Designer, Dreamer, Explorer, and Artist Allegra Rose Berger | Retrospec Community Series
RETROSPEC COMMUNITY SERIES: ALLEGRA ROSE BERGER
Our newest series features members of our Retrospec community sharing, living, dreaming, and exploring in their environments.
INTRODUCING OUR COMMUNITY SERIES
Everyone is drawn toward something different in nature. When our society feels overwhelming, our instincts often push us to seek refuge in nature. With this series, we are looking to find that unity through our city dwellers, rural explorers, and suburban seekers with Retrospec products.
We have been completely enamored by the content our community has shared with us over the years. Our goal at Retrospec is to encourage more time spent in nature with affordable products designed to enhance your experiences, not bust your wallet. We wanted to extend the connection we feel to our community to the rest of our followers, and by doing so create an environment that helps encourage you to get outside.
Kicking off our community series is Allegra Rose Berger, a designer, photographer, road tripper, explorer, and true lover of the outdoors. Allegra moved out to Los Angeles in May of this year. The creativity that explodes out of L.A. was what originally drew her to the city, but not without forgetting her natural roots. Allegra is an artist through and through. Her background in graphic design and fine arts has helped to shape a lot of her future goals and recent accomplishments. Much of her inspiration for her work is found through words. Allegra migrates toward poetry and creative writing as a mechanism for evoking what she wants to convey in photography. Read about her ethereal connection with nature, draw to design, free-spirited approach to travel, and how her Venus moves with her.
R: Your last name means "mountain-dweller" in German, how do you feel the namesake has contributed to your relationship with the outdoors?
AB: After living in Vail, CO for a few years during high school, I learned to love the magic and the mystery of the outdoors. I have many fond memories of going off-road jeeping and camping with my best friends, chasing those Rocky-Mountain sunsets, and falling asleep under blankets of glimmering stars. I think my heart and soul will definitely always dwell in the mountains and know I will end up living in the mountains again someday.
R: How did you first become interested in design and photography, and where do you go in search of inspiration?
AB: In high school, I used to take senior portraits and sold prints of my photography and handwriting on Etsy. I have always been inspired by telling stories in visual ways, and have always been empowered creatively through the process of seeking out the magic moments in our everyday lives.
R: From your Instagram, it's clear that you love to travel! How do you decide where your next adventure will be?
AB: I do love to travel, and definitely have a nostalgic heart. I normally plan my travels around a balance of places I go for work, and places I've always dreamed to go. Most of the time, travel (for either work or play) happens on the more spontaneous side, which is something I also love about it!
R: Los Angeles frequently gets a bad rap for not being particularly "bike friendly." Where are the places that you love to bike around or to that you'd say challenge that assumption?
AB: I definitely think it takes time to find the best routes to your favorite places, but once you find your way, the little journeys are great. I love biking to Howling Juice in Culver City for an acai bowl, or to the Blue Bottle at Platform to get some work done. Both of these are only a 12-minute bike ride from my house!
R: We'd argue that the best memories are made while adventuring outside. Is there a certain outdoor experience that stands out as the greatest memory for you?
AB: One of my favorite days ever was one spent with my best friend back in Colorado. We drove about 50 miles past Vail, and ended up somewhere in the Rockies, up on a mountain, in a field filled with summer blooms. We danced with wild horses and watched the moon & stars come out, one by one. We had no connection to the rest of the world, no cell service or electronics, and grew sleepy & starry-eyed on the floor of our tiny cabin, and wondered about why life is lived any other way.
R: If you had to choose between a challenging mountain bike trail or a chill coast down the beach, which would you choose and why?
AB: Honestly, I have a love for both (and the scars to prove it!) I was mountain biking in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and had a gnarly fall, but had the best time ever. Mountain biking is so exhilarating and exciting, and definitely worth the scrapes and bruises. But now that I live in CA, I love cruising along the coast at sunset on the boardwalk from Venice to Santa Monica.
R: Favorite place to grab coffee in L.A.?
AB: Intelligentsia has the best almond milk chai lattes!
R: What's your go-to In-N-Out order?
AB: Honestly, [I] just love the Neapolitan shakes!
R: If you could choose one superpower, what would it be?
AB: Flying, for sure.
It’s not always easy to make getting out in nature a habit, but Allegra’s advice is both approachable and sage. “You have time for the things that you make time for.” Getting out in nature, she says is “as easy as eating or breathing.” Allegra advises we experience so much overstimulation from our phones, social media, and a seemingly never-ending stream of content from all directions. Directing your attention toward nature can help to relieve that overstimulation and help reconnect with yourself, your roots, and find balance.
Follow Allegra on Instagram to see more of her adventures.
