We named this sweet little number after everyone’s favorite Tiffany-coveting pixie, Audrey Hepburn. As stylish as she was wise, we think Ms. Hepburn is someone we could all emulate.
I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.
-Audrey Hepburn
The Audrey’s V front & V back style is classic, which means you can wear it dinner, lunch or even for a breakfast of coffee and cheese danish as you stare at over-priced, blue-boxed jewelry.
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Each month, we ask our intrepid founder and creative director what she’s currently obsessed with. Here’s what Karina is loving on for May!
Pink
I have never been a pink girl but lately it’s all I want to wear! This particularly shade on my nails is super fun and springy!
Asparagus
This lovely green is in season. Here’s one of my favorite ways to prepare.
The Great Gatsby
Lots of great fashion inspiration!
The Ottavio Missoni Legacy in the New York Times
what a joy this family of Italian designer’s have given us!
Stevie Wonder
‘Overjoyed‘ is one of my favorite songs. Happy birthday, Stevie- love you!
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Name: Emily-Ann Elliott
Age: 30
Location: UK
Online homes: The Grownup Gap Year // Twitter // Facebook
Favorite Karina dress: I’m new to the Karina brand but love the look of The Audrey – it’s so cute and girly, perfect for travelling!
What are your every day, must-reads, online or off?
I’m a journalist so I have to begin my day with a flick through the newspapers – I hate not knowing what’s going on in the world! I love reading about other people’s travels so I like to check out blogs like Elle Croft and Cookie Sound. If I’m in the mood for a sweet treat then I visit the gorgeous The Vagabond Baker blog and every Monday I read my friend’s brilliant blog about being a mum: You Can Take Her Home Now. I also love books and am currently reading Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train to the Eastern Star for the Twitter book club I set up which uses the hashtag #travelbookclub.
Why is long term travel important for all of us – not just 20-somethings?
For me travel is about exploring new places, meeting new people and experiencing things you would never get the chance to experience back at home. I think that sometimes as we get older we get caught up in day to day life and we don’t take the time to slow down and look around us. As I approached the last year of my 20s I decided that I wanted it to be a big adventure. So I planned my 30b430 trip, doing 30 things around the world I’d always wanted to do. During the course of nine months I travelled through nine countries, crossing things off my list including trekking the Inca Trial in Peru, diving in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and standing on the Great Wall of China. Having worked for a number of years beforehand, I think I appreciated the trip so much more than I did when I travelled in my teens. Since returning home I’ve set up The Grown Up Gap Year blog as I strongly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to travel – no matter what their age.
Can you tell us three things that you learned after traveling for so long?
I think the biggest one is to trust in the kindness of strangers. We’re often led to believe that the world is a frightening place; that bad people lurk around every corner. But I have lost count of the number of times when I have been helped out by strangers – from little old ladies in Japan to an entire family in Colombia. I’ve also learnt that you can live quite simply when you take away all of the things you think you need. When you’re travelling, each day is broken down into three simple questions: Where am I going? How am I going to get there? Where will I sleep tonight? Oh, and I can now pack a backpack in three minutes flat!
If you could give your 16 year old self advice, what would you say?
A question I read recently, and one I now try to live by is: What would you do if you weren’t scared about what other people would say? I think I’d tell my 16 year old self that this is a good way to make choices in life, as it’s amazing how simple decisions become when you stop worrying about what other people will think.
Your perfect day. What would it look like?
It would begin by waking up in a city I’d never been to before, enjoying a leisurely breakfast and then setting out to explore. I’d spend the day seeing the sights, taking photographs and talking to the locals. Food is always an important part of my trip so I’d get a good recommendation for dinner and spend the evening enjoying a nice meal, with good company.
Thanks so much for sharing, Emily-Ann!
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Hello ladies! Have you had a good week? We sure have! There’s been plenty happening over here at Karina HQ – but we’ve still had enough time to round up our favorite links for the week. Here goes…
First up, get your weekly style inspiration from Mattie of Mattieologie (above). This girl really knows how to work a print!
Secret destinations are always fun and we love these little travel treasures: UK’s tiny islands: 10 hidden gems to discover.
Can makeup really improve your skin, or is it just marketing hype? This article investigates.
Struggling with a difficult, mean or negative person? We’ve all been there – but this article provides some excellent tips for dealing with it.
Many women benefit from mentors when going through changes, difficulties or growth. This article provides some great tips for attracting the right mentor at the right time.
Do you struggle to figure out what you really want in life? Here are some tips that really work! Give it a go – you might just have your Eureka moment.
Have you ever thought about getting out the old sewing machine again? If you’re interested in all things design, sewing and pattern making, you’ll love Maddie Flanigan’s blog as much as we do.
Do you ever feel like you just need that extra push? Emily Bennington provides some inspiration.
Allowing fear to keep us stuck is a crossroad many of us face and a question I certainly hear in the career space all the time: “Do I stay ‘safe’ in a job I don’t love or jump ship in search of my passion?”
Have you heard of reverse graffiti marketing? Neither had we until we saw this. Wow!
We hear a lot about making peace with our bodies – but what about other peoples’ bodies? This article is an incredible read.
We hope you enjoyed this week’s links. Until next time!
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Not to brag (except we totally are) but we’ve got pretty great taste in human beings. Just look at our newest brand ambassador Rosie Molinary!
During a life that has been spent figuring out how to empower herself and to always learn and grow, Rosie Molinary found her mission: to empower women and girls to embrace their authentic selves so they can live their passion and purpose and give their gifts to the world. She lives her mission by teaching, writing, facilitating workshops and retreats, and intentionally engaging in her community.
The author of Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self Acceptance and Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina, Rosie teaches courses on body image at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and facilitates transformative workshops and retreats for women while speaking on body image, identity, social justice, and diversity around the country.
A former high school teacher and coach who cares passionately about the empowerment of young people, Rosie serves on the board of Circle de Luz, a non-profit that radically empowers young Latinas by supporting their transformation through extensive mentoring, holistic programming and scholarship funds for further education.
Rosie spends the fall and winter obsessing over NFL fantasy football (and Carolina Panthers football) and her cardigan collection and the spring and summer obsessing over her garden and pleasure reading. She is a crack of dawn runner and enjoys yoga, Pilates, surfing, and stand up paddling. Rosie paints for pleasure, writes for purpose, and parents with equal parts whimsy and panic. Her favorite thing is figuring out, every day, how to get a little closer to her truth so she can better engage in her world while having a sense of wonder and humor about how it all goes down (or doesn’t).
Welcome aboard, Rosie!
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Shannon writes Awash With Wonder, a blog about living intentionally. She takes experiences in her life, looks for the universal lesson in them, and offers them to her readers in the hopes that they’ll learn something too. She also has dual citizenship between South Africa and The United Kingdom but lives in Florida. Follow her adventures on twitter and facebook!
“If you ask me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud”
-Emile Zoe
If you chase anything that is not rooted in a truer version of you, you will be so disappointed. If you chase a career motivated by the amount of money you can earn – you will earn a little more sadness, a little more weariness, with every single dollar. If you chase relationships because you hope that someone else’s love with make you lovable, you will find so much insecurity and unfulfilled desire there. You will not find life. If you chase success because you hope that recognition by others will make you worthy, you will exhaust and deplete yourself for people who will only forget you. Or maybe you will live on in the minds of strangers for a few decades after your death, but if you were not finding yourself in those accomplishments, was it worth it? Who are they remembering? In everything you do, everything you ache for, everything you’re passionate about, make sure that you are looking deeply for yourself in them. Success is not the goal; authentic living is.
“I begin to understand that promises of the world are for the most part vain phantoms, and that to have faith in oneself and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.”-Michelangelo
Your career will not be there to wrap it’s arms around you on lonely nights, but nor will the people who you invest in while you are neglecting to invest in yourself. There are no guarantees in this life but I know, with that quiet clarity that I associate with truth, that to invest in yourself is to invest in living fully. What does this mean? It means I will chase words, and the opportunity to be the one who crafts them, to the edges of the earth because it is part of me. Because there is a deeper part of myself somewhere in there. It means that you should chase the things that leave you breathless, the things that make you come alive, until you cannot run anymore and then you should crawl after them. The important point in that sentence is not the “things”, it is what those things do for you. Seek life; not the people or jobs or objects that will suck the life out of you.
What is it that you find yourself wanting in the moments when you do not want for anything? The moments when you are not hungry, or tired, or lonely, or even ecstatically happy. In the moments when you just are; what does that deeper part of you still ask of you? Who you are is in the answer and that is always what you should be chasing.
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Rosie Molinary, the author of Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance, empowers women to embrace their authentic selves so they can live their passion and purpose and give their gifts to the world.
It may have been cold and rainy outside, but the Piedmont Natural Gas conference room in Charlotte, North Carolina was filled with bright warmthon Sunday, May 5th when over 60 mother/daughter pairs and sponsors came together for the 2013 inaugural Right in the Middle conference.
Born from a desire to celebrate the transition from elementary to middle school while giving mothers and daughters a chance to deepen their relationship at a time when they typically pull away from each other, Right in the Middle provides insight on brains, boys, and bodies at a time when things rapidly change and don’t always seem to make sense on the surface.
As families arrived, the excitement was palpable. Girls dashed between tables to visit with one another while mothers introduced themselves to one another and visited the sponsorship tables. One of the sponsorship tables that drummed up plenty of conversation? The Karina Dress table. Karina Dresses graciously offered to raffle off a dress for the moms and five styles and patterns caught the moms’ eyes as they dropped off their raffle tickets.
“Is that one of those dresses?” A dozen moms asked as I moved through the conference space, introducing myself before we got started.
“Yes?” I answered, proudly modeling my Marissa dress.
“Oh, what style is that? What pattern? Where can I buy one? Can I feel it?” I heard, as woman after woman grabbed my hemline.
The conference kicked off with Michelle Icard of Michelle in the Middle talking about brains, bravery, and botox brow. Everyone learned that cognitive development continues until into one’s twenties and that, sometimes, the best judgment isn’t always available to a teen and that’s a great time to call mom in for some help and guidance. When Michelle shared her Botox brow tip, girls and moms all laughed AND nodded in recognition.
After a lucky mom won the Karina Dress raffle, the daughters went with Michelle to talk about how Friends and Frenemies and the moms stayed with me to talk about how to improve their own body image so that they are modeling what they most want for their daughters as they grow. Then we gathered together again for cake, a crash course in media literacy, and a closing performance by Caroline McLeod, an up and coming young musician with talent and poise in spaces.
The rain was still falling when our happy, encouraged moms and daughters departed with goody bags and cupcakes but that didn’t dampen any spirits. Some early reaction?
“Thank you for the mom and daughter conference. It was inspirational, empowering, informative and FUN! It opened the door for [my daughter] and me to have “those” sometimes awkward conversations. In fact, last night she shared with dad the pre and post photoshop images. She let him know that it is important to like yourself just as you are! Bravo and thank you. I have already let our school community know it is a must for all!”
“GREAT EVENT! My daughter and I have already had so many great conversations about the important topics you discussed today.”
“Thank you for providing insight and tools to help me as a mother! Great event!”
“What a fabulous afternoon. I was impressed from the moment I walked through the door. Everyone did an amazing job and the content was spot-on. The moms and the daughters learned a lot and had fun. I was a strong supporter before, but now I’m an avid believer!!”
It was a great afternoon, and we’re already at work to make our next three Right in the Middles even better!
Intrigued? Find out more about Right in the Middle.
Want to register? Select a date and location below.
August 4th, 2:00 – 5:00 pm: Columbia, SC
August 18th, 2:00 - 5:00 pm: Charlotte, NC
August 21st, 6:00 – 9:00 pm: Charlotte, NC
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A few months ago, Karina employee Hillary got the chance of a lifetime: scare the pants off of Today Show co-host Darlene Rodriguez. Dressed as a zombie, Hillary hid inside a two-way mirror and scared Rodriguez as she looked into it. Hillary was helping promote the movie The Last Exorcism 2. Take a look at the video for a good laugh!
Scary, right?!
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Today’s guest post comes to you from Vanessa Bowen of Nessbow. Vanessa’s fashion blog was originally an outlet for her to share her eclectic personal style and penchant for alternative fashion but it blossomed into a site about self-exploration, self-care and thepreservation of self-worth from the self described love child of Judy Garland and David Bowie. Be friends with her on facebook and twitter!
If you work for yourself, you’ve no doubt faced a range of productivity road-blacks. Procrastination, lethargy and burn-out are all barriers to successful self-employment. I’ve spent the last eight years either studying or blogging, and I’ve found a few ways to overcome these pitfalls.
Set daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals.
Create goals that are specific and measurable. I find that it also helps to make several smaller goals to compliment each big goal. Make a yearly or monthly goal, and then plan out what steps you could take daily or weekly to help you to work towards it.
Identify your partner in crime.
A partner in crime is a person who aids your procrastination. If you’re regularly finding yourself distracted by a particular person, it’s time the two of you had a chat. Explain to them that your work is important, and that you need to work without disruptions. Make it clear that it’s nothing personal, and plan to do something fun with them this weekend.
Take smart breaks.
Taking breaks can be tricky. It’s easy to sit down for a ten-minute break and spend the next three hours watching cat videos on Youtube. Plan at least one ten-minute break for every hour of work you do. Even if you don’t feel tired, taking a short amount of time away from your desk will refresh you and help you to work better for longer. If you don’t think that you can trust yourself to stick to your allotted break times, set an alarm for the end of your break and put it on your desk. Make sure that the sound is loud and obnoxious, so that you’ll have to walk to your desk if you want the audio-assault to end.
Be realistic about how much you can do each day.
I often set myself a mountainous to-do list and then lament over the fact that I rarely reach the bottom of it before the day is out. It’s really important to be realistic about exactly how much you can get done in one day. In the morning, choose the three most important tasks and make these your priority. Consider any extra work a bonus.
Change your surroundings.
Cabin fever can start to sink its itchy little claws into you when you’re stuck in the same spot all the time. If you can, set up a workspace in a room other than your bedroom. Also, take your work outside occasionally, to a library, a park or a café if possible.
Be tough, but not rough on yourself.
Sometimes, you might need to give yourself a swift, metaphorical kick up the backside so you can get junk done. However, there’s a difference between being tough and being rough on yourself. You’re being tough when you give yourself a shot of self-discipline for being lazy. You’re being rough when you’re punishing yourself for making a mistake, or forcing yourself to keep working when you’re exhausted. It’s good to be tough on yourself when you need it. It’s not OK to be rough on yourself. Treat yourself kindly, always.
How do you stay motivated when you’re working for yourself?
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We know that our dresses are craaaazy versatile – it’s easy to wear them to work, out on the town, or just poking around the farmers’ market on the weekends. But in case you needed reminding, we thought we’d show you three different ways you can style our adorable Penelope dress.
Pop over and check out our dresses for some style inspiration of your own!
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