To be able to talk clothes and style daily is what I consider a blessing. Retail may not be the most exciting job in the fashion industry, but it’s what links the clothes to the consumers. Ideas are useless when the consumers are non existent. I am lucky to have come into a company that’s re-established itself in the New Zealand fashion scene. Still RTW, still fast fashion, but with consciousness in mind.
You see, the fashion industry has always been the world I wanted to be a part of. I must have dreamt of being in it since the first time I bought my first teen magazine. That was the early 2000s when Candy magazine was every Filipina girl’s style and entertainment go-to. Back then I adored the magazine as a whole, thinking I, one day, want to be employed at a fashion magazine. Needless to say, I learned about Vogue and dreamt of being part of the team there. Even more so when The Devil Wears Prada came out.
Later, I began to organize events for youth groups and talent shows. I had a knack for organizing people and putting together people’s ideas for events in the local community. I must have organized about five different events and I loved it. This obsession with event organization eventually gave me the idea to design and organize fashion shows. I was ready for it. I even move cities to study events organization at a tertiary level qualification. The first time I had a taste of the fashion industry was in New Zealand Fashion Week. I volunteered my time and energy to free labor just so I can feel what that was like. It was an experience I still haven’t forgotten to this day. The organized chaos backstage gives me thrills. The all-day shifts. The tension pre-shows. The adrenaline. It was everything I wanted.
Unfortunately, I lasted only 7 months in Auckland city where I started studying. My time in Auckland had been more about working, trying to survive, than actually studying. I wake up early everyday to get to work, barely eating, barely making ends meet. There was more that was happening during this time in my life that sucked the joy, thrill and passion out of me. Everything felt gloomy, blurry and just sad. I went back home a different person inside, while staying the same outside. I had been less social, less open. Needless to say, the enthusiastic organizer in me was gone.
I wasn’t about to give up. As events organizing course was only offered in Auckland, I began to think outside the box. I transferred schools and took up Communication courses as it was the closest I could study to become an organizer. I hated every class. I was anxious all the time. I was ready to leave every class I went. I must have skipped so many lectures and dropped out a lot of classes. As I became less sociable, the communicative person in me hid away afraid to open up to people that could possibly laugh at how bad my English was, or how inarticulate my ideas were. I was too afraid. Nothing changed, though. I still wanted to work in fashion.
Growing up I have always done computer graphics. I was just not confident that I could make original ideas so I never pursued it. It would have been my final decision for university studies, as I knew I could do it. But before I dove into it, I realized one thing. I have always wanted to work in the fashion industry, so why not study the whole industry instead? The reason I never thought of studying fashion was that I never knew I could become a designer. I never drew anything in my life. I never sewn anything (I actually hated hand sewing as a kid). I was never confident I could come up with ideas. But I tried it anyway.
It was one of the decisions I made for myself by myself that truly made a difference in my life. Things began to lift up within me as I find myself once again. I began to develop new skills and new understanding of an industry that had always just existed in my imagination. The thought I could never be a designer extinguished, but my studies opened up even more work possibilities I never knew existed, let alone possible. I began to develop confidence little by little.
Then as soon as I said I was ready to work in retail, a (not so) little brand hired me. I fell in love with menswear the more I worked there. It even influenced my designs. Now I work in womenswear and I love seeing how brands put together a range of clothes that always works for their clients. I never looked back since, and I am not going elsewhere. Not once did the reality of working in fashion turned me off the industry. It even motivated me to keep getting curious.
So, one little rejection of the ideal job later, and I’m so pumped to make my ideas come true. One day the wheels will turn for my own brand to start. But today, I’m getting greedy with experiences, too hungry to stop. Too hungry to let it go for just one day.
