FIT

When I was 12 years old I decided that I wanted to be a fashion designer. Fast forward 8 years and I was still waiting on that dream wondering if it was just out of my reach. Until this morning. This morning when I was sitting on the porch with my wonderful man (whom I'm so glad was there with me) I received a package I was not sure would ever come. My acceptance letter to FIT. FIT has been a dream of mine that I never really thought could come true. The likes of Micheal Kors, Nina Garcia, and Calvin Klein graduated from here. This school is fashion Ivy league people, and the only reason I can thinkn of that I would get in is right here. I have no connections, I am getting an AA from a community college, and I am just learning how to sew. While all this is true, I have a passion that is undying, and the essay that I sent perfectly illistrates that. SO here it is folks, my heart and soul for all you to see. Enjoy.

I push open the door and walk doe eyed, into the store. As my heart rate quickens, I can feel the plush carpet beneath my feet, smell the perfumes pumped into the air, and catch the glimpses of the Swarovski crystals as they refract the light. I stare in awe at a blonde woman in the back of the store, slipping on that breathtaking Caroline Herrera ball gown. My eyes wander to the hangers and my finger runs along the fabrics, smooth silk, rough tulle, soft feathers…and suddenly I stop breathing because of what I see. There, a meager six inches from my own foot, is a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Manolo’s, the shoe of choice for Galliano runway shows, the shoe said to “lengthen the leg from the hip all the way down to the toe cleavage”, the Mona Lisa of shoes, and I am staring at it.

It is in these moments that I am able to float in and out of high end boutiques that my smile reaches from Paris to New York. These moments when I stop talking and just relax, taking everything in, from the ceiling to the floor shelves, hangers and boxes filled with the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I have a hard time determining what is more artistically influential for me, my trip to the Louvre or my time in this mall filled with everything I aspire to be. When staring at the red oversized quilted Chanel clutch, I have to muster up the ability to hold back tears. I realize that the sales clerks see me gawking at the beautiful purses knowing that the girl in the Old Navy cardigan and American Eagle shorts could not possibly purchase anything, or appreciate what surrounds her. Well, she has one thing right. The majority of the items in the boutique could have paid for my associate’s degree at community college, but she is wrong too. If there is one thing I can appreciate, one thing I know, one thing I love, it is fashion.

Like every “wanna be” designer, I cut up fabrics as a kid and pasted them on paper making my own designs, not realizing this would be a skill I would try to perfect 10 years down the road. I knew Vogue was the Bible; bookmarked Style.com on my computer, and watched every fashion show that ever aired on television. I knew I loved it and I wanted the lifestyle. But, I knew there were obstacles. When I was 15 years old, I went to the occupational outlook handbook online and nearly cried when I saw a one percent projected growth within the industry over the next 10 years. One percent. I knew I needed an edge. So that’s precisely what I did. I worked for that edge.

Whenever I had extra money in the United States, I would drive myself to the nearest bookstore (Borders can thank me for half of its revenue within the past five years) and burry my nose in the fashion and art books, and meticulously decide which one to walk home with. I begged my Dad to buy me Vogues from all the countries he traveled to so I could pour over each one. I studied each page of Phaidon’s “The fashion Book” trying to fit in every anecdote from every designer into my head, “How did they start out?” “What is their atheistic?” “What set them apart?” I bought fine art books to try and teach myself how to draw the models I saw in magazines, I learned to paint so I could learn how colors compliment each other; I made jewelry so I could understand how accessories pair with clothes. I put on my favorite Jazz vinyl at the end of the day and drew until my eyes couldn’t focus anymore. I learned Terri Hatcher gives the best fashion insider advice, to always listen to the stories and advice of successful designers, and that if my dreams were to come true, and my hard work to pay off, I needed a fashion education. I needed a mentor to tell me not just how to draw a pretty model, but a mentor to tell me how exactly to manage my career, how to work in retail, how to market myself more successfully and therein lies my need for an education from FIT.

Every designer has a fashion love story, ambition, and desire, but not everyone has the business savvy, and the education. With a degree in Merchandising, my gasps of breath will not only be reserved for Manolo Blahniks work, but for myself as well. For that day I can walk into a store, have my heart rate quicken, smell the perfume, and let a lone tear fill up in my eye as I step foot into my own store and finally say to myself “I told you you could do it.”