I’m a stickler for symbolism.
I’d originally gotten into the fashion industry, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, because of a single enigma. His name was Tom Ford. People think I exaggerate when I mention how at the age of 12, I was struck by the dark heavy rocker Fall Gucci collection – the start of his collaboration with Carine Roitfeld and Mario Testino.
To me, that woman was everything I’d wanted to be when I grew up. Strong, confident, dark, mysterious and yet, as she swayed her hips on the runway, exuding femininity with her coy smile. That’s when the seeds were planted in my head to go to NY and get into fashion. It wasn’t the glamour nor beautiful clothes and people. The thing that impressed me about Tom Ford, even at that young age, was it was all about the symbolism. I love how a few articles of clothing, accessories, a makeup look, a certain hairstyle and you infuse a look with personality- you breath life into a whole other persona and give it that weighted history. I could be a vamp one day, Lolita the next. I could be an ingenue, then a boardroom member the next. That’s what brands literally do on a massive scale. And so after high school and some hemming and hawing, I packed my bags and moved to NY to go to his alma mater- Parsons.
When I first moved to NY, I started a blog to capture my tales of life in the city as an open letter to my friends and a way to deal with the homesickness. (Un)fortunately I suffer from TMI-ness* in general. This open book policy of mine to rant and rave to the whole wide world yet to no one in particular got me in trouble one day. Let’s just say that Google was definitely a force to be reckoned with even 4 years ago and I was told over and over again by well-meaning friends to ‘not put your heart on your sleeve”. Hence I’d shut my first blog down.
Late last year I felt something amiss.
Like any self-respecting transplant to New York would tell you, you haven’t really lived in the city unless you’ve gone dead-broke, couch-surfed, heart-broken, jobless, neared the edge of a nervous breakdown and basically plunged into the lowest of your lows in your life. Then you bounce back again and all’s right with the world again. When things were starting to get brighter again, there was a bit of me that got lost in the fire. Although I was happier and stronger, i had left two of my passions behind- writing and fashion. I started working in strategy and branding which I continue to love doing, and I can honestly say are what I’m good at. Yet sometimes I’ll look fondly at a magazine spread and think “I can do that!” despite knowing there’s more than meets the eye than just pulling together a cute look. So I started a new blog- one that lets me try to make sense of why am I so unusually obsessed over what to wear the next day or why do i link memories of events with outfits rather than the actual incident.
Then I got lazy with writing. Or rather, its been a few crazy months.
Work, boys, family, the past, the future- it all started crashing and rolling into each other. So I had to escape for a while and go back home- I was so burnt out from taking care of everyone else I didn’t take care of me
That was a month ago and the great thing about going home is seeing how far you’ve come and how life really is what you make of it. I’d been so busy whining and wallowing in self-pity that I didn’t see how much closer I am to that ideal version of ‘me’ that the 12-year-old girl wished for once upon a time. I’d began having a more distinctive style, I’d cut my hair the way I’d always wanted it and I’d stopped apologizing for always wearing black. It wasn’t so much a look anymore, I’d finally infused it with personality- mine. Ever since my trip, I still deal with similar craziness in my life but I tell myself “Negativity attracts negativity. Ah fuck it, let’s just do it”. It doesn’t make my problems go away but I feel clearer and more confident of my next steps.
Two weeks ago my boss came up to me and said “Guess what? We have a small project with Tom Ford…and I want you to own this one.”
To say I felt like I’ve come full circle will be an understatement. At this point of time, I don’t know enough to be sure of how far we’ll go with this project. I’m just pleasantly surprised and even oddly cool and collected about the matter.
It does feel surreal and perhaps that is the recent for my nonchalence. Maybe its because of the other things going on right now. But I love how fate throws in a lil inside joke or two.
So I was walking around my neighborhood over the weekend and my friend dragged me into a store. Funnily enough she’s never much of a shopper and I was kinda wary as it was a noted expensive d consignment store. I’d shrugged my shoulders and casually browsed without really getting into the mood. My bank account was feeling a pinch anyway because of my recent trip. Then as we were leaving, my eye caught a folded black satin cloth wrapped by two thin leather braids on a shelf of accessories. I blinked.
“No way…”
My friend saw me standing still in front of the shelf. She came over and raised her eyebrow as I gingerly picked up the folded black cloth as though carrying a newborn. “What’s that?”, she asked.
I lifted it high as a wide grin appeared on my face as I knew what it was even before I’d unfolded it. It was the obi belt from Gucci Fall 2002.
Not just any Gucci belt- it was THE obi belt.
The one where as a lost geeky 18-year-old, I had fallen in love with as it appeared on the form of yet another strong seductive Gucci model in the ad campaign. This time, she was dressed in kimono sleeves and layers over layers of black onyx beads. Being asian, I had naturally gravitated to that collection- I thought it was such a clever and modern take on the whole oriental phase that was going on in fashion then. I’d remembered tiptoeing into a Gucci boutique and pretending to be a rich trustfund kid. The belt was $1000 then. As I turned over the price tag in the store, my heart still skipped a beat when I saw it was still in the 3-digits range.
Even as I stood there hesitating for a nano-second over saving, the recession and thinking ‘Its just a belt”, another voice whispered in my head- “Its a belt from 6 years ago in pristine condition. Its THE belt you’d lusted over. It was just sitting there. In your neighborhood. In the same week that you started the TF project. Its YOURS.”
Ah, fuck it. I bought it 
And have never been happier about a piece of cloth.
*Editrix Notes: “Too much information”- which I’d later attributed as an affliction from my mother as we’ll chat on the phone about sex, boys and body bits.
