Law and Fashion

Law and fashion? Aren’t these two completely opposite fields? Well, I am living proof that one and the same person can do both perfectly well. In my first post, though, please allow me to dwell a little more on my life’s journey so far. I promise I’ll only do it once. In future I will let the pictures speak, and only write short posts, although lawyers do normally like to write a lot…

I was born and raised in Tirana. Tirana is the capital of Albania and Albania, a small country in the Balkans. Some people know that my country was still communist and very isolated until 1991, but no more than that. In this blog I will return time and again to my homeland, its beautiful nature, its cuisine and customs, and of course, to style and fashion from then and now.

But back to me. There used to be a funny tradition in Albania. At a child’s first birthday celebration, the family put some objects in front of the baby and observed which of these objects the child would touch first. This object was supposed to symbolize the profession the child would chose as an adult. My parents told me I chose a dress ….

As I loved dancing a lot as a little girl – which I actually still do – my mother considered encouraging me to become a prima ballerina. Yet my interests appeared to be so manifold that my parents decided not to send me to ballet school, but to public school. In the meantime I had already begun learning German at the age of five.

In the following years, I became a model pupil which I remained until my “summa cum laude” PhD in Germany. I had the highest grades in all subjects. If only I hadn’t got this somewhat lower grade in physical education…that’s probably what pushed me to become a sporting ace now. My P.E. teacher would have been certainly very proud of me:-)

Shortly after Albania became a pluralistic democratic country, we could finally decide by ourselves what to study. I chose law. Studying law was “very trendy”, although you had to get through a tough selection process for being that “trendy”.

I was awarded a scholarship for postgrad studies in Germany and did my Master of Laws, then my PhD in the idyllic university town of Göttingen. My journey then led me to Munich, Frankfurt and also temporarily to Berlin. I worked in various great law firms but also spent some years in between studying hard and making the required clerkships for becoming a fully qualified German lawyer. But this is a complicated bureaucratic story which I do not want to bore my readers with.

The most important thing is that during this obligatory second round of law studies in Germany, I found I could at the same time indulge my second passion: Fashion and lifestyle. I traveled to the fashion capitals, studied all the fashion magazines and style books I could get, discovering old and new designers and beauty products, scouted cool and innovative fashion stores, romantic vintage stores, art and fashion exhibitions, was a pioneer of online shopping at Yoox and Net-a-Porter and so on, and so forth.

Once upon a time in Albania, I was tutoring classmates, neighbors and cousins for free, as was the norm for excellent pupils in a socialist country. In recent years in Germany, I gave friends and acquaintances style and beauty tips, and “top secret” insider shopping knowledge.

Early this year, I came to the conclusion I had to do something with this great knowledge and incredible passion. And so the idea of blogging was born. Ms. Lawyer goes  blogging …. .

Remember that funny little tradition in Albania, as my family celebrated my first birthday? I chose a dress and not a law book 🙂