Hi, thanks for the invite! I am very well actually, there are many things that keep me busy these days but all good. 😊

I live in the UK for 5 years now and overall, yes, I love it here. With its own advantages and disadvantages, it’s still one of the best places in Europe for ska and rockabilly lovers. Weirdly, since I live in England I feel I connect to these subcultures on a deeper level than ever before.

I grew up in South-East Hungary. After a rather challenging childhood I became fully independent at a very early age and I moved to the capital, Budapest on my own. The live music scene was good at the time, I easily found my real home and also my life path there. It was such a great period with lots of adventures and plenty of fun. I loved my home country, but I always wanted to experience to live abroad, so at the end of 2017 I wanted a change and to press that restart button again. I moved to the UK, to a country where I have never been before. Immigrant life can be challenging for sure but still, it was my best decision.

I work in project management, currently finishing off my marketing studies and I also work on my little vintage selling side business. In my sadly not so much free time, I always study something, collecting vintage stuff, working on my mental and physical health, cooking, baking, making artsy DIY stuff, visiting gigs and either travelling or planning my next trip.

I started my Instagram journey in 2015, and back then it was sooo different! It was rather a part of your profile especially for a subculture girl (like good old MySpace used to be), to your interests, gigs you attend, hobbies and model photos. I mainly used it to put myself on the map to get more model jobs. These days this isn’t enough. The world and social media changed a lot obviously, if you want to be successful in anything, they make you to keep up to date with the latest social media trends.

Ridiculous TikTok-style videos with zero creativity or valuable content, fake online ‘relationships’ called collabs etc. became the new ‘normal’ and part of our online life. From the business side I do understand the concept behind it, I just don’t like most of the standard values and quality out there, so I rather stick to my (and others’) low algorithmic photos and vinyl videos. 😊

And the list goes on, Trojan Reggae, Rocksteady, Bluegrass, New Wave, Rhythm & Blues, Irish folk, Hungarian/Gypsy folk etc. As a kid, I had my own little periods with mainstream music what you could hear in the radio/TV in the 90s but I never felt any of those would be ‘me’. Until one day I was listening my dad’s old cassettes, mostly with 60s-70s tracks. I remember asking him: ‘Wow, what’s that???’ He said it’s Creedence Clearwater Revival! I think he was surprised how much I liked it and that’s when something happened and there was no turning back ever since. We also had a vinyl player with lots of various rock’n’roll, The Beatles, Elvis records etc, that’s how my love for vinyls started and I still collect them. This journey was continuous, bear in mind I didn’t even had internet at this time to explore other kind of music. Later I got introduced to Ska, Rockabilly, Psychobilly etc and naturally, my music taste influenced my personality and my outlook too.

Haha, I didn’t realise that these are ‘so many things’ till now. I have always been a ‘mix of subcultures’, I believe you shouldn’t have to have a certain way/look or only listen one kind of music to fit into a subculture or style as long as you love the music and share the core message. I think we all know people who were brought into a community by their boy/girlfriends, and all of the sudden they changed their style and started to dress like a rude girl or a pin up girl, visiting gigs etc. And then they changed their mind and disappeared…On the other hand I know great musicians who don’t care about the typical ‘look’ yet they have the strongest connection with the subculture and everything.

As Pauline Black, the lead singer of The Selecter once said: “2tone is more than Fred Perry”… A way of life, they say, right? Some might say it’s like being part of a big family, there were times when I felt this too. I like to express myself through styles and subcultures that have history and meaning. From times where music was made with proper instruments, people got together to dance and have fun and their look represented their values. For me, the best way to describe it, being part of a subculture and knowing its roots feels like arriving home after some time away. A couple of years ago I was wondering around Edinburgh and I walked into a random coffee shop. The moment I walked in, a Skinhead guy who worked there put one of my favourite tunes on (Claudette – Queen Of The World) and it just felt so damn right. The little things I guess. 😊

The older I get my style changes slightly, becoming a bit more structured but there are certain things that don’t change. My favourite styles and subcultures are authentic, 50’s rockabilly and 2tone ska. In fashion, when it comes to daywear, I prefer vintage 1940’s dresses or 50’s rockabilly ‘bad girl’ vibe, and 1950’s Hollywood glamour for evening wear. And the next day I would go for a totally different outfit like wearing a tweed flat cap with Harrington jacket, Fred Perry polo and mod loafers/Dr.Martens. The balance is the key for me and I equally enjoy the diversity within these styles. Modern, low quality fast fashion has always been a big no for me though, even as a child I preferred second hand shops or flea markets, long before I knew sustainable fashion was such a thing.

Subcultures can bring people together with similar interests and lifestyle, I’m sure many of us found good friends through this way. You can represent your values or stand up against racism, human rights just to mention a few important ones.

As a ‘vintage enthusiast’ this is one of my favourite topics, I could literally write an entire book about this. Our whole world keeps changing rapidly but us, people…Yes we do too, however our needs and instincts have developed for millions of years and these things don’t change overnight. With regards subcultures, I see vintage lovers often proudly state ‘vintage stye, not vintage values’ and things like that. I do agree with most of it however the world would be a much better place if we could bring *some* of those vintage values back. (The key is some). There were really good ones too.

Sure there are benefits of modern life but as mentioned, I’m really into vintage clothing, interior and lifestyle in general. I prefer to visit old buildings with style over modern skyscrapers for example. American V8 cars instead of modern ones. Old towns are always the first I visit in a new place along with flea markets and thrift stores. 90% of my household is from places like this which is a good way to reduce ecological footprint too, by the way. In the last few years the vintage selling, especially 40s-50s clothing market became widely known and sought after. For me these styles are strongly connected with music and subculture roots so sometimes it’s weird to see them back in fashion in different content, often mixing with modern elements. If I could change and bring just one thing back, that would be the dance culture. I would replace the modern clubs with proper rockabilly jive bars where people can dance till the morning.

Yes, I used to, it was mainly photo and make up modeling with some 50’s style fashion shows. Back then there were not many tattooed models in Hungary, especially not with oldschool tattooes and after a while I started to enjoy breaking the typical stereotypes about tattooed women. It all happened in an organic way, I had a photoshoot, shared some photos on social media and then they kept calling me. I’m not really interested in this kind of attention now, mostly because again, this whole industry has changed a lot. From what I can see is that these days only the numbers matter to sell products. Being different or nice is not necessarily a value on the market. Years ago I reached out to a brand I like about a possible collab and they said, you are pretty, let’s talk about it when you have 10K more followers. And this was even before the influencers…haha. There are exceptions, sure I would find the way again if I wanted to. It was so much fun back then.

That’s a tough one. Just to stay within the ska-punk-reggae scene I would say:
Cock Sparrer The Specials (Terry <3), The Clash, Toots and Maytals and The Pogues. But how could I miss Johnny Cash, Etta James, Desmond Dekker, Ronnie Dawson or The Cure etc from my top music list? 😀

I do love travel as much as I can. That’s the thing I most passionate about along with vintage stuff and music. Exploring things, meeting new people, trying local food and things everywhere I visit. A few years ago I went to Ireland for my first solo backpacking trip and I had the best time ever. Ireland has a special place in my heart anyway (not just because of the music and Guinness! :)). If I had to pick my favourite destination I ever visited that would be the Azores; breathtaking nature, unique atmosphere and friendly locals. Can’t wait to go back.

Way too many, I’m quite a planner. In the past years I worked really hard, if all goes well, this year will bring some changes and some exciting, so-called bucket-list travels. That’s on the top of my priority list at the moment.

Keep it going, keep it alive!