I’ve seen scarves aplenty around campus as fall crept in, but all too often they’re not as exciting as I know they could be. Luckily, I spotted Anna Rönkkö in the Denny Yard and was immediately struck by the contrast of bright colors.
Her bright red woven scarf interacted with the blue royal blue sweater in a decidedly pleasing way. After I let my focus shift, I found I loved her coordination; the dark blazer complemented the slim dark denim, and athegreat leather bag accented the riding-style boots.
Rönkkö is a Fulbright Scholar from Finland who’s been teaching Finnish at UW for about a month. The Fulbright program is “the largest U.S. international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars, and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide.”
Talking with her, it was exciting to hear about Seattle’s reputation overseas: “I’ve always wanted to come to Seattle. [It] has a good reputation in Finland — we know there’s a lot of interesting culture and music. There’s a mentality close to Scandinavia. And the nature is absolutely gorgeous.”
She’s also no stranger to USM’s format; Rönkkö draws a lot of her inspiration from European street fashion blogs, especially Swedish ones. She even reached into her bag and pulled out a few pages from her favorite Finnish street-fashion blog Hel Looks, which she uses in her teaching.
Though she’s well versed in fashion, Rönkkö prefers to do the work herself and find the diamonds in the rough: “I buy clothes all the time from second-hand stores,” she said, laughing. “It’s my hobby.”
That being said, I hope to see more people using strong colors to spice up their outfits. With the gray skies coming, we’ll need all the brightness we can get.
