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.
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.
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.
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.
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