Meet Balkan Boss Babe: Selma Ali

1. Can you introduce yourself (where you’re from, where you live now, current profession/career history) to our audience?

Hello everyone, my name is Selma Ali and I’m from Mitrovica, Kosovo. My mother is Albanian and my father is Bosnian. Therefore, you could say that I was blessed with two amazing nationalities. I came to New York City when I was 12 years old because my parents wanted a better education and overall future for my siblings and I. Today, I live in Brooklyn, New York and I graduated from Fordham University with my Masters in Social Work.

During my fieldwork internship placement in grad school I fell in love with psychiatry. Hence, as soon as I graduated I was offered a full time Social Work position in one of the most prestigious hospitals in NYC, in the Emergency Psychiatry Department.  I also work per diem at another hospital in the Emergency Telepsych Department. Moreover, besides working in psychiatry I always had an interest in fashion and this is why a few years ago I started to post fashion, travel and beauty related content.

2. Since our audience is filled with many inspiring stories from the diaspora, tell us a little bit more about your family’s journey coming to the United States.

Oh god, where do I even start…When I was 7 years old my parents, siblings, grandparents, uncle (father’s brother) and I wanted to take the bus from Mitrovica to Macedonia in order to visit our aunt but we were informed that the borders were closed because intense tension between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo were beginning. Sporadic violence occurred including riots and murders in numerous cities.

However, in 1999 my family decided to split because my grandmother did not want to leave her house. Therefore, my grandfather, parents, siblings and I went to my grandfather’s brother’s farm house in Novi Pazar which is a city located in the Raska District of southwestern Serbia. While my uncle and grandmother decided to stay back we decided to leave and take the bus to Novi Pazar. I remember several nights lying in bed and hearing grenades and flying helicopters. I could barely sleep and I couldn’t stop worrying about my grandmother. A month later we found out that they were in a refugee camp. At this point, my father decided that as a family we had to go Bosnia. We didn’t have money or anywhere to go. Therefore, my father met a stranger who took us into their home and allowed us to live with them and sleep in one of their rooms for two months.

After two months we realized that we couldn’t continue to live in this one bedroom. Therefore, we decided to go back to Kosovo. Upon returning to our apartment, the door lock was broken, the apartment was catastrophic and a lot of objects  were stolen. Everything was still not settled. Mitrovica was divided then and it still is divided today. In the North side Serbians live and in the South side the Muslim community resides primarly Albanians. My siblings and I as well as other kids in the neighborhood were escorted to school in army tanks.

Upon school finishing we would go to the American Embassy and wait to get dropped off back home. I remember sleeping with a bb-toy gun underneath my pillow telling myself that if someone attempted to enter the house I could scare them away with my bb-gun because they would probably believe that it’s a real gun. This way I could protect my family and no one would get hurt. There are so many real and frightening experiences that we have gone through. I thank god everyday that my family and I are are safe and alive. I could sit here and write a book about the experiences that my family and I have gone through but our past experiences have given us the strength and resilience that we have today.

I remember several nights lying in bed, hearing grenades and flying helicopters. I could barely sleep and I couldn’t stop worrying about my grandmother.

A month later we found out that they were in a refugee camp. At this point, my father decided that as a family we had to go to Bosnia. We didn’t have money or anywhere to go. Therefore, my father met a stranger who took us into their home and allowed us to live with them and sleep in one of their rooms for two months. After two months we realized that we couldn’t continue to live in this one bedroom. Therefore, we decided to go back to Kosovo.

Upon returning to our apartment, the door lock was broken, the apartment was catastrophic and a lot of objects were stolen. Everything was still not settled. Mitrovica was divided then and it still is divided today. In the North side, Serbians live and in the South side, the Muslim community resides primarily Albanians. My siblings and I as well as other kids in the neighborhood were escorted to school in army tanks.

Upon school finishing, we would go to the American Embassy and wait to get dropped off back home. I remember sleeping with a bb-toy gun underneath my pillow telling myself that if a Serbian attempted to enter the house I could scare them away with my bb-gun because they would probably believe that it’s a real gun. This way I could protect my family and no one would get hurt. There are so many real and frightening experiences that we have gone through. Therefore, I thank god every day that my family and I are alive. To this day the city in Mitrovica, Kosovo is divided between Serbians and Albanians/Bosnians/Turkish people. I could sit here and write a book about the experiences that my family and I have gone through but our past experiences have given us the strength and resilience that we have today.

3. When did you first become interested in fashion blogging? Was it something you always envisioned yourself doing?

When I was a little girl I remember putting on my mother’s heels and walking through the hallway pretending it was a runway show. Upon arriving in the USA, I had no idea what I wanted to do. While in high school, I used to watch The Hills, which is a show involving several personal and professional lives of young women residing in LA, most of them pursuing a career in the fashion industry. At this point, I told my parents that I wanted to work in the fashion field but my father told me that I wouldn’t make it anywhere far and that this industry is all about who you know.

In all honesty, he was right but I am not going to drift off to that topic right now.

When I first started college, I still had no idea what I wanted to do but at that time a few friends of mine told me “to start a fashion blog” and I remember telling myself “Huh, what exactly is that.”

At that time I didn’t even have Instagram, I only had Facebook for close friends and family. Therefore, I decided to give it a try by creating an account on Instagram.

4. Do you have a set-in-stone process for picking out an outfit for the day or do you typically dress depending on your mood? Either way, walk us through what goes through your mind when choosing your outfit.

Since I work in two different hospitals, I do have to follow the protocol of not wearing open toe shoes or spaghetti strap tops including anything else that might be too revealing or slightly risky. I usually like to decide what I’m going to wear the night before. Sometimes I am extremely tired and I might want to wear something effortlessly chic which in that case I will wear sneakers but I’ll still decide to give my outfit some sort of edginess to it. Other days, I might feel like throwing on a blazer the next day for work so I will wear something more elegant or bold. I like to describe my style as eclectic, I feel like I usually put an outfit together based on how I feel at the moment.

5. What are some of your favorite items in your wardrobe? If there’s a special story behind a specific piece (perhaps one piece has a lot of sentimental value), we’d love to hear more.

Hmm. I have never thought about this question before. The only piece of clothing that I feel holds sentimental value in my closet is this oversized burgundy light jacket that I took from my grandmother’s closet when she passed away. This is a piece of clothing that I don’t wear a lot but god forbid if a fire took place inside my apartment this would be the only piece of clothing I would make sure to grab.

6. What advice do you have for someone who is thinking about starting a blog?

Do it and don’t stress too much about it. A lot of people start blogging as a side hobby but I do know a lot of people who started blogging as a side thing and eventually quit their full-time jobs to blog full time. I treat my blog as if I was looking at another person’s blog. What I mean by this is that If I’m on someone’s page, would a video or photo that they posted grasp my attention? That includes the type of photo that is, the caption, the filter, quality of the photo, etc. You will learn as you go and eventually you will also learn what you’re into and what doesn’t go with your creative mindset.

Therefore, take it as a trial and error the first month. Do a lot of exploring, check out how other bloggers handle their collaborations, partnerships, postings, insta stories and engagement with their audience.

Sometimes we get lost in this world of insta perfection where if even the slightest portion of our post is not “perfect” we self-deprecate ourselves with harsh words and we start to believe that blogging might not be for us.

If you want to blog someday full-time, I would recommend that you first work and save money because you will not make money from blogging right away. If you feel like even though you have money saved but you’re still unsure about leaving your full-time job then you have to sit down and write a list of pros and cons of leaving your job to do blogging full time. On my end, I honestly decided to not leave my full-time job because I wasn’t ready to give up psychiatry. I feel that in order to completely satisfy yourself, be active and engage with your blog you have to treat it like your full-time job.

This could become challenging if you already have a full-time job or if you have a job and kids or if you’re full time in school and working while doing blogging. I tried to balance all of it in the past but then I came to a realization that it’s time for me to either leave my full-time job and focus on blogging or just treat blogging as a hobby and continue my career in psychiatry. I wasn’t ready to leave my full-time job because I did not see the value and money that could support my current quality of life while only blogging. Therefore, I decided to continue working in psychiatry while still doing blogging as a side hustle/hobby. Living in New York is expensive, guys!

7. Where can people get in touch with you? Feel free to drop your social media handles, website, other relevant links here.

Please feel free to send me a message, if you have nothing to say you can feel free to just say hi 🙂

Gmail: Laselmastyle@gmail.com
Instagram: LaSelmaStyle
Twitter: LaSelmaStyle
Facebook: LaSelmaStyle