Focus on building an outfit that makes you feel good – and experience confidence and success!
The importance of looking good to feel good…
Fashion and styling have become a part of my life over the last few years. It has been my way to find myself, build my confidence, and find ways to be different from everyone else. Now to dive deep into its importance to me and how I got here.
My Beginning
High school was the transition point for me where I wanted to be seen. Whether this be my age at the time or society’s social boundaries on young women, I’m not so sure. I grew up in a very artistic family but wasn’t sure where I fell within this. My grandmother was an oil painter with a very classy and sophisticated style, my mom and aunt grew up singing in the music world, and then my brother and I grew up doing sports.
Family Influence
Even though I took a different childhood path, I always loved being creative. I would do DIYs to my room and my clothing, and create elaborate holiday and party decorations, and my turning point was getting into photography. My dad always filmed our sports events growing up and had a camera at every family event. Now that I was at the age of downloading social media, this sparked my interest in learning about photography and having an “aesthetic” Instagram page. For me, this would be a way to express my creativity, show my personality, and learn a new skill.
I took photography classes throughout high school and in my free time would do photoshoots with my friends. Now I will say that I had a natural creative ability for these assignments and personal interest shoots but they weren’t perfect in the beginning. I would spend hours finding a cool shoot location and looking up inspirational pictures for poses, hair, makeup, and my and my friend’s outfits. The more I did photoshoots the more I learned and the more confident I became. When it came time for college I knew I wanted to go a creative route for my major but I wasn’t quite sure what or how. Long story short, after a major change and some trial and error I came back to my passion of dressing up myself and others.
Making My Path
This was my pivotal point in knowing I wanted my future career and job to be surrounded by the fashion industry. Now that I had discovered a real interest of mine, I took it and ran. In my last four years of college, I have continued to post outfits and styling videos on Instagram and TikTok, I have worked as an assistant celebrity stylist for Sam Spector in NYC, I have gone, worked, and attended Milan Fashion Week 2023, and I am now a senior at PSU working as the fashion director of my school’s lifestyle and fashion magazine called Valley Magazine.
I know mentioning all of the things I’ve been a part of might not seem relevant but I want to touch on why it is. I have never been taught or shown what to do to reach my goals in the fashion industry. Everything I have learned has been self-taught or learned from reaching out to a stranger. I didn’t grow up in a family with any connection to the fashion industry yet I was still able to make opportunity for myself. This is because I am passionate about this industry and am so driven to achieve my goals. It is so important to learn what makes you happy and what makes you want to continue to grow and achieve.
Growth
Since achieving these things and posting about my opportunities I have gotten responses from my peers that I would have never expected and it has been part of the reason I kept going. When I started to post more consistently about my outfits I thought I would try and make a podcast where I could share my voice and personality. This was a big step and felt really vulnerable to talk about advice and what I struggle with.
At first, I thought no one cared to listen as I only had a few viewers each week. This was until people started coming up to me when I was out and about. I would have girls send me messages saying they listen to every episode and that it makes their day better. Now being 21 and when I go to the bars I have people I have never met compliment me and say they love seeing my content. I even have had older adults say they have been watching me through my journey and they can’t believe I have been able to gain so much in a short time period.
Message
Fashion has become a part of my identity. It is something I love and find myself in and now something that other people recognize me for. There was no straightforward path for me and I owe my journey every single bit of confidence that I have. I am a true believer that when you feel confident in yourself and what you do, you are unstoppable. For me, I’m unstoppable when I look good because I feel good. For me, finding my passion and being brave enough to try new things is what is slowly inching me towards my life goals. So, if you need a reason to get up and start trying new things for fun or to figure out your passion, here is your sign. Everything you want to do is in the power of your own two hands so get going. You’ll be so happy you did.