From a very young age I had three passions in life, writing, talking and fashion and to me nothing else mattered. Three topics that overlapped so many times throughout my life I couldn't begin to explain but to this day at twenty one years of age there's one movie that inspires me like no other and that's 'The Devil Wears Prada'.
Growing up fashion was my escape similar to the way writing is for me today, no matter what was going on in my life I'd always have my design notebooks by my side and a packet of colouring pencils just in case.
I only watched fashion shows from Vivienne Westood to John Galliano, obsessed with the likes of project runway and A Listers Unzipped, as for Ben De Lisi... well De Lisi was my hero. I knew names of people twelve year old's shouldn't have been able to pronounce let alone know each of their collections inside out but for me fashion was my life and I loved it.
Like I mentioned above I admired Ben De Lisi growing up and I actually reached out to him at the age of 11 sending him an email off the family account and believe it or not he responded, I couldn't believe it. I remember asking Ben how he first got interested in fashion and he replied telling me it was when he wanted a pair of jeans but couldn't afford them so he made them himself and he never looked back. An email I received over 10 years ago and I still remember it word for word. Another fashion idol of mine was Irish stylist Courtney Smith, a lady who inspires me day in and day out and is doing phenomenal things in the fashion world today, she was what really inspired me to consider a career in fashion and told me that I can incorporate fashion and writing something I never even considered.
One thing I hated when I was younger was watching movies, I didn't have it in me to sit there quite for two hours but one movie that I could watch again and again and never get sick of it was The Devil Wears Prada.
If you haven't seen this Iconic film then firstly you need too but it's the story of Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) who is the Editor -in - Chief of Vogue magazine and her new assistant Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) who has little to no knowledge about fashion but is embarking on a journalism career and knows if she can spend 12 months working at Vogue then she can have pretty any journalistic career she wants. As the story unfolds you see how fashion changes Andrea's life be it for the better or worst but you'll have to watch it yourself to decide.
For me as a child interested in journalism and fashion I was obviously going to be attached to this movie and after watching it again last week for the first time in a while it gave me goose bumps and reminded me exactly why I first wanted a career in the fashion industry.
In the movie Andrea had my dream job (and boyfriend but that's another story) she worked for the Queen Miranda and day in and day out there she learned the history/ story of fashion and it wasn't before long she was hooked on fashion too, she never gave up on any job Miranda threw at her even though it backfired on her at the end the movie, for me showcases how passion and power can genuinely make or break a person depending on how you handle it and of course how important fashion is.
I understand that if you're not interested in fashion then this post is a heap of bogus to you but for me fashion meant everything to me. With so much going on in my life as a child the one thing I could always depend on was fashion, whether it was to take my mind of things by designing dresses or knowing that with each season was a new collection things were always going to get better and new things were to come. Fashion was what kept me going and is and always will be one of my life's biggest passions whether people know it or not.
