Fashion Is All I Know

Fashion is all I know

I came to this realization when I graduated, faced with the understanding that, from here on out, life would be whatever I make of it; entirely up to me, yet frustratingly out of my control. I can prioritize money - something that last weeks post went into detail about how unwilling I was to do - and live a life that allows for stability; I can prioritize art, and live a life that, though less financially rewarding, fulfills the part of me so constantly desperate to get out; or I can make attempts to do both, working a lot, creating some more, and balancing between financial and creative freedom, though more than likely never being entirely successful at either. Perhaps this is sounding too pessimistic, or maybe I’m just right, but regardless of its perception, it remains a dilemma I have yet to find any kind of resolution for - one that begs the question, how long can I really do this?

When I decided on “fashion,” it was the most obvious decision. Art was what I cared for; it was what drove me, what evoked the most genuine and raw emotions I could possess. But for so long, it was just that - something I liked. I knitted sometimes, and drew others, I sculpted and painted, and thoroughly enjoyed the print making class I took. It was the thing I was considered "good" at, the thing I did in my free time, it was what my life was all about. But as I grew into myself, a secret option was coexisting, one I didn’t even consider until the adult decision to choose a life-long career was nearing its inevitable climax. Around 7th grade, I started to really pay attention to what I was wearing. I would watch videos on how to do it better, I would ask my sister what colors went with what, as a child with very tightly restricted internet access, my Pinterest screen time was at the very extent of its possibilities. I collected influences like other boys I knew collected sports paraphernalia, paying astute observation to what who was wearing, what brands they were, and how I could implement the parts of it I found most interesting to me into my rapidly growing collection. And by the time I reached high school, I had cemented myself not only as the rare well-dressed teenage boy, but one with outfits so uniquely styled that I can now confidently look back and wonder what the fuck I thought I was doing. What I did not know at the time was where these two competing interests of mine would inevitably combine. The peculiar thing was that I never even knew “fashion” was a thing. I knew there were people with good style, I knew people had an unspoken way of identifying what was “in” and what was “out” - but in all that time I never really considered all that it took. What I did know was that I liked to make things; and that eventually my rapidly wide spreading tastes would result in lacking the ability to purchase such pieces of my own merit. 

It started with jewelry - and in fact, jewelry that ended up as its own, very little company that earned about $500 I never saw the light of day of. In the midst of a high school entrepreneurial class, a few of my classmates and I combined efforts to make a small company for a school-hosted “event fair" in which we would present an idea for a business selling actual products and attempt to make money in order to get it off the ground. Ours was “A Rock And A Hard Place”, a non-profit, donation-based organization that focused on raising money for aid-centered charities by selling products in the form of short-lived “collections” - think Toms but less real. The first two collections, Atlas, selling T-shirts and Hats, centered on global issues such as organizations that assisted in aiding people affected by hurricanes or earthquakes, was ran by a classmate of mine who, funnily enough, also went into fashion - though based on her style, and presidents voted for, doesn’t quite have the artistic fashion inclinations that I or anyone with love in their hearts do - and PeachyKeen, ran by me, sold bracelets and earrings, and donated to social issues centered organizations that contributed to mental health research. I made around 100 pieces in total for the event, and completely sold out by its culmination. And somewhere in this process, maybe aided by its technical success, I realized how much I enjoyed the idea of not only having access to the cute pieces I would never be able to find for purchase, but also being the one who made it. I spent the preceding year (2020 for context) dipping my toes in further and further. Making a ring or necklace here, customizing a pair of shoes or pants there, before eventually putting two and two together and acknowledging that what I was experimenting with was “fashion”. 

Getting a degree to do it forever was logical. It was a convenient mix of all the things I felt would assure me of the future I hoped to attain. It was creative, artistic, and as I had slowly begun to notice, it was also objectively a fun thing to do; but it was also potentially lucrative. Unlike the other fields of interest I had previously toyed with, the painting and sculpture BFAs that, though right up my alley, relied primarily on making money from the rare opportunity that doing such things would gain public attention. Fashion was an industry. It was a world of experience and knowledge, with branches and avenues in every direction for me to find my own niche path that would yield artistic fulfillment, as well as mild financial stability. At least, that’s what I thought it was. Getting a higher education, and having obtained a higher education are two very different things. I felt so fulfilled in those first few years, as if after all that time, I finally found “the thing” I was meant to do. I was discovering my niches, my interests, the brands I admired, the designers I loved, the fabrics I liked to work with and the style that would slowly become synonymous with my designs - I felt like I was becoming a fashion designer. Now, as the job applications pile up, a new perspective on fashion has taken hold. 

The fashion industry has always been centered on wealth - coveted goods and class-implying colors, fabrics, and styles that allowed everyone around you to not only know how cool you were, but precisely how much money you had in your bank account. It is white, it is men, it is undeniably a business - granted, maybe one of the most artistic businesses, but a business nevertheless. Whats worse is that, as these things have continued to reign supreme, it has combined with the current political climate of wealth disparity. Where it once was a sign of prosperity, fashion is now a sign of exclusion, an inbred pool of nepotism and cyclical turnover recycling the same four white men throughout all of the biggest houses, creating collections applicable to none other than themselves. And as I neared the culmination of my studies, these facts began to slowly beat me down. Where, amidts all of the narrowly paved paths for people of my financial background and less-than-glamorous upbringing, is there room for me? How would I even begin moving in a direction where a lifestyle founded on these aspects of life that I not only have no experience in, but equally very little interest in partaking in, could actually yield my life and my goals the benefits it requires to sustain itself?

Fashion is all I know. I know I like cool clothes. I know why they mean something to people like me. I know I like making them, creating pieces I could never find anywhere else, and I like giving myself and others access to a way of presentation that would otherwise be impossible. And I think that has been the biggest struggle, because I know the answer to all of my questions. To create the life I want, I need to lie; I need to present a sellable aspect of the things that I like to do in order to get myself out there. I need to post the stuff I make, make videos about the process, my illustrations, tech packs, and sourcing guides. If I want the life I have wanted, without selling myself into a world of fashion that has thoroughly replaced art with commerce, I need to do it all myself. But one thing I have thoroughly learned throughout my experiences is that that is not what Im good at, much less where my experience lies. I don't know how to take good, professional photos of my work, I don't know how to properly market, or merchandise, or any of the specific, more financially sustainable avenues of fashion that seem to be the only ones hiring; I know how to sew. I know how to drape and flat pattern. I know how to illustrate and make a mood board; I know fashion, and not the fashion industry. 

Last week, I wrote a little blurb about the struggle of picking between passion and money, especially in the context of living in a world that rarely allows the pursuit of both. My life is a catch 22; to follow my dreams, I need money; to make money, I need a job; to have a job, I need time, time that inevitably subtracts from the amount I have to attribute to my passions. I'm lucky right now because I have the option of doing a little of both, but the inevitability of having to choose when my time eventually runs out is weighing quite heavily on me. To keep it brief, I don't know what the right thing to do is. Do I pick a life of emotional fulfillment that also requires a life of struggling to make ends meet? Do I pick a life of monetary success that ultimately results in the desolation of what I have attributed my life to up until this point? For years, I've been saying that I'm perfectly fine working "a job" so long as my needs are met and my life feels intentional, but after last week's resume-submitting disappointment, it has me stuck on this one, overarching theme: FASHION IS ALL I KNOW. I have other passions, I have other ways of living my life, but what I have simply isn't enough. For the last 4 years, writing, fashion writing, has been all I wanted - to be the person in their home office writing the runway breakdowns you see on the cover of a collection, or the *Country* Fashion Week analyst who discusses why a collection is so significant to the people it moved. But the more I try to be realistic with myself, the more entry-level online job postings I see with lists of experiences I have not attained, the more I realize my passion is nothing more than a hobby at this point. 

Fashion, money, writing, working, living, passion, desires, realism, pessimism, optimism, my life is consumed. Consumed by the genuine fear that I'm doing everything wrong, consumed by the question "How the fuck is everyone else doing it?" How does everyone my age already have an apartment? How are they already starting their careers? The easy answer is money and a little bit of better decision making. They don't have loans to worry about, or they picked a field that actually hires college graduates, rather than exclusively offering unpaid internships or entry-level jobs that require 4+ years of experience, which will inevitably go to the son of the company owner's family friend. It is hard, and I knew it would be. No artistic field of study is without at least a decade of debt and gut-wrenching regret for not just picking engineering or finance. Maybe this is just the way it is, and all that is needed of me is continued and unending motivation, or maybe I fucked up so astronomically that Im doomed before even starting. All I know is that I like it. 

I love sewing. I love writing. I love writing about sewing. I love styling an outfit and getting to share it, and I love writing about nonsense and getting a good response. I love what I do, and what I do is what I love, what I feel I was meant to be doing all along. I think as fashion and artistic fields continue to be overtaken by the rhetoric that it must also come with unending suffering, the desire to avoid such a way of life, while still doing what I love, has mushed together into a weird combination of existentialism and financial dread. Because at the end of the day, I know what Im going to do. I know I will never stop contributing to the things I care most about, and I know that I will do what is needed of me to make something of myself financially. I would just like to find a way to do those two things simultaneously without absolutely hating my life, and even worse, selling myself out. And though I have yet to find the perfect avenue for this, I know that I will. Because I have no other choice, because I have no other options, because maybe "do what you love and the money will come" was never about finding a way to make money from only doing what you enjoy, but rather loving something so thoroughly, that the hardships in its wake become insignificant to the rewards of having done it - loving something so thoroughly that this entire spiral becomes a moot point, overshadowed by the one true remaining fact that fashion is all I know, and maybe that is enough.