With Rumiana Uzunova
The Lady Who Speaks To Flowers

‘HoG Your Style’ is an ongoing series devoted to celebrating the accomplished women in our communities, cities and countries — the brilliant forces of creativity and passion that often go unseen and unheard, all while running the world. Those who are often behind-the-scenes, unnoticed or unrecognised — House of Gharats beams the spotlight on these lives to reveal their inherently inspirational existence. We focus on style, lifestyle and womanhood as we find meaning in the extraordinary experiences of everyday life. Of course, ‘HoG’ stands for House of Gharats, but it also relates to the act of claiming who you are and being comfortable with the way you live your life. The women we’ve interviewed embody this idea, and we hope their stories inspire many more people to stand in their power in this time of new beginnings and self-discovery.

#HoGYourStyle

#WomenPoweringWomen

Style — How would you describe your personal style? What does it mean to you? How do you use your style to express yourself — thoughts, emotions, symbols, memories? What’s an heirloom or hand-me-down piece in your wardrobe that means a lot to you and why?

My philosophy of style is quite complex. I don’t go by what the fashion world tries to promote nor follow the do’s and don’ts of cultural norms and ready-made pieces you need to wear because a given environment has to accept you in a certain way. Style to me is a very personal and a very spiritual event. It is a moment of self-identity, a memory of a life past, an event that has marked you deeply and imprinted its sign on your style. My style is a voyage through cultures, history, religions and much more. I like to keep it unique and to myself only. But I also admit that I am crazy about fashion too and always try to stay up to date on what is going on and what works and what not (haha). Those who know me well, also know that I am hard to convince and very determined when it comes to style because I do know what identifies with me. Having someone else choose for you may not always work well. We all have a different view of the world and we look at it through different lenses. Style should make you feel comfortable with your inner self, boost your confidence, show the real you and promote your uniqueness. It is about the skin we live in. It is the Queen in me, and I do worship that inner Queen a lot.

I like to express my fashion sense through my personal interpretation of cultural inheritances, international travels, living abroad experiences, and of interactions with people who have marked my life and career and much more. It is a spiritual moment because every day we feel different and depending on what your mood of the day is, your style will reflect that too. One day I may choose to dress with the colors of the Roman sky or recall the Mediterranean summer when I feel blue. Sometimes the expressions of joy and creativity also comes with an homage to a given occasion. I always wear a piece or two that have a meaning intrinsic to me. For example, I could be wearing a business suit but accessorize it with a ring bought on a trip to Paris that evokes a particular joyful moment and will keep me going until the late office hours. I may add colors that are harbingers of what I want to silently express in a men-only business world and yet empower myself from within that we are not equal regardless of the suits we wear. On particularly important days, where much courage is needed, I wear some heirloom pieces which remind me of my ancestors’ courage and strength and thus empower me too in spirit. My style is my identity. Many have tried to change it or tell me ‘Oh this is so not in fashion anymore” but it is not the fashion than defines us. It is our style that is passed on from mother to daughter, from grandmother to grand-daughter and so on. I have been extremely privileged to have been born in a family where women were always treated as Queens and style has always been the order of the day. I recall from a very young age my beloved grandmother would start with a lecture on how girls need to take care of themselves, how to be groomed and so on. OF course, my mother would then drive me deeper into the fashion world by teaching me the color ranges, fabric types, what works for your body type, your skin and so one. This was my real childhood- surrounded by beauty, colors, fabrics and a lot of Madame Figaro magazines. And this is why I never played with dolls nor liked them! haha. The men in the family will also follow suit – contributing to your look by either applauding or criticizing it. And this is a very healthy style-people relationship. Criticism is key to your personal style-identity. Naturally, style transforms and changes with your age and experiences. You may lose it at times but when you find yourself back again, that inner Queen awakes stronger than before!

Scarves — What do scarves mean to you? Do you have any memories associated with scarves? What do House of Gharats’s scarves mean to you?

I must admit my relationship with scarves is chaotic. I love and don’t love them. I love the French flair of wearing a scarf, but that particular style doesn’t identify with me. To me a scarf needs to embrace you by telling a story that you will portray in the way you wear it. I love Indian style of scarves, scarves that are powerful, colorful that evoke strength and beauty. The colors of those scarves should also be close to the color of my life, of my senses and of my identity. Pastels, exuberant colors, everything that shows opulence in a sophisticated and sensitive way. A scarf is like a little piece of your soul and sometimes it is the only thing you can really show. The House Of Gharat’s scarves are like a memory of a Maharani- beauty, power, strength but above all femininity.

The Queen — Queen Elizabeth II is the most loved and powerful monarch in the world. Many people look to her as someone they admire, a strong woman with a compelling sense of duty, hilarious wit and lovely sense of style and personality. She is a symbol of British heritage, history and identity, serving as a constant for most people’s lives. What does the Queen mean to you? What does she mean to you as a woman?

I have always been a big admirer of Her Majesty and with the recent unfortunate event of HRH Prince Philip’s passing, I think I admire her even more. Her Majesty is in inspiration for the strength, courage and unshaken sense of service towards her people. Unfortunately, I do not live in a country where Monarchy rules, and in Italy the Monarchy has lost its fame but I am a big monarchist overall. Any occasion to discuss the history and status quo of the Crowns around the world is a good start of the day! 🙂

Being a Queen is not just being a female on a throne. Being a Queen is an institution, it is a duty, it is a spiritual leadership. But I also find that the word Queen is used and misused too often in our times. Everyone wants to be a Queen, but do they know what comes with that? It is not about the lifestyle, the wardrobe, the social status, the people who kneel in front of you- it is a very deep term. In a way society and fashion have always tried to promote that all women are Queens, but I have always been the rebel in this. The same for using the term Diva. Many women like to proclaim themselves Divas. But I wonder, why is that? The real meaning of a Diva is “a divinity”. What makes us so divine that we as humans need to have the same spiritual status of a deity? Your looks cannot define you neither as a Queen nor as a Diva.

Inner Queen — Embracing your inner queen is all about self-love. Being loyal to yourself, accepting yourself, celebrating yourself and loving yourself. What makes you feel this way? How do you pamper yourself to feel like royalty? What do other people do to make you feel special? How do you remind yourself of your inner Queen?

Your inner Queen is your inner voice, that little something that always makes you cringe in fear, that makes you feel insecure or that reprimands you quietly. It is about the harmony you live in with yourself. It is about how much you listen to that inner voice and how much of that inner can actually be seen on the outside. I keep it very simple- if I am not in balance with myself, I just take time off to reconnect with my senses. It can be by going on a trip, taking a walk down the Roman Appian Way, it could be by going to church or even by having a good plate of pasta or any other gourmet experience. But above all it is about eliminating the negativity around you and all those roadblocks that tell you: NO- you cannot do this. And there is not a day in my life that I don’t remember having to fight against these Don’ts!

The past one year has not been easy for any of us and this pandemic has shaken our worlds. But it has also helped us see the true meaning of life and human spirit. Nothing can break that as long as you stay firm to your roots, your belief and inner self. Everything is transitory and this is a transition too. Like a famous Roman quote “Sic transit gloria mundi” meaning, “So the glory of the world”.

Home — What does home mean to you? How does it reflect yourself, your life experiences and memories, your tastes and passions? Where in your home do you feel most grounded? What’s something in your home that means a lot to you and why?

Home to me is a shrine. It is my castle; it is my safety zone. Home is always a place of gatherings and numerous family members getting together. It is the place that you do not allow everyone in because it is your intimate world and very few can access it. This is my philosophy. How you live inside your own house is also the answer of how you live with yourself too. A home is like a mirror of your soul, how much time you dedicate to it, how you live it, how you yourself dress to stay home and so on. And sometimes it has happened to me that when I am not feeling well or at ease with myself due to a situation or an event, the home suffers it too. You see objects breaking, you feel tension in the air, you feel the need to cleanse and thus the big spring cleaning starts even if spring never arrives – haha.

A friend once advised me to Feng Shui the house, but I never undertook that step. Instead, I decided to personalize it, to get rid-off those objects or decors that were long overdue for their time and start over again. Re-designing is like re-inventing oneself. And that is very therapeutic! I always apply self-therapy by changing the spaces around me and adding a touch or an element that reshapes it all into a new dimension and restyling myself too.

And these elements are my Ikebanas. An ikebana, which is the ancient Japanese art of flower arrangement is not just about the flowers, it is a philosophy. Each arrangement has a meaning and can express a state of mind by looking at it. Arranging an Ikebana in one’s home is both an art and a process. You have to be mindful of the flowers you choose, their position, the containers you will use, in which corner of the house it will be placed and so on. It is not a simple action of putting a bunch of flowers in a vase. It is also about the spaces, the decoration, the objects. It becomes almost like a meditation – but a scented and colorful one. Flowers bring me a lot of joy and an Ikebana is the pure expression of my feelings and soul.

Sleep — Sleep is an art, a restorative practice that our bodies need to heal, grow and rest. It’s when we dream, reflecting on our thoughts and feelings in abstract ways. How do you approach sleep? Do you have any rituals to prepare for this special time of the day? How do you create a sleep sanctuary in your home?

I love sleeping. I sleep a lot and when I don’t manage to sleep well and enough, it affects my productivity and my overall wellbeing. I do not follow specific sleeping rituals but after long sleepless nights in the past year, I did come to realize what was blocking my sleeping senses. Overthinking! And overthinking can be your biggest enemy if you do not learn how to deal with it before going to bed. It takes a lot of time and effort to practice a pre-sleeping meditation and I am still learning. For now, I follow the good old way freshly ironed bedlinens (that is the simplest luxury to me that makes me fall asleep in a second), a good prayer and a very soft classical music to calm the senses. Until last year, we did not know really know what sleep was as our worlds were living on an eternal stress drive, the routine was stressful enough to make transform our sleep into a basic necessity but not a ritual. There was just no time for that. But now, we are learning over and over again how to appreciate a quality sleep, a quality time, how to slow-down and live a slow life. Nature is asking us to re-balance ourselves. Not bad for a lesson learned!

Food — How does food connect you with others? When is food a focus for your celebrations, your moments of joy? What, in your experiences, is the reason that food is powerful?

Food fully identifies me; I am a big cook and a food connoisseur. It brings me joy, motivation, hope anything that the senses of your palate can reactivate. Food is also a journey down memory lane and those moments in life that brought joy and marked big events. Food has the enormous power to lift us up, but it can also bring us down easily. It also connects us with people, friends, societies like a chain reaction. Afterall, people connect with each other with most ease at the table. And living in Italy you know what that means- food, food, food all the time ;)!

60-year-old self — What does it mean to be sixty-years-old? What words of advice or compassion would you give your sixty-year-old self? Whether you’re younger or older, how would you speak to yourself at this pivotal age?

Age to me is never an issue. It is just a number in a long range of statistics which always tends to classify women into mid-aged, old, senior and so on. To me a woman has no age nor really ages. It is all in your mind and spirit. Naturally, we tend to change physically as time passes but we can also defy those changes as long as our inner-self is in harmony with the world we have built around us. There has always been too much social pressure on women since the world has existed. Too many cultural dogmas and prejudices define what a woman should be at a certain age, what she should have accomplished by a given time in her life and so on. But men are never asked these questions are they? If we cannot be given the freedom to live and express ourselves regardless of the age, no wonder we will grow old faster. Suppressing what you aspire and cannot achieve because someone tells you that at your age you can’t do it, is just another form of polite discrimination. I say no to all of it. When I grow older, I hope above all to have the good health to continue excelling and doing what I didn’t have enough time or confidence to undertake at a younger age. I believe that the more we age, the more powerful and fierce we become in reaching goals or even showing society we are here, and we do exist. And with older age there is nothing better one needs than motivation, the feeling of being needed and useful and above all free to still fly high and tell the world what a life I have seen. And I hope to be kinder to myself and less critical. The beauty of age is that it makes you see life with a different set of eyes every day.

Work — In today’s times, careers and vocations intermingle as emphasis is placed on the importance of loving what you do, no matter the cost. Can your life exist outside work, or is it more important for you to love your career? What do you think about career changes? Have these new paths affected your life? As the 9 to 5 becomes a thing of the past, have you begun to work multiple positions at once? What skills do you think can help women adapt to this changing world of professions and work? What would be your advice to a young woman starting out today?

A fantastic question and thank you for asking it! I have had several career changes over the years and regardless where I have lived and the path my career has taken, the love for what I did and the job I had and still have was always my objective. It does take time until you truly find that job that you like or even more, until it finds you. I believe that the career comes looking for you rather than you searching endlessly for something that may never come. You see after all , you can love what you do when you really know how to adapt to a workplace, how to innovate yourself, how to fit in a team and how to express opinion and receive feedback. Even if you do not have the expertise for a certain job , you may have the soft-skills and the qualities to make something out of any important job, thanks means you are already a woman in career! Real talent is always hidden somewhere deep inside of you and you need to open your inner doors to it wide open. And I am saying this with my other hat of an HR professional 🙂

My life can exist perfectly well outside work. Actually it is a must. And the pandemic has proven this to all now more than ever. We cannot be hooked up only to the office life, to the zillions of engagements and travels , conference calls and endless office hours. The companies’ polices before the pandemic have always been very vocal on the work-life balance issues but somehow they were never really implemented well enough. Requesting a day or two to telework was pure luxury. Now it was given to us as a force majeur, almost by default and it has proven to work extremely well. A lot of food for thought in there!

A career is also how you manage to build your life outside the office and how you do not allow the office to live your life from 9 to 5. Although, I am career oriented, I also know my limits well and how to enjoy life. I think I have found the right balance after many years of international and cultural experiences where at the end of the day anyone in this world just wants to shut the computer down, grab a nice drink and enjoy a good meal and forget it all. But this of course is easier said than done. We all have become victims of an institution or a career path in this modern society and it is hard to stay focused on what you love most and how to live your life without too many institutional attachments. And I see that in the younger generation, the stress to prove how good one is and the pressure to perform better than the competition leads to many burnouts and zero career advancements. If you love what you do and you love how you do it, others will learn how to love it too. It just takes a lot of time, perseverance, patience and self-integrity. Always try identify yourself with what you believe. Selling an image with no substance is never a good strategy and younger people need to realise that.

Career changes are a must also because we tend to get stuck in a comfort zone and fail to see the reality around us. Long gone are the days of a fixed job position and a life time contracts and honestly, I would not want that either. Staying on the same job for too long is not healthy. Your skills will fade away, your experience will become obsolete and you will lose the perception of what it means to be motivated, bold and move on with life. Yes, our career choices may be limited but you can always explore other options outside the office routine. You can innovate and venture into something you know well but never had the courage to propose to your manager for instance. If they can’t give it to you, you can create it for them! And there is plenty of success in store out there and all very motivated women!

Motivation is always the key in what you do, ambition is always the drive to do it. Put these two together and you can rule your world. Women can adapt easily to any state of flux or continuing changes. It is innate in us and we always manage to multitask no matter how long a day in the office is or what awaits us at home. To me, the times we currently live in, are a great training platform for I believe that as soon as life goes back to the normality we all dream of, our lives and careers will take a new turn. We need to be proactive, ready, motivated and strong to undertake the new challenges ahead of us . After all, no-one would give us a sabbatical year on a global level! Be brave, be bold, be yourselves and always shine in your beauty.

Menopause — Menopause is a new part of life — a shift in the life phases of women everywhere. If you or someone you know has experienced this, how would you describe its transformative moments? How would you disrupt common beliefs about the loss of pleasure after menopause?

This stage in a woman’s life has always been a taboo. It is that talk that you can’t mention in public let alone at home. In a way it is a very private and intimate moment but it is also a communal one as it affects every woman. Since childhood we are reminded that this time will come and by that time you must have reached your full maturity as a female, your family must be perfect, your kids grown up and so on.

Well, life doesn’t always work out the same way for all and some women become more feminine and more confident only when this big change happens. When my time comes, I just hope to face it with serenity, with a smile and pride that it is not the end of my world and that my female beauty is still in me and with me. We are like roses that bloom in May and reach the full bloom by June to not only fulfill our senses with their mesmerizing scent but to show us that the beauty lasts even past its season. And it stays to show us women ,that nothing fades away unless you decide to let it.

Sex — Society thinks older women don’t have sex … or at least, doesn’t talk about it. As you’ve aged, have you experienced any feelings of shame regarding pleasure? How do you combat these feelings in your own life? How is sex still important to you, even with age?

Society always has a say in anything and regardless of your age, sex was a taboo even when I was a teenager. Thanks to Hollywood I think sex became fashionable and that daily subject which before would be hard to address. Unfortunately, sex is often linked to religious believes and family rules which end with either ruining one’s sexuality or psychologically challenging you. And when you are a woman, the challenges double. But we luckily live in a free world and female emancipation is stronger than ever. Every woman is free to express and feel her sexuality as she pleases. If she feels ashamed, she also has the choice of exploring that shame and understanding what made her live it this way. If society makes you feel bad about it, you can also challenge them and prove them wrong. This is not about showing and proving how much of an expert you are in the field, it is about standing for yourself with integrity, convictions and the liberty to express yourself. Sex is an intimate affair and publicly speaking about it does not bring much result. It is also a style, a belief, a mix of emotions lived or dreamt of. It is a bit like fashion. You get tired of one look, you look for something more fulfilling and fully in line with yourself. And when it comes to age, if it makes you feel alive and loved and you have the right partner, why stop it?

Sisterhood — The women and girlfriends in our lives are incredibly important. Relationships between women are magical things, incredibly supportive and precious. What does sisterhood mean to you — that special bond between women and its meaningful moments in our lives? When has sisterhood been incredibly important to you? How does it make your daily life feel brighter?

This is a very nice question but also a hard one. To me sisterhood can exist only between women who share similar values, views, experiences and have similar vibrations among them. We can influence each other and learn from each other in reciprocity. But you also know that in our female world there is a lot of competition and sisterhood is not always the way forward. Although, I always strive to promote females and empower them to leave their comfort zones and see the opportunities out there, it is not always easy. There have been times that after such a given opportunity they will turn their back on you and continue your initiative differently. Thus, a woman needs to be mindful of who and how she helps but at the same time she should not look for anything in return. This is what I call a “passive” sisterhood movement: we help each other but we don’t necessarily need the recognition of this action. Women are a big power and women always seek empowerment and the world must continue promoting this. But women should also help themselves and not just expect the world to empower them because of a gender balance issue. If it is in you and your character knows no limits, you are empowered by nature already!

I am blessed to have very good female friends and all from different cultures and backgrounds. Our sisterhood networks expand beyond borders, we learn from each other’s traditions and experiences and admire each other when it comes to face a challenge. We can even call each other after months and start a conversation where we left it. Every woman contributes with something in this world, although this may not necessarily be seen first-hand. If I manage to inspire one woman and two others to inspire me, I think we have done a pretty good job in this world. Each one of use is the backbone to something bigger and better- and sometimes, we just need to discover what that is. It takes time but it almost feels like the “search of happiness”. You will never find it until you live it inside your heart.

I am also a very fervent advocate for young and bright artist women. Italy is an amazing country and a unique place for art, but only 17% of the art world is composed of females. There are many social norms and dogmas that follow us as females and art should look beyond the eyes of the gender. Art is universal. And female artists are a treasure. An example is a friend whose artwork I appreciate a lot, Costanza Alvarez de Castro. I invited her to be featured in this story alongside me. She is a young Roman artist, half from Latin America, that creates unique paintings from an early age. She has worked on set design for cinema and theater, and she is also one of the few young artists to have worked for the Rome’s Opera house and has painted the Opera’s decors. She is also among the 303 finalists’ illustrators at the competition for the Illustrators Exhibition, held during Bologna Children’s Book 2021.

What connects me with her is that she promotes beauty and people’ relations through her art. Costanza has collaborated with galleries and curators since 2015, mainly in Rome, she has recently shown her works at Kou Gallery in Rome (where she is among the resident artists) and this is a wonderful example how young females should thrive even if the world says: No, this is not a job for a lady!

Sisterhood — The women and girlfriends in our lives are incredibly important. Relationships between women are magical things, incredibly supportive and precious. What does sisterhood mean to you — that special bond between women and its meaningful moments in our lives? When has sisterhood been incredibly important to you? How does it make your daily life feel brighter?

And while doing the HoG you style interview, I also took the opportunity to ask Costanza the same question on sisterhood and what does it mean to her too. Afterall, through this storytelling we also build our sisterhood networks and what really connects us. And she and I are connected thought art, beauty, elegance, history.

Here is what sisterhood means to her: “I strongly believe in the importance of equal treatment between women and men. And I’m not only talking about equal rights and equal opportunities workwise, but I also mean it socially. In my career and experience as an artist it has happened to me to not have been considered an artist in who to invest not because of my art (that some people might not like, which is absolutely acceptable) but because of my physical appearance. It hurts not to be taken seriously because of how I look but I don’t really care anymore”. People will always judge you along the way and as you said, we have no limits, and we never have to give up on our true self because of others.

I think sisterhood is important, I really believe that as women we can challenge each other and be supportive as well, because we still have lots of battles to fight (and it is not a fight against men or against tradition, too many people get confused here). I have met extraordinary women in my life, I love to work with them, to talk to them, and through our friendship I have learned so much. Some have been like sisters to me and that has no price. I have lots of very good men friends but the bond that can be built with a woman similar to you is just extraordinary. Jealousy and resentment can be around the corner but if you get surrounded by women similar to you in terms of values and beliefs, this doesn’t happen”.

Spirituality — What does spirituality mean to you? We’ve all had moments in our lives where we’ve looked to a higher presence for guidance, comfort, light — when has some form of faith saved you in this way? How would you tell this story?

Spirituality is my essence. I cannot be who I am nor live my days without it. It is not something that you necessarily search for or try to learn. It is innate and defines your existence, yourself, your universe. I am a deeply spiritual person and everything I have always done has been guided by this. But spirituality is also a religious experience although not necessarily a spiritual person can be a religious one. It is quite a philosophy and if you know how to combine both you have the universe! I have had a lot of deep spiritual experiences since a very early age, and this has shaped me forever and made me aware of the divine existence. A spiritual experience from an early age does shape one’s adult life later on. And those signs are always around me, even now.

Spirituality is also not just my religion and my credo, it can also be how I interpret the world, how I see my relationships, how I live my days and what I do every minute and every hour even if I do not necessarily realize that my actions are guided by that. One’s life and heart are a spirit, one’s thoughts, worries and beliefs are guided by that invisible hand that you know is always there for you as long as you let it guide you. Faith has always been in me and with me, and faith can never let me go. Otherwise, I would not be where I am now, I would not have walked this far to become the person I am. And this journey is not over yet, as long as there is faith, there is life. I need that light in my life always because it has always helped me and guided me towards the right way.

And to me women in general are spiritual human beings. It is a given by God, by a higher power, by that what you believe in. Women give and create lives, they nurture love, they create networks, build societies and understand how style works ☺! Just that sometimes they have not discovered their spirituality fully or have allowed someone else to tell them what works or not. If you look deep into yourself, you will see that everything you have done in life is done with the spirit of faith regardless if you have been conscious of it.

Unseen people — Hogging your style means standing in your own power, particularly for those who are often unseen by others. In this world of social media and influencer culture, who is an ‘unseen’ person that inspires you? How can we better ‘see’ people who often go ‘unseen’?

This is a wonderful question. There are many unseen people around us and sometimes they decide to remain as such even if we want to bring them out there. At times, to remain unseen is the best you can do in a profane world. You are cocooning. It gives you a more competitive advantage and keeps your integrity and sooner or later someone will discover you and make you a fly in a good way. Quite often, the social media culture that is growing stronger each day is spotlighting people who meet a different target or fulfil a quota. Social media helps us all to be out there and gain an audience, but do we really need all that audience? If there is no personal connection or a relationship to build with these unseen people what is the point that we are social media influencers?

This is why I always add a touch to my style with a homage to those people or friends that are unseen and have preferred to remain as such. They may not realize how much their invisibility motivates and encourages me, but by passively showing them out there, even through a simple fashion statement, it can be a big victory. For instance, I have a good friend in Senegal who is a style icon, who is an amazing woman in career, who is a loving mother and wife and is an inspiration to the women of her culture. She has crossed cultural borders, shown the world who she wants to be, and she is an example to many. But despite all this, she still prefers to remain unseen. It is exactly this simplicity of not showing off that actually makes you more seen by people. And if I miss talking to her or just sharing a few hours of laughter and cannot do that because of our multiple international locations, I could be wearing a scarf or a piece of jewelry from her culture to bring us closer together. And when people stop me and ask where all these accessories are from, this is when I start telling the story of this unseen woman! The unseen sight of who you are works like a magnet.

We can see the unseen people by telling their stories, but we must always remember that the best stories are those never told. We need to keep the mystery to move on and make the world go round.

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