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Someone just told me you are going to kick my ass and make me cry.  Well, maybe you will, but I will not let you get me down.  I am going to smile throughout your beating and keep my head up and my heart strong!  Dammit!  Bring it on!

On August 21, 2011, I got the very awesome opportunity to go to Project (http://project.magiconline.com/), “the world’s preeminent bi-annual contemporary fashion trade event.”  Basically, it is a huge convention center in Vegas where designers and their representatives show new merchandise to buyers from all over the world, where they sell new fashions to stores and boutiques.  I went with the showroom that I interned for, The Style Assembly.  They represent 16 different lines of contemporary women’s clothing, jewelry, and handbags.   Their job is to sell and promote the lines to buyers across the country and even sometimes internationally. 

Project is a big deal because they take their entire showroom in hopes of making lots of sales in 3 days.  I had heard about these trade shows in school, but to actually see it just kind of opened my eyes to the entire industry that I’ve been training so hard for.  I saw in real life how the industry works and what the designers and merchandisers go through to make their living.  I saw side by side the different kinds of designs and who buys them - and who doesn’t.  I learned that one line might sell better in the south as opposed to the north, and for what reasons.  I’ve naively always wanted to appeal to everyone, but seeing this show was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders - that you don’t have to appeal to everyone and it’s actually okay and even good not to!  (Amazing, right?)  The people who buy the organic cotton yoga pants aren’t going to buy the skinny studded jeans in the next booth.  Some boutique owners prefer delicate jewelry as opposed to chunky gems.  And most importantly?  The typical high-fashion couture lovers in 6 inch heels at FIDM aren’t the only market that designers design for!  Shocking!  I’m not anti-couture, I just sometimes feel like I’m a square peg trying to fit into a round hole at my school – I like a more casual and cute aesthetic.  And Project showed me that there are tonnnnnnnnsssss of different buyers who need designs for their customers, and I can design my silly little heart out for a market that I just don’t see every day at school.  :)  What a revelation!

I can’t stop thinking about what all I learned.  I’m still exhausted with school, but now I’m looking at it differently.  I have one week left of this quarter and then my LAST quarter goes from Oct 5 to Dec 17.  Then I’m done!  I’m going to make a promise to myself to get really into this last 10 weeks of school.  This is it, and I want to do work that makes me proud and represents everything I’ve learned in the past year, which is probably more than I realize.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been through lately.  I wanted to share because I feel like it’s helped this whole experience click, and it took over a year.  A really long and challenging year.  Whew – finally!  :) 

I just read this really thick and intellectual book ;) called “Status Anxiety” by Alain de Botton.  Here are my favorite parts.  Enjoy!

(This book is about the anxiety we feel about what others think of us, hence the title.)

Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out problems that equal societies / democracies created.  He toured the young United States in the 1830s.  “When royal power supported by aristocracies governed nations, society, despite all its wretchedness, enjoyed several types of happiness which are difficult to appreciate today.  Having never conceived the possibility of a social state other than the one they knew, and never expecting to become equal to their leaders, the people did not question their rights.  They felt neither repugnance nor degradation in submitting to severities, which seemed to them like inevitable ills sent by God.  The serf considered his inferiority as an effect of the immutable order of nature.  Consequently, a sort of goodwill was established between classes so differently favoured by fortune.  One found inequality in society, but men’s souls were not degraded thereby.” 

The propaganda of the press and public opinion in democracies relentlessly promised servants that they, too, could reach the pinnacles of society and make their fortune.  Although this sense of unbounded opportunity could initially excite a surface cheerfulness in them and though it did encourage the most talented or luckiest among them to fulfill their goals, as time passed and the majority failed to raise themselves, Tocqueville noted that their mood darkened, bitterness took hold of and choked their spirit, and their hatred of themselves and their masters grew fierce.

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An American named William James argued a few decades later that one’s ability to feel satisfied with oneself does not hang on experiencing success in every area of endeavor.  We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humiliated only if we invest our pride and sense of worth in a given aspiration or achievement and then are disappointed in our pursuit of it.  Our goals dictate what we will interpret as a triumph and what must count as a catastrophe. 

Self-esteem = Success / Pretentions

“To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them gratified.  There is a strange lightness in the heart when one’s nothingness in a particular area is accepted in good faith.  How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young or slender.  ‘Thank God!’ we say, ‘those illusions are gone.’  Everything added to the self is a burden as well as a pride.”

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources.  And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.  We may be happy enough with little if little is what we have come to expect, and we may be miserable with much when we have been taught to desire everything.

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So dependent was [the dueller’s] self-image on the views of others that he would sooner die of a bullet or stab wound than allow unfavorable assessments of him to go unanswered. 

Like the most hot-headed of duelers, we are likely to base our self-esteem on the value we are commonly accorded.  Duelling is merely a helpfully far-fetched historical example of the more universal but equally thin-skinned emotional disposition that almost all of us exhibit in matters of status. 

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Throughout his Meditations (A.D. 167), the emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius, moving in the unstable world of Roman politics, continually reminded himself that any comment made about his character or achievements had to be subjected to the test of reason before he allowed it to affect his self-conception.  “One’s decency does not depend on the testimony of someone else,” he insisted, thereby challenging his society’s faith in an honor-based assessment of people.  Rather than be seduced by others’ flattery or stung by their insults, Marcus aimed to take his bearings from the person he knew himself to be: “Will any man despise me?  Let him see to it.  But I will see to it that I may not be found doing or saying anything that deserves to be despised.” 

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When we begin to scrutinize the opinions of others, philosophers have long noted, we stand to make a discovery at once saddening and curiously liberating: we will discern that the views of the majority of the population on the majority of subjects are perforated with extraordinary confusion and error.  Chamfort, voicing the misanthropic attitude of generations of philosophers both before and after him, put the matter simply: “Public opinion is the worst of all opinions.” 

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“We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire an adequate knowledge of the superficial and futile nature of their thoughts, of the narrowness of their views, of the paltriness of their sentiments, of the perversity of their opinions, and of the number of their errors…We shall then see that whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor,” argued Arthur Schopenhauer, a leading model of philosophical misanthropy. 

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Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. 

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A mature solution to status anxiety may be said to begin with the recognition that status is available from, and awarded by, a variety of different audiences – industrialists, bohemians, families, philosophers – and that our choice among them may be free and willed. 

Status anxiety is the price we pay for acknowledging that there is a public distinction between a successful and an unsuccessful life. 

There is more than one way of succeeding at life. 

Besides the following gems of advice, “Gunn’s Golden Rules” was a very enjoyable and quick read.  Highly recommended!  This guy is a true role model.

Be good to people, take your work seriously, have integrity, and work with what you’ve got. 

We are confronted with choices on how to treat people nearly every waking moment.  Over time, these choices define who we are and whether we have a lot of friends and allies or none.

This book is a call to arms, a manifesto for kindness, generosity, and integrity.  I hope you will join me in trying to make society a friendlier, more polite, and less aggressive place.

Etiquette isn’t cold and formal; it’s warm and flexible.  Manners are simply about asking yourself what’s the right thing to do?

Until you address them, problems never truly vanish.  Make the best of a bad situation.  If you do that, the situation will rapidly become less bad; i.e., make it work!

Joan Kaner, celebrated style maven and former vice president of Neiman Marcus: I can tell everything that I need to know about a designer from five looks.

If you’re only ever designing for your own body, you’d better be prepared to have a clientele of one.

Education and exposure to culture can help you through life.

People send each other messages all the time through their behavior.

Take the high road.  When presented with frustration or anger or discontentment with a situation or a person, don’t reduce yourself to that level.  Don’t get into a conflict at that moment.  You’ll feel better about yourself for it.  It doesn’t mean don’t stand up for yourself, just don’t get lost in the heat of the moment.  You’ll feel better about yourself and the world feels better about you.  Getting all worked up will only make it more stressful.  When you take into account the emotional wear and tear, you realize it’s better to let most sleeping dogs lie.

Having constraints is very helpful for the creative process.  With a certain amount of maturity, we can set up our own constraints. 

Cruelty to those you have power over is insecurity, pure and simple.  But the people who have the best careers and the best lives (and often who do the best work) are not the demanding, screaming, flinging divas.  They’re the people who take their ego out of it and put all that energy into their creative life. 

Whenever people are rude to those whom they feel are beneath them, it is so indicative of character. 

Everyone wants to work with people who are low maintenance.  You have a huge advantage over the competition if, in addition to being a talent, you are easy to work with. 

How to find inspiration:  Look around you.  Look out the window, go for a walk, go to a movie, go to a museum, go see a show, read a book, go to the library, take the subway, have a conversation. 

Project Runway wants people with real ideas - a designer with a relevant point of view.

People make excuses for divas.  I don’t want an excuse. 

The upside of jealousy is that it makes the industry more competitive, which is ultimately good for the quality of work that’s produced. 

Politeness is noticing our fellow human beings and saying, “I recognize that you’re on this planet, and I don’t want a door hitting you in the face.”

You have a precious few moments to make a first impression.  It must be positive.  One can lose out so quickly by not making eye contact, not emoting, not having a firm handshake, or not shaking hands at all. 

On makeovers: “I like to learn about the person and to find out how she really wants to look, what energy she wants to put out into the world.  It’s about who you are and how you want to be perceived.”

On style mentors: “It’s great to look around and find people in movies or books or pop culture whose style you want to emulate.  It’s helpful to think of your icon when you are constructing your own personal style.”

I find with complaints in general, you need to know the whole context, including what the expectation was.

Young people need guidelines, or they could face a dangerous sense of entitlement.  People like those terrible White House party crashers are constantly providing a counterexample in which trashy behavior is rewarded.  To cheer myself up, I try to remember the difference between short-term and long-term success.  Living a really good life and making a real mark on society is a marathon, not a sprint.

The appropriate answer to every loaded question is “what do you mean by that?”  Everything has a subtext.

“But this is the way we’ve always done it” is banned from my office.  You just mustn’t think that way.  There is always room for improvement. 

When you expect a lot out of children, they will rise to the occasion.

I promise you that things will get better if you are committed to climbing out of whatever hole you find yourself in.  You have to do something about whatever your struggles are.  It’s what gives us resources to move forward.  It’s what life is.

You don’t need to dumb things down for the television audience.  People are smart, and they want to see intelligent shows. 

Risk taking in our careers and education is essential.  Ambitious people are more attractive and more fun to be with than people who maintain the status quo.

Focus on what needs to be done and find a way to do it, independent of what your ego may be saying about you.

Young people gravitate toward what comes naturally to them and what they think they want.  But what they’re comfortable with isn’t necessarily their destiny.

When you show a collection at Fashion Week, your looks need to appear:

• dramatic
• expensive
• theatrical
• unreal (as in, not regular)
• enticing
• polished
• sassy
• oomphed!

I mean, if you’re going to effing Fashion Week, put on a show!!  Have showmanship and oodles and oodles of confidence!  I get it now.  When I was younger, I was like “what the eff are they wearing, no one’s going to wear that in real life!”  But IT’S NOT REAL LIFE.  It’s a SHOW.  And that’s what’s so fun about it.  They don’t actually sell those pieces right off the runway, they edit them for real life later.  So give us something fun to watch!!

Thank you and goodnight.

So I found an old notebook of mine from my freshman english class at OSU.  Our teacher had had us do “quick writes” at the beginning of class each week, and gave us a prompt to write about.  My quick write from November 27 was about what “new custom” I would create/enforce.  This is what my dorky ass wrote: “My new custom would be to say hello and then hip bump each other.  It would immediately break the ice and everyone would be a lot happier.  Everyone would also be a lot friendlier too, because they want the chance to hip bump others all the time.”  ROFL!