Fashionably Sitting It Out

If I were reading what I am about to write to my 15, 20 or 25 year old self, I would be in utter disbelief. I have always wanted to be part of fashion week. When I was in college, I’d walk past the tents by Bryant Park (I think this was the heyday and magical era of the fashion industry by the way, pre-social media) and think to myself, I am going to find a way to cover fashion week. Flash forward about 18 years later, I have finally found a way to get in on the action by starting ROSE & IVY, but while standing in an insane line to get into a fashion presentation at the beginning of fashion week and just watching what was happening around me, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of absolute emptiness and zero sense of meaning. I felt super uncomfortable. I just observed as fashion goers who were dressed in ways just to get noticed vying for street photographers attention (trying so hard not to judge), lines that didn’t move and were a mega fire hazard and editors with a seat assignment getting removed from the front row to make way for an influencer. Also, a side note, fashion week doesn’t do anything to help those who might not be able to stand and those with invisible disabilities—I have MS. But by day one I thought, okay, I’m good. Perhaps it is the season of my life where I crave realness and genuine things, where there is actually meaning behind where I invest my time. I kept asking myself, ugh, am I too old for this? Do I no longer like fashion? The answer is no to both of those things I know, I love fashion, I always have, but I just wonder when the focus has been put on these ‘other things’ rather than the designer who is actually creating the pieces? Then I asked myself, should it have meaning? Questions I guess now asked to my 36 year old self.

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