People pour out into the streets as the sun dips behind clouds. Strange how the sun hides as people come out.



Rod iron gates disappear into oblivion. Lights flicker on. The day is here to stay.



Like clockwork people go in and out of hiding. In a city so over-inhabited, over-indulged, and over-stimulated the idea of hiding is ludricous. In Manhattan, your personal space is all you have. You treasure it, protect it, carve out places for all each and every one of your favorite things.



As I unpacked carbon-colored washed lamb leather jackets I felt as if the jacket had a life way beyond my years. It is the kind of jacket you live in. The kind of jacket that has a history. A jacket that is a part of your journey, today, tomorrow, 10 years from now. It is the kind of jacket that makes you feel safe enough to come out of hiding and brave the city alone.



Fashion is no different than a favorite blanket, a stuffed animal, or a lucky charm. Something about the inanimate object breathes life into you, protects you, and speaks you to.



Vulnerability festers in this city. Thats why people hide. Everyone is compensating. Life in Manhattan is like a battlefield, everyone sizing you up, beating you down, forcing you to realize just how insignificant you really are. Nothing beyond a New Yorker's hole-in-the-wall of a home is important. To them, the holiday sweater stashed in their oven is more worthy of concern than you.



Whether the stoop you stumble out of is on the Upper East Side or the Bronx, the wind created from people walking by seems to steal every ounce of protection lingering from your safe haven. The city sucks you in and spits you out.



Fashion has become a defense mechanism. As humans we crave to envelope ourselves in an armor. Whether that armor is knowledge, an umbrella, or a washed-leather jacket, we seek cover from the storm.





The more pretentious and important you feel you are, the more protected you become.



Let fashion craddle you, lull you, save you. Without it, you are barenaked against the elements.

The streets were wet this morning- perhaps symbolizing the cleansing of yesterday's transgressions. After rain I always feel unashamedly hopeful.

As I sat atop a cosy studio wedged between fabric stores putting style numbers on the Resort Collection for the showroom, I saw light shine down in the foot and a half alley. It was at that moment that I felt the pulse of the city. The city had come alive again. The rain had spilled into the streets only to forgive what was unforgivable, to heal was was broken, and to rekindle what may have blown out.

As many people say, only two things in life are certain. Death and taxes. Does this mean we all hold the eraser? I know we write our own stories, but can we edit them as well?

Making patterns on the work table newly lit by the narrow alley, I drew the lines so deliberately. But I always knew I had the power to erase the unwanted line if it strayed. I always had the option to make a curve deeper, a hemline shorter, a grainline cut on the straight of grain rather than bias. Though all those decision had been made by someone else already, I ultimately held the power.

In the end, we can choose to write our story, our legacy, our history in a language only someone with that immense amount of passion can read. Or we can choose to let someone else have the byline. We can crumple it. Edit it. Doodle till it is nearly illegible. Or we can erase and start all over.

The sad part is that people forget the beauty, the opportunity, the genius that lies in a mistake, a rainy morning, or an uneven hem.


Upon pondering the brilliance found in mistakes whilst I sat on a cold metal stool at a wooden work table, I turned the pencil to erase a line only to find the eraser was no more.

The line screamed at me. Scorned me. Reminded me of the imperfections that simmer within humans. An eraser had become my protector instead of my nemisis.

At the end of it all. Accidents turn into art. Imperfections turn into an unexplained beauty. And a rainy days escort sunshine into alleys and gutters where brokendown men with no hope can find the strength to write their own story without erasing their past. Just as rainy days come and go, patterns are worked and re-worked- our past is, and will always, be a part of us, but it does not have to define our future. It is human struggle that makes you real. It is the imperfections that keep you out of Madame Tousseau's wax museum.

To be unashamed is to be beautiful. In understanding the shortcomings you can appreciate talent, the drive, the ambition, and the heart.

Not every story is beautiful from start to finish. The fashion industry is tediuous, strenuous, exhausting, and unglamourous. The process is not beautiful- it is only the final product, in it's entirety, that is beautiful.

Today. I write in pen.

The brisk wind this morning should have been some clue as to how hectic my day would be. The streets were packed and my feet still sore from rummaging in China Town yesterday .

First days are always tricky. There's that crucial first impression, firm but not bone-breaking handshake, and the illusion of confidence you portray so as to not appear completely incompetent. All the way up on the 7th floor in an old warehouse type studio sits the most eccentric and quaint design house with old wooden floors and full of dusty books, worn in leather shoes and bags, corroded metal signs, weathered shelves and odds and ends you can only find at the estate sale of someone with a sharp eye for hidden beauty.

The entrance is calm and quiet. But behind the white door that reads "leave closed ALWAYS" lies the hum of a cutter, the clink of a hanger on a garment rack, and the swoosh of an empty skim non-fat latte with three shots of god knows what from starbucks hitting the stainless steele trashcan.

Forget the disillusioned stigma of glamour and fabulousness that comes with all who live and breathe fashion. The fashion industry doesn't wait. Not for anything. The fashion industry abides by the wisdom : "use your resources." And for those who abide in Manhattan, the city is your resource, your playground, your enemy. Not an evil enemy, but an enemy who holds the key to something you want, nay something you need. Because you see a button isn't just a button, red silk shantung isn't just red silk shantung- it all holds meaning and value and speaks to people who choose to listen.

As I pounded the streets of the garment district delivering fabric, sourcing fabric, taking garments to Yigal's photoshoot, I realized something. Though not profound, in the midday heat and on a stomach begging for a lunch break, I realized the fashion industry is just like life, decisions must be made in the spur of the moment, you always hurry up to wait, someone is always higher than you on the totum pole, and you always put in so much work to seem effortlessly chic.

As for my place notched out on the totum pole...sitting pretty at the bottom, knowing it takes years to become an "overnight success."

Lunch on the steps

Chinatown.