Unlikely Style Icon: Frida Kahlo

"I had two big accidents in my life Diego, the trolley and You. You are by far the worst."
-Frida comparing her marriage to Diego to a near-fatal trolley accident.

When I think of a woman that radiates brilliance, resilience, passion, depth and complete control while still maintaining a vulnerability and a unique sense of style - one woman comes to mind: Frida Kahlo. She is a woman that I have been interested in since my freshman year of high school - I've watched movies about her, read books that described her and her art, and researched, studied, and tried to find deeper meanings about her life and art.
One of the many things that I love about Frida - was that she made it no secret that she and others didn't consider her pretty but that never stopped her from painting self-portraits and being photographed. Even when describing her wedding she says:

“I borrowed petticoats, a blouse, and a rebozo from the maid, fixed the special apparatus on my foot so it wouldn’t be noticeable, and we were married. Nobody went to the wedding, only my father, who said to Diego, ‘Now, look, my daughter is a sick person and all her life she’s going to be sick. She’s intelligent but not pretty. Think it over awhile if you like, and if you still wish to marry her, marry her, I give you my permission.’




A few of her famous works of art:



Her and her "love" Diego Rivera - their marriage was filled with open affairs, one divorce (they remarried a year later) and known to be tumultuous but they stayed together until her death and openly admired and respected one another's work.

For example, in 1953 a year before Frida's death - he was being enshrined as Mexico's greatest living painter, he gave an interview in which he stated,

"Frida Kahlo is the greatest Mexican painter. Her work is destined to be multiplied by reproductions and will speak, thanks to books, to the whole world. It is one of the most formidable artistic documents and most intense testimonies on human truth of our time.''



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