She went looking for a feeling of home and found it in the Drenthe woods. Gisele Azad writes columns for Vogue about her new life in nature

Gisele Azad walks through the garden of her forest house in black clogs. About 20 meters away she opens the doors of a wooden hut – her workplace. It is mid-autumn and there is no electricity or running water in the house. It is therefore actually too cold to sit there.

But Gisele doesn’t care about that. Every morning she starts her day here, on a rug on the floor. With a cup of tea, a hat on her head and a warm blanket around her. She writes in her diary and makes a to-do list for the day. A year ago, Gisele moved with her partner Rudmer to this place in the Drenthe woods. Since then, her morning routines have looked like this.

A completely different life

Before that, her life was completely different. As a four-year-old girl, Gisele and her family fled from Tehran, the capital of Iran, to the Netherlands. A week after arriving, her first day at primary school started. “I was the only child who had no food with him. My parents didn’t know they had to give me a lunch box,” Gisele remembers. “That made sense, because it was very different in Iran. There, during our lunch break, we put a cloth on the floor and ate a hot meal on it.”

Forest house in a protected nature reserve

Gisele looks back on that time at the dining table in her forest house in Zeegse. It’s a rainy day. Anyone who wants to visit her must first brave a lot of mud puddles on the unpaved roads leading there.

But the bumpy route is worth it. The thatched forest house and a smaller hut next to it are hidden in a beautiful landscape, surrounded by numerous trees with autumn-colored leaves. The place is located in the middle of a protected nature reserve. There are also a number of holiday parks, campsites and cafes in the area.

In the summer, Gisele uses the small house for work appointments with her clients. As a creative consultant, she helps others start their own business.

The Iranian girl

With her hands clasped around a cup of cappuccino with oat milk, Gisele talks about her past. She had a turbulent childhood. Grew up in Groningen, where she lived in many different places.

Although she didn’t have much trouble learning the Dutch language and culture, she always felt like she stood out from the rest. Those around her – or so she thinks – saw her as the Iranian girl who looked different and had a strong accent. “Cooking was very different at my house than at my friends’. My mother sometimes suggested that I take leftover food to school. But I definitely didn’t want that, because I was ashamed of it.”

Gisele and her brother were raised freely. “My friends in the Netherlands ate pork, but in Iran they don’t. I asked my mother what I should do. She said: ‘do what you want’.”

Blonde black curls

For a long time she wanted to be just like her classmates. ‘Normal’. That’s why she bleached her black curls, bleached the dark hair on her arms and bought clothes that her classmates also wore.

“I felt like I couldn’t fully express myself. I had to adapt to a new culture at a young age, but that did not allow me to explore who I was.”

That changed when she started volunteering at an asylum seeker center when she was 12. “I met young people from all over the world. They also did their best to fit in, putting their own identity in the background. I thought that was a shame, but I knew I did it myself,” she admits.

“That was a turning point for me. I decided to develop my own identity. I will never forget that phase of my life.”

After high school, she started studying International Business at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen. As soon as she finished, she left for Berlin. There the search for her own identity continued.

‘I was able to break away from who I thought I was’

“I always had an idyllic image of Berlin in my head. As soon as I could, I had to go there and discover who I was. That city is free. Nobody knows me. There I could do my own thing. I was able to break away from who I thought I was,” she says.

She lived there for two years in the trendy Neukölln district, she had a job at a media agency, she went to fashion events every week and she spent nights in a techno club. For the first time in her life she felt free.

The journey of discovery for one’s own identity also included a search for a home. After Berlin, she lived for a few years in Amsterdam, The Hague, Bali and Sweden. Getting grounded there was not possible.

A loft in New York

During corona times she returned to Groningen for a while, where she met her partner Rudmer. In contrast to Gisele’s busy character, he is calm and rational. A good example of this opposites attract.

Together they traveled to many countries. During those adventures they made plans for the future. “We were initially convinced that we were going to live in New York for six months. I had even told those around me that we were going to do that,” Gisele laughs.

But into a loft the Big Apple it didn’t happen. That dream was exchanged for a hut in the Drenthe countryside.

This turnaround is mainly due to the corona period, during which Gisele and Rudmer took a walk every morning. One day they discovered an allotment garden in the middle of a residential area in Groningen. That place made them realize that they were looking for peace and space.

Searching housing websites became their new hobby. Long time without success. Until one day Rudmer found the perfect house. There was only one problem: they were traveling in Mexico. Still, they took the chance. Without seeing the place, Gisele and Rudmer bought a house in the middle of the forest.

A new life

She makes Tiktoks about her new life in Drenthe’s nature and writes a monthly column for fashion magazine Vogue.nl. “Since we moved here, people have been asking all kinds of questions about what it’s like and why we took this step. It sounds corny, but I think I’ve found a calling. Inspiring people to embrace a quieter life, just like me.”

Fragment column ‘City girl in nature’

It changed my whole life. Everything, from self-care to my work, wardrobe And especially mental health. I was suddenly a city girl in nature.

A previously city girl ended up in nature. Getting a coffee in town, ordering food and having drinks with friends became a lot more difficult. She also went to the hairdresser every few weeks, had her eyebrows plucked and her nails done.

“I really needed those things to feel good. But since I live here, I am no longer constantly concerned with my appearance,” says Gisele. “Although I still sometimes wear red Chanel lipstick during a walk in the woods if I feel like it. Sometimes I’m still a bitch walking around here.”

Excerpt from the column ‘How I forest-proofed my Paris-chic wardrobe’

No one around me expected that I would live in a forest house in Drenthe. For many reasons, but mainly because of my fashion choices. Ever since seventh grade, I was the girl who went to school every day as if it were her runway.

She traded in her high heels, short skirts and coats for clogs, mountain boots and trousers. “Developing a new style is also part of my new life. Living in the forest has made me realize that I can feel much freer and better in my body,” the columnist describes.

Fragment column ‘In the middle of nowhere’

There are only unpaved (dirt) roads and no street lights – something I perhaps like most about our neighborhood. This makes it feel like I live in the middle of nowhere (although it is in fact only 20 kilometers from Groningen).

She can be in the nearest supermarket in ten minutes and in the city within half an hour. Is living in a Drenthe forest hut really that different from city life? “I don’t really feel isolated. If we lived in the Swedish forests, the nearest town is three hours away. Then where we live now is not too bad,” she compares.

“Yet life feels very different to me compared to where I have always lived. I was used to crowds and lots of noises. I am discovering nature here. I enjoy the peace and quiet. Nature gives me so much freedom.”

The advantage of a turbulent youth

A quiet life in the woods sounds like a dream to many, Gisele notes. Yet few people dare to take the step. “If I don’t like it, I’ll just leave again,” she explains as to why she did it. “I have moved more than twenty times in my life. That is an advantage of my turbulent youth: I don’t have to hold on to things.”

She describes this as a kind of survival mode. “I was constantly ready for major changes in my life: moving or going to another school. You hear that more often from people with a migration background,” she explains. “I started to wonder if I could even have a sense of home somewhere. I came to accept that making a fresh start every so often was my way of life.”

A feeling of home for the first time

Yet she was able to break through that mode. In the Drenthe woods, Gisele feels at home for the first time in her life. “I don’t have to worry about having to go somewhere else next year. It’s just as good as it is now. I have found acceptance,” she says, beaming, as she looks around.

And that dream of a loft in New York? Was she able to let it go completely? “Rudmer and I sometimes talk about that,” she laughs. “If we were to move, we would be more likely to get out into nature. For example, to an even more remote place, somewhere abroad. But I also don’t completely rule out that we will still be living in New York in ten years.”