At a young age, I sparked an interest in the fashion scene during shopping adventures with my mom. She was a busy parent, along with my dad working strenuous hours below minimum wage. My dad wasn't in the picture much, but these days, we are closer than we were my younger years. The times my mom had her day off, she would take me to the local mall nearly every weekend, probably because it was the most accessible place to go. To think we would be tired of seeing the same surroundings, but those times we shared walking around, store to store, were quite exciting to me. As a child, the feeling of being outside of the house was thrilling because the prospect of the world was so large and every corner had something to find. I seemed to love going to the mall so much that I remembered I would used to make my mom pinky promise she'd take me there. Our time together, so frequently at the mall had made me a stubborn child, where if she ever told me we couldn't go, I would go on a tantrum and burst into tears. Sounds embarrassing and a tad dramatic, but of course, being a 10 year old, I probably had some shopping anxiety.
We were a low-income family, yet my mom would always persist on buying what I wanted. I admired clothes at the mall with fun sparkles and patterns, but thought they were too expensive, so I stuck with having a great collection of Beanie Babies. Who else was crazy over these plushies?! I had a range of the stuffed animals, in which I treated with intense care, remembering not to crumble their signature red tags and after playtime, I would place them together on top of my desk shelf as if they were a family. I appreciate those times my mom would sacrifice in the happiness of mine; I guess you could say if she saw me happy, then she was happy, even if it was a time when I didn't understand the financial circumstances we were in.
Fast forward to my preteen years, I became more aware of what kind of clothes I wore and what my peers wore. I had wanted to dress in colourful outfits, and pair all sorts of sparkling accessories. To afford what I wanted, I saved up in a box the money I had received doing chores, during birthdays and special occasions like Chinese New Year. I did spend more than the usual amount of time going to the malls when I was younger, but it wasn't merely a materialistic matter, it was a place to hang out and enjoy moments of our lives.
I was only thirteen when The Hills reality show aired, and even before that, I had watched the preexisting MTV's Laguna Beach. As a preteen, it was fascinating watching main personalities, Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port be in the fashion industry, working as interns at the magazine publishing company, Teen Vogue. Although what we see on television shouldn't be taken as real, it seemed like a job I wouldn't mind. I was interested when it was announced that Whitney Port would have a spinoff show, The City because it was set in a different atmosphere and gave a closer glimpse of what her next change of work was like. We shouldn't lust over the lives of people on these shows, but it's nice to imagine being in that environment working with fashion designers, editors and all the team work it requires to put a successful company together.
As much as I love fashion, there's still plenty I'm unfamiliar with and saw it more of a hobby, and didn't think it would be an immediate viable source of income enough to build it into a career. I figured by now, I would have an idea of where my future career path would be, but I'm still wandering. There were many options I was interested in, I just never got the chance to further explore and see what specifically I enjoyed. Here I am in school, trying to figure things out and do some happy blogging while at it!
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