The devil keeps telling me that my gift is useless, my passion is useless and what I love is frivolous. Yet as I think about it, one of the most powerful mediums, the largest and wealthiest industries is this one. Simultaneously it is also the one he has the strongest grip on. I can't help but say back to the devil, "so if my gift is useless and my passion frivolous, then why do you care so much to tell me that?"

I realized that if Satan defeats people spiritually through the physical, can we not, as Christians, fight back using the physical for the spiritual lives of people?
Imagine if all the Christians in the fashion industry got down on their knees and prayed for God's deliverance. How amazing would that be?

After the sermon on Sunday on spiritual warfare, the worship team leader (also my inner healing counselor) and I had lunch. She told me that within the Five Fold ministry (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher) that I mostly embodied the traits of the Apostle with traces of Prophet due to my visions and aspirations (I'm thinking in my head 'no wayyyyy the Apostle has the gift to touch the other four roles!'). So I took the spiritual gift test yesterday with 'ellco' (mercy showing) and 'kubernesis' (administration) being my leading gifts. 'Ellco' gives the ability to sympathize and help people while 'kubernesis' is the power to lead and motivate people.
It's an odd mix though considering how soft-spoken I am. I rarely speak my mind because I'm sensitive to how people may react while I remain quite stubborn and strong willed in what I believe in.

God, could this really be it? Could it really be that I was born to be a leader, to be a person to motivate, inspire and change an industry? It sounds impossible.

As my pledge to our church building fund, I thought that I would donate my bonus for this past year which is basically one month's salary. The bonus itself means more than just a lump of money- it was something I was really looking forward to because I never received it the first year I was here nor did I get a raise. When I first received the bonus, I was thinking about that pair of Fendi sandals I wanted or perhaps a trip to Europe. Yet when the church asked for help, I hesitated to pledge a number. Yet I realized how quick I was to generously gift myself yet became stingy and hesitant when giving to God. Money is spiritual thus... God you get my bonus. No more Fendi sandals (unless God makes them go on sale? HAHAHA).

As my faith pledge, I promised God another month's salary if He would move the CEO to raise my monthly salary by $3k. While this is possible in the banking world, the standard is 3-5%. I am asking for a lot more which would probably fall under Market Salary Adjustment. This will also determine my future at this place. I will know by April.

Dum dum dum.. how exciting life is with God in the picture.

Silver Lining

I'm on Cloud 9.

Today I had my first model shooting (not me- we hired one) for my new campaign. A year ago we tried merchandising a separate brand only to have it fail due to high prices and the fact that I was not on set to help style and pick the model. But this time we did all the shots in the studio, I got to pick the model and had total control of the set, the hair and the overall mood of the shoot.

Admittedly I was nervous- nervous due to the fact that I never got to see the model in person and agencies tend to exaggerate on proportions. What if the clothes didn't fit, what if she didn't know how to pose, what if she was actually really ugly in real life? While her casting shots were rather mediocre and a colleague just snubbed her as "ugly and not likeable" for a model, I ended up choosing her though I was doubtful after the comments made on my decision.

But omg when she came around the corner at the office, I just stared. 5'9" with really skinny legs (actually I would prefer if she fattened up a little, she looks a little like Bambi), big doe eyes and a full pouty lip. Her hair was thick and stick straight with no layering whatsoever. Her English name is Eva. She's from Guangzhou. She's 19 but taking a gap year to model for low key runway shows in China. She hasn't done photo shoots per se so she told me she's nervous.

As for me, I had my arsenal ready. I had all the shoes lined up, sunglasses both retro/aviator, thick and thin belts, my favorite black hat and my platform heels in case none of the merchandised shoes fit her. My rack of clothes had four sets that will determine the direction of fashion at this company for the next month- all ironed, all perfectly categorized by their own themes and outfit sets.

She was quite stiff. A little nervous (she's high school!). She's quiet. But when we got her to loosen up (which involves me prancing around and encouraging her that the shots look good while doing the pose with her), we got PRADA and Jill Stuart. I could already see the palm trees, see the sand beneath my feet- I could picture someone wearing this in real life.

My elation over this comes from the fact that it's not only that she looked good and the shots were pretty but the fact that all the hard work that goes behind getting the clothes on the model (surfing our site for decently priced clothes that still look and feel good, ordering in which some are canceled, stocking in warehouse, keeping track of stock in warehouse, borrowing items through system, keeping a record of all borrowed items, styling, ordering more items to further visualize a layout, thinking of the right text and to even think of a theme that ties all these pieces together)- it was about five weeks of backend work that finally pulled together and created these distilled, perfect sets. I could see these on ASOS, I could see these as print ads, I could see these at our store in the States, I could see these as what girls would look at and say "I wanna look like her. I wanna dress like she does." In descended both an element of fantasy and wearability at the same time.
Those four hours showed for my five weeks of work.

My colleague who laughed at my choice was astonished by my excitement over the model so she came in to look. My gut was right! My colleague's photos for a model shooting came in from Korea yesterday- the model's face was too round and she made the clothes look extremely awkward. While it's not entirely her fault (I've been there done that a year ago and it was incredibly frustrating to see all that backend work resorting in ugly photos).

I love it- I think my talents lie in one word: editing.
I've noticed that what I love to do is take things that most people say are ugly, cheap, and untrendy and make them think otherwise. It's why I loved going to thrift stores- precisely for the uncool factor (at that time) to find unique pieces that most people would never have dreamed of placing in their closets. People would say "what you found that where?" or "that was only $? It looks expensive!" It's why I love working at noisy cafes where I can filter out sound myself- libraries that already are vacuums make me irritated. It' s why I am where I am now at this job. I hate it when people just throw everything up, with no concept, no dream, no vision of the end product. I love packaging things into one pristine idea. I love making cheap things look extremely expensive. I want to show people at this company what fashion should look like and the power of imagination and passion for this industry.

First set launches next week. i'm so so so excited to show everyone the rest of my sets. Peaches, blush pink, mango yellow all blend together and tickle me silly.

It's hours like these where I think I am doing what I was made to do. Or at least am able to grasp a small slice of it.
I can't wait to see photos on Monday. I'm very apprehensive about how the web team will handle the photos (ugly pricing labels, please no!) but at least the photos turned out well.

I think the best thing about it was that even when everyone said "no that doesn't look good"- I still held my ground and stuck with what I thought looked good- and changed their minds when they saw the photos.

I can't wait to go to work on Monday!

I was carrying green and black heels today for the next modeling session in the coming month. My colleague saw them and started all her negativity again.
I will show you that Lego green and cobalt blue block heels can look amazing- i will style them with lots of stripes, retro round sunglasses and a huge floppy hat and no one will say to me again "those are hard colors to wear whereas the pink and black are ok." I will show you what it's like to think in alternatives, to think in possibilities and not what is. I will make you fall in love with cobalt blue and Lego green. All you need is a little vision and imagination.

Dissection

I've been listening to Lux Aeterna the whole day after watching the trailer for the Black Swan which just came out a few days ago (dang you Hong Kong). I am a huge fan of Darren Aronfosky's Requiem for a Dream (don't watch it because it'll make you depressed, it made me super happy as I went to bed the first time I watched it but it's not everyone's cup of tea.)

Though I haven't watched Black Swan yet there was one line in the trailer that struck a chord in me, Nina's mom asks her daughter, "What happened to my sweet girl?" to which Nina replies, "she's gone."

Sweet girl.
My mom always says that to me, "my sweet jie jie." The constant pursuit for perfection can fall into obsession and insanity- for Nina it was ballet, for me it's finding purpose in my work. You know, ever since I started my first job, I feel like a part of that 'Black Swan' coming out and it alarms me. I know it sounds somewhat lame but there is that struggle despite being saved: the thirst for power, the desire for a louder voice, the hopes for respect and the wish for greatness in the thing I am passionate about. There are times I catch myself thinking about how to get farther, how to run faster than other people at the company which either regard me as an oddity ("why are you wearing a hat?"), or with hostility due to the fact I am now doing quite a lot on the front end side of things and can walk into the CEO's office whenever he's free. I get bullied by colleagues to which I cannot stand but I hold my ground because I won't tolerate being bullied like how it was back in elementary school. Furthermore I cannot tolerate people disgracing the industry with their own ignorance and lack of desire to learn to do things the right way.

I'm styling a set inspired by the Black Swan and started listening to Lux Aeterna to get me in that sense of spiraling out of control. It sounds odd, but I now have learned that my intuition can actually be stronger than my sense of logic- that in which an artist finds reason in feeling.

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It's wrong to be so fearful to which I know, there's a problem. On the surface I'm laughing but inside I've been crippled by lies that the enemy has been telling me and that which friends' words have loosely thrown around.
There was a point in time I thought I was not attractive. For the longest time- perhaps until a couple years ago, I always thought I was background music, the wall flower and the weird girl who thinks Wednesday from the Addam's family is stylish. Fashion became somewhat of a way to express outwardly how weird I felt inwardly. Hey if you're weird, why not go all the way? I just felt a lot of shame. Shame because though I was tall, my fingers would literally crumple if someone threw a basketball at me. Sporty girls were always thought of as cool by guys no? That's how my basketball cousin got all her boyfriends. I always sat on the sidelines with my camera in hand. Shame because girls used to laugh at my dancing and accuse me of trying to be like everyone else because I wore a spaghetti strap top instead of a baggy T-shirt once to the dance party. It got so bad to the point where I would wash my hands in a public bathroom and would not dare to look at the mirror because in my head I was thinking, "you're self centered, vain and absorbed. Only attractive girls can look into the mirror to admire themselves."

How about boys? I've always felt like a nobody in this sector- never was an 'It' girl at church (oh yes we have those sadly for the rest of us), was the one who got splashed with slush by teenage boys driving a car back when I lived in Canada (ha ha funny- I then learned to walk on the far side of the sidewalk), was the girl who had the good friend which three boys were interested in (but the one she liked was not into her) and was told she wasn't very attractive.
When girls began to dress to impress the opposite sex, clothes became a way for me to express that asexuality that I felt- a sort of art in which I could blend that desire for femininity and cliche sex appeal with a heavy dose of menswear. By obscuring club wear silhouettes with clothes that were normally associated with corporate banker or grandma, I felt like I could regain a sort of distorted beauty that I could take ownership of even though no one else may have appreciated it. My pride comes from not being like everyone else- snubbing girls who go to clubs and post Facebook pictures for their male friends to oggle at. I began to dress to impress women and not men.

Then Christmas rolled around and my socialite guy cousin came back- the one which I hated in a sense because he reminded me of the girl I was not. I went to the bar, unwillingly, with the rest of the cousins. He looks at me and ignores me- I'm in a cape, boyfriend trousers cropped to the ankle, holding a bag of my sleeping gear. Yeah, clubbing appropriate alright. That night I thought I was going with my girl cousins back to their place to chill, watch a movie and catch up. But here I was standing at a bar with my guy cousin chatting up to the ladies.

I just burst into tears and left. The way in which he looked at me and ignored me reminded me of the hurt in which has gone so long untreated. He reminds me of all the insecurity I felt growing up. It's why I always stayed away from clubs and from guys of that sort.

If one were to ask how I would describe my style in one word, it would be "conflicted"
I've noticed through this self documentation that I sway from androgyny to womanly and I can't help but think it's because I'm self consciously trying to fix a battered self esteem.

There are times when I don't know what's true anymore. Taking pride in looking different, finding modesty as a mode of religious sobriety, to be found appealing more than just inwardly but outwardly, to not be accused of being shameful or dressed like a visual roadblock for men. Heaven and hell sit on my shoulders when I look in the mirror both with a mix of disgust at the ego of the artist (yet I look at people in finance and find little difference) with a mixture of wonder at what is capable with a little imagination and God given creativity.