Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

Over 16 years ago, while living in Paris, I created a blog called Isiomastyle report. I was inspired to curate fashion and style from an African perspective. Upon returning to the US, I continued the blog, documenting how to appreciate, wear, and perhaps even live African fashion to its fullest, now from an American perspective. I share this story because, with life and work, I tend to compartmentalize things. On one hand, writing for a general audience, as with my blogs, challenges me to remain adaptable. On the other hand, so many other things like work, forces one to stay rigid (as with thinking and talking solely as a professor). Life isn’t solely about publishing papers or succumbing to academic pressures; it’s simply about living. I acknowledge that this approach may not align with what academic spaces consider essential, but I continue writing for a general audience to help me live.

The blog officially ceased operations around 2018. I was a full-time mother, juggling a new grant and an academic career. Recently, I revisited the blog’s archives and couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the writer. Why did she stop writing about life from an African perspective? Did she lose her ability to remain flexible, or did she simply choose to stop? I believe that words are meant to be written with a glimpse of the spaces we live in. Be it motherhood or professor, fashionista or storyteller. That’s what writing means to me. It’s something living, something shared, something spoken out loud or kept silent in my notes. Regardless of the case, our words are meant to reach corners, touch lives, be performed to a community, read aloud to children, or recited by heart.

The style report evolved into grants and this blog on parenting and productivity ignited by the pandemic. Words became scratched or rather sprayed across my chest, unleashing some of my greatest dreams. These words—those that reflect on style or research, parenting or productivity—are what keep me flexible in this life. Each word I keep, in so many ways, rides on a stubborn belief in lasting, in continuity, in beauty, in style, and in the power to simply live this one life I am so lucky to have.