paced life of a working girl. I'm thoroughly enjoying getting to know my roots and being immersed in a culture I can finally completely claim as my own (instead of borrowed from my parents, lol).
One of my favorite things about living in Angola after a lifetime abroad is that I'm finally getting to meet all the relatives I didn't get to know growing up. I have a plethora of aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts and -uncles, a grandmother, and extended family whom I previously only talked to via the phone or by email or IM, or who I only heard about through stories told by my parents. And in a lot of cases, I didn't even know some of the relatives I'm now close to existed! It's been such an amazing experience, so very gratifying, to finally get to meet all these people. It's so crazy to feel like my family unit has gone from a tight-knit 5-member group to a couple-of-hundred-member, ever-expanding group (I meet new relatives at every engagement, wedding, funeral, or any given family event). SOooo, what does all of this have to do with the shoes? Well, the shoes are my souvenir from my visit to finally meet my dad's oldest sister and one of his younger brothers who now live in France. Once I'd met all of my aunts and uncles, whom I had known only through stories all my life (it was sooo cool to put a face to the stories!) I took the first chance I got to go to France and meet them. They took me in with open arms, showed me around town, taught me a little bit of French (I'm a natural! or so they say... hahaha) and the aunts demonstrated their love of fashion by taking me on a shopping trip. I told them that I didn't have room to pack extra clothes on my way back, so they ended up insisting that I take at least one pair of shoes. My aunt chose this pair, and that's how I now own my very special french high heeled leather brown sandals that remind me of traveling and family and learning french and good food, and all of that stuff that makes life grand.

Whoo! I talk a lot. I should've probably started off with that. So be prepared if you plan on being a regular on this bloggy of mine :)

Anyways, Thanks sachiiiii for suggesting such a great outfit with so much meaning behind it!