The Intimacy of Femininity: a continuation of the theme

mariamanuporto
Aug 4
3 min read

Updated: Aug 20

In Volume 1 of Maizon Magazine , I wrote a short text on a topic that might pique your curiosity: the intimacy of femininity . But where did this idea come from?

Anyone who knows me knows that I spend a lot of my time on Pinterest, creating incredibly specific boards (I'm not lazy, okay? I really enjoy it). And in one of those moments—more precisely, exploring a board just for bags and wallets—the creative spark ignited .

I started thinking about how objects speak to us. About how we choose a bag, a wallet, an earring, a decorative object, a perfume, a bar of soap… and how, over time, some of them ( the most durable or most affectionate ) end up carrying a kind of emotional memory.

They become little guardians and watchdogs of our history. And without us realizing it, they build a silent legacy, which one day can be passed on to our beloved heirs.

There's a powerful beauty in the act of owning something that represents us. Choosing an object doesn't have to be practical, functional, or socially validated. Often, it's purely aesthetic, affective, and sensorial. And it's in this space that consumption ceases to be merely a commercial act and becomes a personal expression. We consume not out of necessity, but rather for identification, for narrative, for a kind of intimate recognition. To speak of consumerism here would be an exaggeration: what we choose to have, or what chooses us back, goes beyond the logic of the market and advertising.

These objects that whisper promises, don't speak loudly, don't shout their value, nor demand attention. They merely lie in wait for a gesture, a glance, a moment of distraction when we finally notice them. They are discreet presences, yet charged with intention, awakening silent fantasies not with what they show, but with what they make us imagine. A high heel that has never been worn, for example, but which has nevertheless traveled miles in our minds just from the thought of wearing it with a certain outfit in a certain place, and never quite managing to do so! A lipstick saved just for the day something special happens, a dress we try on when we want to remember who we are, or who we can be. There is a secret intimacy in these bonds: we don't choose them simply for taste, we choose them because, somehow, they promise a version of ourselves we'd like to achieve.

The construction of female desire is rarely direct. It insinuates itself. It's made up of events: what we saw in childhood, what we kept secret, what we learned to love over time. A perfume can awaken memories of adolescence. A beautiful notebook can ignite the desire to write something that's never been said. An object, no matter how small, can be the portal to a forgotten version of ourselves.

Every woman is made of layers: memories, intuitions, desires that change over time, with the body, with mood ( PMS , even more so, right?). And it is in these layers that desire settles , often imperceptibly. We don't just desire what is beautiful or useful; we desire what recognizes us , what echoes a hidden part of our history. An object can be desired because it projects us, clothes us from within. There are choices that seem merely aesthetic, but are, in fact, silent answers to the question: who am I now, and who do I want to be? Between impulse and instinct, it is in this dance that feminine desire builds its own bonds with the intimacy that resides within each of us.

At Maizon, I treat every detail as part of my identity. Each page of this article was conceived as an extension of this universe: words and glances that insinuate themselves like secrets shared between friends. Because the intimacy of femininity also resides there—in the unsaid, in the symbolic, in what we choose to love and cherish, without needing to explain.