Anna O’Brien, an American model and style blogger with more than 600,000 Instagram followers, has opened up about the lessons she learned from this year’s hardship.
The year 2020 has come with a lot of problems. We’ve experienced wildfire season, a pandemic season, protests and election riots and in fact, surviving 2020 is the greatest achievement anyone can make this year. But the question is: Is the year 2020 to make us or to break us?
Anna O’Brien has the perfect answer to that question. The body positive advocate and influencer who has been inspiring people on self-love through her platform by posting body-positive photos and empowering essays about loving herself just as she is on social media said on Thursday:
“I was speaking to someone yesterday about how different this year has been. It’s been a hard year for no less than 5,478 different and totally unpredictable reasons. That said, every negative thing that has happened has in some way or other forced me to change for the better. I didn’t see it at first. No, I was too bogged down in the overwhelmingness of it all. However the last feels weeks have been oddly different. I’m noticing new talents and I am seeing progress where I least expected it. I genuinely thought this would be the year to break us, but now I’m pretty certain it will be the year to make us.”
In her recent post on Instagram, O’Brien shared a throwback bikini photo which sparked both positive and negative comment on social media in April 2019.
Speaking about fashion, O’Brien said she hates fashion week for the simple reason that someone somewhere will be clutching their pearls and scoffing at her.
“I hate fashion week. There I said it. Somewhere, someone is clutching their pearls and scoffing at me. Do not get me wrong- I love fashion. I love it with every fiber of my being. What I don’t like is elitism. I don’t like sitting in groups of women while they calculate their worth based on the shows they’ve been invited to. I don’t like the awkward silence when people are shuffled from front to back so more traditionally pretty people can take their spot. What I do love is expressing myself through what I wear. I love touching and seeing new ideas come to life. I like the art of it all- creativity in motion. Candidly, I am excited to see how this year changes things and what happens when anyone can sit front row.”
This photo is from her first fashion week. She had to change in the bathroom and sneak out of work for an extra long lunch to attend. A photographer stopped to take the photo for buzzfeed’s best dressed and then she had to present some explanations to her boss who saw it online the following day. O’Brien revealed in an Instagram post.
Speaking about her hobbies in one of her Insta post, O’Brien said:
“My favorite color is orange and I live in Austin, Texas. I have amazing pooch named Data who occasionally lets me put him in ridiculous costumes for my own amusement. I grew up in small town Ohio, and still go back often to visit my parents. My dad doesn’t understand what I do, but he loves finding neat locations in my hometown for me to share online.
“I like a lot of things, but above all I love learning. I’m at my happiest when I trying something new, figuring out a puzzle or pushing myself in some other way. When I was 8 I told my teacher I wanted to be a Renaissance woman- I guess I kind of got my wish.”
“I love to travel and immerse myself in local cultures. I’ve visited 40 countries and lived in 4 (Brazil, Finland, UK and USA). I also speak Portuguese fluently.”
