21 and Professional

21 is an age in America where one is considered an adult. As a 21 year old, I know that you’re just grasping that concept of what an adult is. Since 19, I have been building and rebuilding myself to work in a business full of creative professionals. There are a great deal of responsibilities associated with being a stylist that I didn’t anticipate; even more there are so many responsibilities associated with being an independent adult that I knew of, thought I was prepared for, and wasn’t.

Call times: I was late in high school more than anyone I know, and not late, 5 minutes late, late like, fourth period showing up and late to the class following late. I was the king of tardy. As a professional I have stripped myself of that title, I am, if not 15 minutes early, on time which is considered late.

Accountability: I can no longer hold my mom, or brothers or sisters, not even assistants who may have shortcomings accountable for anything that goes wrong. I am at all times the one accountable for anything that goes wrong in my business. Be it, a misreturned article of clothing, a miscredit, lack of communication in pre production. And of course, adhering to call times. I am accountable for my business and its success

Professionalism: This is a big one. I’m always working at this one. I want to be the most professional person I can be, especially because of my age, being seen as a professional and respected as one is always a number one priority for me. I don’t always succeed 100%, but working at it is better than being lax in professionalism.

Responsibility: Another HUGE ONE. I am responsible for myself, my health, for my assistants, for the wardrobe I pull and their safe and timely return, for credits, and updates on images. Imagine shooting 3 projects for publication in per week for a month, pulling from 20 showrooms for each shoot and then returning the clothes correctly and keeping them updated on the publication status of your shoot. ALL while worrying that your story may be pulled and then you have to figure where to get it published before the clothes go out of season.

Being your own boss: We wait most of our teen years to make our own decisions, to not have to defer to our parents for what we want to do and then at 21 we faithfully rely on advice from our parents in certain matters. Life works out that way; you try to not do something so bad and you end up in need of it. Being your own boss finally makes you the decision maker and no matter what advice you take the decision you make is solely yours, as are the consequences.

These are just a few of the things that I have encountered at the age of 21, the age where most people are partying in college or smoking marijuana in a basement. I, on the other hand, am scheduling meetings and shoots, trying to keep up with emails, clients, and deadlines. Whether or not this is something you’re ready for once you thrust yourself into the bedazzled womb that is the fashion industry be prepared to suffer, to have to learn a lot in a little amount of time, and to work ten times harder than the people older than you just to be given a little respect.

Being a professional, let alone one in the fashion industry at 21 is no walk in the park. It’s more like a pump in Christian Louboutin’s on the cobbled streets of the meatpacking district pulling a suitcase full of designer clothes from showrooms….for an editorial that isn’t paying you.  That being said I’d advise you to be prepared to face challenges that you would never fathom you’d have to because fashion isn’t easy, especially when you want it to pay your bills.

Pick Me Up Written On The Ride To My Annoying Part Time Job

Fashion is arguably one of the most mentally detrimental fields to work in.

Working in fashion you will doubt yourself a billion times before you “make it” and a million times once you have. Many people in the fashion industry turn to drug, alcohol, or a combination of the both to numb themselves from the detriments that this industry will inevitably impose on every person who enters its embrace.

I myself could be at the highest of highs and am always one cancellation, or one email with bad images from literally becoming depressed and doubtful.

Oftentimes I am not the biggest fan of my own work. I work at it and work at it and look at these amazing inspiration images, gather a talented team, and I can NEVER create the type of imagery that I feel equates to where I want to be as a stylist. See this quote below:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. BUT THERE IS THIS GAP. For the first couple years you make stuff it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good. BUT IT’S NOT. It has potential. But your taste,  the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. AND YOUR TASTE IS WHY YOUR WORK DISAPPOINTS YOU.  A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this SPECIAL THING that we want it to have. You gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is a LOT OF WORK. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story, it is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap. And your work will be as good as your ambitions” – Ira Glass

I don’t know Ira, but thank you very much for that quote. I’m glad to have that to refer to on days like this when compared to another stylist I feel incompetent and untalented.  When you see someone who is doing what you want to do and they are accessible to you it’s difficult to humble yourself to understand that it’s okay, everything takes time. I have only been in New York for 3 months and I have worked on some incredible projects so more than anything I should be grateful. And I am, but I have been styling for 3 years…. But not consistently and not in New York. I just want to be AMAZING and I’m not yet. Not to me….not where I feel I am equal in talent to someone I meet on the street. I need to work harder at this, do more research, invest more time in learning collections and networking in person versus networking online. One day I’ll reach that point. Today isn't that day.

Curated images from my inspiration folder.

Thoughts on Art

Many people write off fashion as an art form. They dismiss most of the fashion industry as a group of blonde zombies, with air bubble heads and ill conceived notions on what is actually happening in the world. That, in fact, would make anyone who works in the fashion industry, myself included, incapable of being artistic, writing, creating, or anything useful, most of which we do with ease.

Our most championed ‘art form’, fashion design, has been married with the art form in which we as an industry have achieved very high recognition, fashion photography. As a stylist I commonly work with photographers on editorial projects (I consider this my niche in styling). In these editorial shootings what we hope to do is sell an idea, whether realistic, or a complete fallacy, there is always an idea and clothing is needed to tell the story. Yes, there are entire images that are not ad campaigns composed solely for the purpose of telling a story using clothing. I’d like to think my position in these projects are the most important, but that is far from true, and completely unfair to all of the talented hair stylists, makeup artist, manicurists, creative directors, photographers, magazine editors, and most importantly, the true artists, the fashion designers.  Everything that any of us brings to that final image in any fashion is of the utmost importance.  Details matter.

As a young child, I used to write poetry, something I plan to do again. I used poetry as an outlet for my emotions at the time;. I was struggling with my sexuality, accepting myself, and my desire to be accepted by others. I reference that because any time I go into a project now as a stylist, if I send out a mood board for a concept I have created, every section is accompanied by words. I don’t consider myself to be the most talented writer. I am not as critical as Cathy Horyn or with the nonchalant air of intelligence similar to that of style.com staffers,  but I have always turned to the written word as my favorite form of communication. I am nostalgic for hand written love letters that I might never receive and I can write Spanish much better than I can speak it. Writing itself is possibly the most respected art form in the world (thank the Bible). I remember reading books and plays by Ralph Ellison, Chinua Achebe, George Orwell, William Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens amongst others in high school and these writers are some of the most revered humans who have ever lived. What I want you to realize is that books, poems, little scraps I found on the street all have shaped my perspective in life and through that I convey my take on fashion as a stylist. I am an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy novels. I read anything from Harry Potter to Goosebumps, one of my favorite series, Diadem, is out of print. These books shaped my imagination and my approach to fashion. I always try to include a sense of fantasy or ethereality in my projects.

This type of conceptual work is what I consider to be my strong suit because these stories, while challenging to source clothing for are the types of work I most enjoy doing and where I feel the most comfortable.

In fashion, designers often reference great artists or artworks in their pieces. Andy Warhol, is a common reference, Dolce and Gabbana referenced mosaics in their recent FW 2013 showing, John Galliano constantly created collections that were inspired by the world, art and theater.

"Part of his research involved studying real flowers, spending an hour watching the light change on a parrot tulip, for instance. That partly explained the collection's wonderful colors, especially the vibrancy of the dégradé effects. You could attribute the rest to Galliano's contemplation of images by the two great flower photographers de nos jours, Irving Penn and Nick Knight. Dior himself obliged with the silhouette, a tulip shape that Galliano seemed to feel Mr. Christian had never really made the most of. He certainly sorted that out." - Tim Blanks on John Galliano's Christian Dior FW 2010 Couture collection.


Some designers create pieces that are worth of being pieces of art itself.

Christian Dior Couture, Dolce and Gabbana, Iris Van Herpen Couture, Alexander McQueen, Christian Lacroix, Viktor and Rolf, Zac Posen.

Through imagery and countless articles the fashion industry creates testaments to the art, or art inspired pieces that designer create. As an industry we champion not only designers, but musicians, painters, photographers, cinematographers, child prodigies, and the singularly talented individuals who make this billion dollar industry run. That being said, all of you who dismiss us as legally blonde imbeciles think on The Devil Wears Prada, everything that you will ever buy has been selected by the editors in the office of a fashion magazine, the buyers in a department store, stylists that you will never hear of, and designers who have underwent many years of schooling to create that organic tee shirt that you feel makes you environmentally conscious and still excludes you from the decisions we air heads make.


Excerpt from The Devil Wears Prada:

"This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic "casual corner" where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of "stuff."

Conversations

Conversations seem to be the most important thing, and possibly one of my greatest challenges and triumphs as a New Yorker.

Conversations not related to fashion, with people who aren't my friends seem to be as impossible as those of Schiaparelli and Prada, thank you curators at the Metropolitan Museum. In New York (where I have been a resident for just over three months now) conversations are integral to survival, especially for an up and comer. These past few mornings while taking a shower I used the time to reflect on the importance of conversations in my work, as well as my life. In fashion, the best work, the most inspiring clothing, the most creative editorial stories, or most provoking articles all start conversations more quickly than the juiciest celebrity gossip. They create an intellectual buzz and we all want to give our opinion and have our voice heard, no matter how silent they are in our internet times.

Personally, I find it very difficult to relate to people in everyday life. I can carry an extensive conversation in a showroom or with fashion friends and designers. Recently I met a guy who I find to be very attractive but I found it difficult to relate to him via text message after meeting him. I wondered if I had lost touch with anything not related to fashion. What if I would never be able to relate to the person on the street who is extremely nice and just wants to take part in small talk? Then again, this is New York; who in this city has the time to stop for small talk?

In the fashion realm, Christian Lacroix has taken the helm of the revived House of Schiaparelli, a conversation piece for sure. For me, Lacroix is everything that a true couturier should be (#1 is alive to create beautiful work). I also count Lacroix as one of my favorite designers--I found him alongside John Galliano for Christian Dior in my first foray into the pages of Vogue. His collection spoke to his own and Schiaparelli's past with nods to his past couture collections.

In the words of André Leon Talley there is a famine of beauty and Lacroix has been called in to restore our famished industry. 
This has been inspirational for me in my own work. I've been focusing on working at a higher caliber than I was before and to strive to create pieces that will be the center of a conversation. Hopefully someone will discover a new designer, be inspired by the story for their own work, or just talk about the concept and what it means to our times. I remember in the documentary, In Vogue: The Editor's Eye, the editors spoke on how important Vogue was to the changing times, how every piece was a discussion, even incited backlash from the readers. Everything that those editors did changed the way women thought about dress and inevitably the style of women within that culture. Much like Coco Chanel making women's pants, as an aspiring fashion editor, I want to create work that will challenge the thinking of the people around me. I don't think I've accomplished that just yet, but I am steadily working towards it.
What exactly do Coco Chanel making women's pants, Christian Lacroix returning to fashion, and my incapability to ask a guy out for a drink have to do with one another one might ask? Through conversations with myself I was able to look into each of these subjects and find insight into what many young people of our time struggle with, simply having a meaningful conversation. 
Curated Conversational Pieces:
From Identity Politics by Grace Coddington and Craig McDean (Joan Smalls) Vogue July 2013

From Destination Detox by Phyllis Posnick and Mario Testino (Karlie Kloss) Vogue July 2013

From Beyonce Knowles x FLAUNT Magazine by Tony Duran FLAUNT July 2013

Dovima with Elephants Richard Avedon