IT'S FASHION WEEK!!.2

There are two things that I have always loved: New York City and fashion. In order to better understand what I’m about to tell you it is important that I start from the beginning…

My mother after growing up in California for the majority of her life moved to New York City at 18 in hopes of becoming a model. She was beautiful and wild: New York gladly took her in as it’s own. It wasn’t long before she was noticed or rather “discovered” and eventually she became rather successful in the modeling world (via the 1970s and 1980s). It is easy to assume that fashion was her life and always had been. In time, however, my mother met and married my father. They purchased a home in Eastern Long Island where they would spend time away from Manhattan. After I was born she settled down – likely because she no longer had the body of a model, although I doubt she would ever admit that. My father, mother and I remained in the city for three years, until my father, concerned about the crime and violence of the city (keep in mind this is the early 90s), decided we would move out to Long Island and he would commute. It would be in Long Island where this quote un-quote obsession with fashion and the culture around it began.

My mother had a strong belief when raising us (my brother and myself) that the only way we would “discover ourselves” was through self-expression, in all of its forms. This, unfortunately, meant that my mother would allow me to “express” myself through dress. So while most of the children I went to school with wore adorable outfits hand picked by their mothers or their fathers, I tended to wear outrageous ones courtesy of myself. To give you a quick snapshot, in most of the photographs taken during this time I either bare a frightening resemblance to a homeless person or I am naked. It’s difficult not to wonder what my classmate’s parents must have thought of my parent’s child raising beliefs. On the other hand, my father has told me how during this period he often argued with my mother before I left for school in the morning. “Are you actually going to let her go out like that,” he would say. She would simply shake her head, insisting that in the end it would only be beneficial. My father, a creative thinking person himself, would in turn bite his tongue and attempt to disregard my – literally- horrifying outfits. While I would like to say that this unique fashion sense I had so miraculously acquired improved shortly after my toddler years, I sadly cannot. It would take several more years for my mother’s proposed self-discovery to manifest itself successfully. Fast-forward a bit in the future and I would like to consider myself a stylish person, debatably thanks to the untraditional methods of my mother.

So why is any of this important? Well, as some of you may know currently it is Fashion Week in Manhattan. Over the course of the week designers will showcase their Fall 2010 lines; an extraordinarily exciting time for someone like me. While having missed Fashion Week that took place during September of last year I decided to make a conscious effort to witness firsthand some of the anticipated events occurring throughout this week. This is where my background information becomes relevant. During my mothers career she was able to make friends with significant individuals involved with fashion. One of these individuals happened to be Isaac Mizrahi, a notable designer for whom she worked for. After meeting him this summer, I decided to track down his email address within my mother’s address book and see what he would say if I were to ask to attend his show. While it may not seem like a big deal, emailing a famous designer to me was a bit nerve racking. To my surprise, not only did I get a response but also I was told that I could indeed attend. There just isn’t the right set of words to describe how happy I was in that moment. And currently there isn’t the right set of words either to describe how excited I am for his upcoming show. Maybe its moments like this that allow you to better reflect on the reasons of why exactly you are the way you are. While I don't believe that any of the outfits I wore as a child would be runway worthy, they do, however, remain important aspects of who I am today. Fashion has become something I am fascinated with as well as something I would like to incorporate into a career later in my life. And maybe it was necessary to wear thirty layes (all different patterns) to become like that.

To come to a simple close, this week in the fashion universe and in my universe is one that will never be forgotten.