I'm the best kind of crazy.




I'm a perpetual starter. I'm the kind of innately off-balance human being that has too many ideas for one head, so I stop one project mid-way through to start another before it falls out of my brain for good.

I'm the kind of neurotic that isn't clean -my husband can attest. But I know my mess like an accountant knows their financial spreadsheets. The kind of crazy that deems the floor as a giant shelf just waiting to be filled with treasures, and knows how much the bottom of my purse loves to cozy up to loose change and wrappers.

I'm the kind of kooky that cradled 2 liter bottles of Coca-Cola like babies in the grocery store. Carrying on a 45 minute conversation with and nurturing a plastic bottle somehow kept me from crawling on the floor like the today's shoeless and unclean "Wal-mart children" and fostered a creative spirit in me.

A spirit that makes sense one day and leaves me questioning my place in the world the next. A spirit that makes me feel as light and carefree as an ethereal gauze dress blowing in the wind. Then like a manic sans medication, makes me feel like I'm wearing flip flops in a foot of snow- frost-bitten by ideas I find ingenious and others find insidious.

Throughout the years, I can't say,in all honesty, that I have become completely comfortable in the colorful skin I wear, often feeling a little too round for such a square world. But, I can say that I have found that even though I don't seem to "fit" in too many places, it is becoming ever more present that finding people and places that can appreciate the ways in which I don't "fit" is just as satisfying.

I am delighted to not be just another safe Little Black Dress for any occasion. I am a complexly constructed couture dress, that hangs on the body in a way that doesn't make any sense, but somehow it doesn't have to.

I just am.




[Debut Fashion Show 2010 dress by Caitlin Cortez]


I found this in an old journal and find it inspiring.
"I'm going to stand out,
just so I won't struggle with fitting in.
I'm going to paint the world,
just so I don't have to see in black and white anymore.
I'm going to live a life that's never been lived,
just so I'll learn to be happy.
I'm going to love another with my entire soul,
just so I can say I've lived.
I'm going to be everything I've ever wanted to be,
just so I can prove you wrong,
just so the ones that didn't believe in me, will."
-anonymous

Though I am not a mother, I equate graduating from college to giving birth.

Four years of late night snacks, countless tests, a few mental breakdowns and breakthroughs, and one painful ceremony later you receive a special delivery. Swaddled in a white post-marked cardboard envelope.

Your "baby," your hopes and dreams, everything you worked for,and painstakingly planned for.

Now what?

Framing is an obvious choice. Showing your "baby" off to family and friends as you smile and reminisce about how much you "loooooooved" college and the pregnancy as a whole. How you have never felt so proud and beautiful as you did walking around with swollen ankles and dark circles under your eyes, feeling the stress and weight of a two ton whale on your small frame.

Secretly hoping that, somehow, your peer's "ooh's" and "aw's" will magically fulfill whatever motherly gene it is that you seem to not possess.


You show your baby off like a trophy to anyone who will give you the time of day.
Only to secretly stare at your "baby" in disdain when no one is watching. Knowing full-well that your newborn could bring you all the success and joy you had planned for during pregnancy if you could only accept your end of the challenge. Motherhood.

Searching for a sense of motherhood, you stare at pictures of yourself on the day of delivery- dressed in a moo-moo and funny hat as you hug people who supported you throughout your journey. You can still hear people tell you how much you have going for you, and how great your new life will be once your "baby" is born. You can hear yourself respond by only speaking highly of all your Dr.'s and how every test and class was worthwhile and beneficial - while your mind is simultaneously racing as you try to fathom how you are going to turn your dreams into a reality- transform your "baby" from a spit-up machine into a fully-functioning member of society, and turn yourself from awkward college student into a capable mother of a college degree.

After a few months of staring at your "baby" thinking you will find a guide to motherhood printed somewhere on it, it all starts to click.

Not how to be a mother, but how to embrace the experience of figuring it out.

It takes time to fully embrace motherhood. All the responsibilities, challenges, happiness, and disappointments come at a cost. Tuition is one thing, but the cost of putting yourself out there and trying to embrace motherhood for what it can be, instead of what it isn't, is another.

While it is a mother's natural instinct to protect, you have to take off the baby scratch mittens at some point. And not only take them off your newborn, but take them off yourself too. You have to allow yourself the chance discover the world around you by feeling it with your bare hands, and maybe even scratch yourself once or twice to learn.

Because graduating college isn't only like giving birth, it's like being born.
Discovering the newness of the world around you. Seeing everything from a fresh perspective, and falling down once or twice before you learn to walk.

Understanding nothing, but believing in everything - even the impossible.



So here is a little motherly advice for the road:
Accept the things you cannot change and embrace the things you can. Be sure to wash behind your ears. Break the rules and test the waters. Use the bathroom before you leave the house. And lastly, try to fit circles into squares because throughout my childhood and college career I have still yet to hear of a just reason for why it's impossible- because nothing is my dear.

Everyone in the city is an addict.



I have this notion that the city can be a vice, a recreational drug for the senses. But in excess the city can also be the onslaught of illness. The intoxication seeping out of the steam vents, taxi exhausts, street food carts, fashion houses, tapas bars, and magazine stands can send you on an acid trip- but the high is rarely noticed until the fall. Rarely appreciated, just like home.

It took an island of 8 million people and endless entertainment to appreciate the simplicity of the place I grew up. It took meeting art school students to realize the endless opportunities my education affords me. It took being treated like an intern to grow a backbone and define my own importance.

It has never been so blatantly obvious that you can't appreciate a couture gown until you learn the painful art of hand-sewing. You can't appreciate the power of Dorthy's red slippers, until you have left Kansas. You can't appreciate the simplicity of life until you are dropped into chaos. You can't appreciate a high until you've experienced a low.

Just as fast as the city builds you up, it can tear you down. One hit of the city won't hurt you, but hooking yourself up to an IV constantly filtering the city into your veins could be lethal.
The same with fashion. Snorting a Spring '10 line won't hurt you, but constantly inhaling fashion cycles could send your body into shock.


While there are those capable of dependencies to hard drugs like the city, I'll stick with the street legal drugs like cheap shoes and my dad's homemade salsa.

Walking in this this city is a dance.

Not the kind of dance you unleash at the Brass Monkey, but a much more vulnerable and choreographed dance. One that takes dedication and precision to perfect.


Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée. Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée. Glissade. Jeté. Pas de bourrée.
For all those ballet illiterate


New Yorkers know the streets like a stage they have danced on for years. They know every plank of wood by heart. Know the depth and width of the stage, and how to move gracefully across it. They cut you off so their moves can be seen, studied like an art, and respected.

For "natives", though it seems only a handful of New Yorkers are natives, tourists and their maps are like nails in the stage. Something to trip on breaking elegantly fluid movements.

New Yorkers are the principal dancers, and all else who dare to share the stage with them are forced to know their place in the corps de ballet (body of the ballet). Behind them on the curb.

The fashion industry isn't much different. Interns stand in the corps line glissading 'to and fro' in the back on rotting wood all to make the principal dancers movements on the shiny wood gracing center stage seem even more intricate and beautiful.

Monotonous moves on the back of the stage have led me to realize that it takes far more stamina, and dedication to dance in the corps line than it does to flawlessly fouetté until the curtain falls.

Without a doubt, corps line dancers have far more heart than the principal dancer who is more concerned with picking up the roses on the stage than stepping on your toes. Corps line dancers must love what they do, because there isn't much glory in dancing behind someone who is no better than you. Their belief in their art keeps them going, not the applause at the end of the show.

Tourists are far less fearful than hardened New Yorkers. No matter how many wrong trains or wrong turns tourists take, they keep at it, hoping the end result will be worth the much allotted effort. The desire to see and learn is far greater than the fear of the unknown or rude "natives" putting them in their place.


Just as tourists have been knocked around on the side walks, I have been shoved into the curtain so the principal dancer could be seen. I've been kicked in the face so someone else's arabesque extension could be more developed than mine. I've been standing behind the curtain watching someone else pawn off my moves for an audience who paid far too much for what they are receiving.

But I still go. Everyday. Even though my toes are bleeding, and my shoes are rubbing my blisters. I go.

Tourists still tour. Even though it might not be the place they set out looking for.


My place is the corps line is stable, but not indefinite.

My fouettés might not be as fluid as a principal dancer, and I might not know the stage as thoroughly- but my turnout rivals theirs, and my legs look just as good in tights.

Sad as though it may be, you truly never leave high school.

There will always be the pretty girls, the guys who have the world at their fingertips because they can catch a ball, the geeks, the art freaks, the granolas, and the inevitable wannabes.



Life is compartmentalized and clique-ish in New York. There is a status, a membership, a label attached to everything. You are either in or you're out. There are neighborhoods, bars, floors, and even sewing machines that restrict entrance/use.



After proving my ability in turning paper patterns into prototypes, my days seem to be spent listening to "Livin' La Vida Loca" in a hot, sticky sewing room. For the first couple of weeks I was shunned by the sewers and forced to sit in the corner sewing on a rusty Juki with feed dogs so ravenous so as to eat my fabric.



As if the language barrier wasn't excluding enough, I sat in the corner in a somewhat wannabe state of mind, with my back towards the professionals, the locals, the geeks you befriend so you can stay eligible for the Friday night game. The sewers are the heartbeat of fashion. So often forgotten and overlooked. They turn your vision into reality, your failing trig grade into the winning touchdown with no recognition. Their name isn't on the garment, or the MVP trophy you walk away with at the end of the season.



After doing my time as the "new girl in school" desperate for acceptance, I was finally allotted a seat next to Louis, master sewer, valedictorian. I felt oddly validated, and terrified of failing to deserve such a sacred seat. As I began loading my bobbin for winding at my shiny new Juki complete with a personal fan, Louis looks over at me and shakes a pre-wound bobbin in my face nodding at me to use it. He just gave me a sharpened pencil before the final.



He might not be the quarterback or voted most likely to be famous, but he is the one cheering you on at the big game, or voting for you so you can receive coveted yearbook space.



He is the one sewing the labels into your clothes so you can feel constant indulgence. He winds your bobbin so you can sew. He holds the seams together as they are falling apart.

People often say there is beauty in the breakdown. But I find the beauty to be in the formulation.

The formulation of relationships, seams, and Spanglish.

Confucius says: You cannot open a book without learning something.

The New York Public Library. Home to books, pictures, and dust.

I find libraries to be completely fascinating. Getting lost in a sea of books helps you stumble upon something you would have never sought out, quite like the adventures a directionally challenged girl finds in a city like Manhattan. The air is filled with knowledge waiting for someone to absorb the information like skin absorbing sunshine. People can feed off it. Long for it. And feel quite pale and unwell without it.

Libraries are also quite tragic. The lost books that sit on the shelves waiting for someone to choose knocking off dust over a shiny cover. Waiting for someone to turn the pages and let the smell of old wise words intoxicate them, breathe life, and infuse the lessons of yesterday into the present. Such an un-tapped resource.

Books and people are a lot alike. We put on clothes to get attention, draw people in, and entice them to know us more- just as the cover of a book does. We categorize and define ourselves by key words and phrases. We do not share shelf space with those who do not promote the same level of knowledge, passion, or glossy printed pages. Some even find comfort in the multiple check out cards placed in their cover pocket to solidify their pretentious nature -their checkout cards scream "I'm important. See everyone else thinks so too."

The fashion industry is a genre all its own. Shelf space is a hot commodity. Do not expect to sit next to Gianni Versace or Donna Karan. Don't even expect to sit next to those anonymous designers who design for them. Interns are all in a bin waiting to be revised before placing on some obscure shelf.

Perhaps that is why I enjoy the art of getting lost in a library. Finding those shelves behind bathrooms or in dark corners, that house those books that have something important to say but didn't make Oprah's book club making a prime library locale impossible. Lost words, forgotten wisdom, undiscovered genius paint the pages of a deserted book.

Sometimes the arrows in life point you to what you think you want. But choosing opposition and defying the direction others choose for you, is what you need to find yourself nestled in a corner hoping no one finds your secret. Your hidden gem of a book. Your garage sale Yves Saint Laurent blouse.

Sometimes you have to get lost to feel at home.

Boarding an elevator in New York is like trying to get into the Crillon Ball.







If there is one thing I've over-indulged in throughout my time in the City, it is observation. I'm a self-proclaimed glutton. I notice all the small things. Sometimes it is at the expense of missing the big picture, or the bus headed towards me. But I notice the lucky pennies, the makeshift gardens, the names carved into the Brooklyn Bridge, and the "door close" button rubbed raw on elevators.





The "door open" button, due to its seemingly virginal appearance, is unexplored territory. Threatening to those who fear the unknown, question dark spaces, and search for a crutch when pushed out of the nest.

I will admit, elevator rides are chronically awkward. For those days when you are packed into a freight elevator like sardines, you watch the floor as if it is a Broadway show, and long for a solo ride in which your nose isn't pressed into the delivery boy's armpit.

For those who shut the doors on others, deeming themselves worthy of a ride in solitude, there is something prestigious and magical about elevators. The carriage rises up the spine of the building and drops them off into an unknown abyss. People see them get on, but where they escape to is a mystery.

Riding alone to the top affords those who do the notion of importance. Like walking in glass slippers. You can't very well walk up stairs in glass slippers. Alas your carriage awaits you, and only you. It lowers to cradle you and your fragile shoes high into the sky into a land of make-believe.

You have reached the ball on the penthouse floor, in you fabulous shoes nonetheless, but at the expense of what?

Just like Cinderella couldn't have finished her chores and made it to the ball without the help of mice, designers couldn't make it to Bryant Park, let alone the showroom floor, without the vermin that are interns. We haul samples, swatches, and patterns around the city like mice with crumbs. We lurk in the corners when fabulous people arrive, as if we don't exist.

But those unfortunate things, coupled with freight elevators, and running errands in the rain, make seeing a garment you had a hand in on Style.com worth every pin you picked up, every armpit you had your nose in, and seam you ripped.

Cinderella enjoyed the ball more, because she worked to get there. She scrubbed the floor on her hands an knees. She appreciated the pumpkin transforming into a carriage. She didn't expect it, or deem herself worthy of it.

But just like Cinderella, your magical carriage, that is your elevator, turns back into a pumpkin at midnight, and your glass slippers suddenly become impractical and debilitating.

Think about all you are missing when you choose an elevator ride in solitude. You miss the laughs on the way up, the meaningless conversation that turns into a life-long friendship. You miss the opportunity to be the first finger to grace the "Open Door" button.

Instead you are choosing solitary confinement. All you are missing are padded walls and you've got yourself an asylum.

People always wonder why it is so lonely at the top. Because you choose the "close door" option. You wouldn't share the ride with anyone else. You let mice help you do your chores, but when it came time for the ball they were nothing more than an infestation.


Cinderella shared her experience with the mice that helped get her there. Granted, if memory serves me correct, mice were merely horses that drew her carriage, but at least she wasn't ashamed of her help.

That infamous night Cinderella didn't ride alone.

Clearly Cinderella was doing something right-She ended up with Prince Charming and killer shoes.