Milica Marković

How to be and stay successful while remaining consistent with yourself and your own principles and values despite the global impact of comfort zones life trends and instant versions of life? How to build yourself up, your personal style, your career and moreover how to live a life in all its beauty of imperfect perfection, Milica Markovic reveals to us, incidentally illuminating to us the answer to the ethereal question on why that one thorn is sometimes necessary to complete the beauty of a rose.

1. We live in a time of visual content where the saying is that packaging sells content; how much did beauty, appearance and charisma help you or not in building your career? Does every rose really have to have at least one thorn?

It is beautiful to be beautiful but when was it really enough? For every single job, for any kind of professional challenge or success, talent, constant and persistent work has been needed. I have never met anyone who is considered itself being acomplished in business who does not know or do the work the best posssible way. To me, this thesis is dangerous sometimes because it is a stereotype and a wrong generalisation. Aesthetical principles are even more emphasized these days. We are surrounded with beauty but the beauty became an imperative itself. Package and content criteria are even more poinetd out simply because we’re in a position to observe everything offred out there easily, which is also good on one hand. On the other hand we’re prone to observe anything that doesn’t fit the criteria of the moment as odd and not authetic.

And when it comes to the rose and thorne part, the beauty of imperfection presented in such symbolics to me personally is the real and ultimate level of beauty. That concept originates from Japan and there’s one realy wonderful story in which a teacher asked his student to arrange a garden for a tea ceremony. The student did his best, the garden was perfectly set, but the teacher wasn’t happy saying that something was missing. He walked past one tree and shook the branches so that the leaves fell on a spotlessly clean lawn. And so that was exactly what was missing. Imperfection is the missing magic, the law of nature and the necessary balance all together

2. Since you are a public figure who has a very demanding and responsible job, and therefore a role model to many women and girls, how does your preparation for an ordinary day looks like?

Thank you for this compliment. I stated to notice that more and more I’m observing each day as a miniature of life and according to that philosophy morning is our youth and evening is calm, which means getting up early, spending more energy in the first half of the day, and devoting myself to creative thinking, planning, reading and of course going to bed early. I don’t really make every time to organize myself, but let's just say that I'm trying. My morning rituals are a mix of different things that please me, and some of them come from Ayurvedic practice. The most important thing for me is to start the day in focus and in peace.

3. According to you, what is the definition of success, that little something that makes you feel proud, happy and thankful in silence?

That exact moment of peace you either manage or not to achieve during one day or cumulatively during the entire life. When you know you gave it all in order to become the best possible version of yourself and not just for your own sake, but for the sake of others as well and when that feeling lasts, that thing.

4. How would you briefly describe all the noise about the new wave of feminism in every day and fashion scene as well?

In short, feminism has almost become mainstream, and everything is allowed in fashion, because fashion is a big playground and something amusing. Women around the world, and even in countries where this has been impossible so far, are building strong networks of support by online movements, and in that way they’re helping, counseling and covering other topics to each other, and in this I see another quality of the new wave of feminist movement. Along with technology, great friends and exponents of feminist thought are both the fashion, beauty and skincare industries, which themselves have experienced great expansion these days. But today, you can walk around wearing a "We should all be feminists" T-shirt, and just throw it at the bottom of the closet the next day. I don’t support the use of feminism in fashion industry as an accessory of the moment, as something that is no more than an ongoing trend that we are following. I think it is the fashion and beauty products and campaigns designer’s responsibility to place feminist or any other socially engaged messages that they market through their brands in order to become more lasting value for their consumers.

5. What do you think is the right investment?

 Working on yourself by all means.

6. How would you describe an ideal Sunday morning?

Somewhere in the Mediterranean, with the scent of lavender, the sound of crickets, bare feet on the warm stone of the courtyard or terrace of a house descending through the olive grove. With a big cup of coffee and a great book.

7. Do you think that clothes do make a man or is it the other way around?

Both, yeas and not really. I think it can tell us a lot about someone but not to define the person necessarily.

8. How would you describe your personal style and do you think it would be different if you lived and worked in another place or planet for example?

I found myself in one of your Instagram stories, in which you described styles by saying: We want comfort, we want ease but not sacrificing chic and cool. I love classics and comfort above it all, and it should be tailored to my work code and its various editions, from smart casual to strictly business. But I also like to spice it all up with good accessories or some unique or specific piece of clothing. As a fan of the long, warm summer, my inspiration goes down in the winter, so the basic colors are black, gray and dark blue, and the coats and turtlenecks are the key pieces. In summer it’s a different story, because everything becomes more playful, but still goes under the classic style.

9. Whose creation would you take to the Met Gala?

I don’t have a favorite designer, especially not for the Met Gala where fashion houses often show something completely different from their usual red carpet pieces. But if I had to choose one, it might be Valentino.

10. Top five essential style pieces by you?

Black T-shirt, good jeans, quality suit, massive coat, hat.

11.  What is beauty in your opinion?

Beauty lies in verse, in a smile, a landscape, in touch, artwork, both in youth and in wrinkles. Beauty is able to ennoble us, and it can also destroy us, depending on how we approach it. I see it as a gift from God, along with other qualities or talents that are given to us. As we treat them, so will they speak through us.

12. Do you think that love still makes sense in this turbulent and fast-paced world that we live in?

I think that just because of a kind of world we live in, only love has and will always make sense.