Green is an ethereal color in the world of fairy tales.

Tinkerbell. Peter Pan.
Frog princes. Mermaid fins.

But as Hans Christian Andersen aptly put it, life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale. So why continue pretending to be so practical?

An annual trip En Vogue with Gastronomypix, previously summoned by the deserts of Utah, took us close to her magnetic playground of San Francisco. Between my favorite and iconic Los Angeles dream and her salivating Bay Area heights was a mountain between the woods. Big Sur, they called it. A sparsely populated region of the Californian coastline where the Santa Lucia Mountains abruptly erupted between the woods and ocean. Much like the setting of a scenic fairy tale. With fairies and all.

But this story isn’t about the ocean. That will be coming shortly, in the conquest of Vitamin Sea. This one is about the woods that lie behind the mountain. Where everything is green, and from where everything originates. Which is why, similar to yesteryears’ proposals and the concept of looks telling stories, the union of green told a short, but enchanting tale of the warrior who came across the nymph in the forest.

For he wasn’t always a warrior. Glazed in silver trousers from a shipwrecked party to nowhere, judged in lookbook by Topman, his journeys to Delhi’s succulent fashion weeks had left their mark with Manish Malhotra’s Swarowksi sequined shawl collar on a minty cool green. With sunglasses by Club Monaco that soon drifted to where their treasures came from. He perched on rocks, and then made his way into the thicket of the woods. For woods, you see, are an iconic backdrop to any story, any statement, and a stark juxtaposition to days of the desert. A love etched into the death of a tree, a barren land amidst the lush of the green.

The only heritage in his fingers was an authentic grandmother’s heritage of a solitaire, encrusted in miniature diamonds in platinum. One that he hoped would have the power to fulfill a wish. Or explode into a magical abyss like Pinnochio’s fairy or a more sumptuous version as lush as the thickets.

And sure enough, a nymph appeared in the thickets. Looking perplexed in her own world, perched high on a tree aged by time and experience.

They say that order is a lovely nymph, her abode the valley of happiness, and always called when sought for. But she seemed troubled. Sometimes displeased, often enchanted, but eternally ethereal.

And yet, before disappearing with invisible wings, she taught him of two things as he begun the conquest of homeward return: be a warrior and not a worrier.

And more importantly, that warriors are not the fastest or strongest of people, for these things can be developed over training. True warriors and those that seek to get themselves out of (often self imposed) situations and stand between an invisible enemy and all that they love or hold sacred. Like the ring, and an unfinished proposal.

And thus ended the histoire of a nymph and a (self developed) warrior in the woods.

For every look has a story,
And every story has a consequence.