Part 1

If you’d told me a year ago where I would be today, I would have sooo LOL’d.

Over a year ago I was finishing my thesis on, of all things, the science of love. It was part of the requirements of my bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Back then, fashion to me was only a peripheral thing, a hobby I enjoyed in my spare time when I wasn’t studying theories by Carl Jung or deciding where I would take my master’s degree. Maybe in Melbourne with my friend, Erica.

I remember this one evening when Erica was riding home with me from somewhere, school or something. She was talking about what she planned to specialize in—SPED, or education for children with special needs. She asked me what I thought my specialization would be. I had no idea.

“Maybe criminal psychology, or clinical psychology. Who knows?”  I said.

We were quiet for awhile.

“Okay. What if you could be something else?”  she asked. “Like in another lifetime, if you weren’t going to be a doctor, what would you be?”

Without hesitation I said, “I’d be in fashion. Maybe a designer, haha!”

She asked me why not? I told her I wouldn’t know the first thing about it. I didn’t even know how to draw.

“Just try,” she replied.

We ended up at her house that night, where I borrowed some paper and pencils to make a few sketches. Of course they were hideous; I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t know how to draw. Honestly, I knew that it wouldn’t amount to anything, that at my age learning something so complex wasn’t going to happen. Didn’t we study in our developmental psychology class that the period for learning major skills is during young childhood? I put my pencil down and showed Erica the portrait I’d made of her.

“Oh wow,” she said, very unconvincingly. “It looks exactly like me!”

Yeah, so this doesn't look like her at all.

Needless to say I went home dejected, and tried to forget the whole exercise. But I knew deep in my heart that a seed had been planted. Whether it was a weed to be plucked out, or the start of a great tree, I didn’t know yet. All I knew was that I would keep on drawing, if only to satisfy the competitive male in me.

As the seed began to germinate in the back of my mind, an idea struck me. Maybe I could start my own blog! After all, back then the blogosphere was really beginning to pick up. The list of fashion-based Tumblrs and Blogspots I was following was growing at a daily rate.

But what kind of blog, I thought. I started digging around the internet. Sartorialist, Garance, Jak and Jil, these were the easiest references. But I didn’t have a good camera, and even if I did I seriously wouldn’t know how to use the damn thing. Somehow I couldn’t imagine myself hanging out by a bench on Ayala Avenue, approaching strangers for a shot. Then there were all the self-style blogs. Sea of Shoes, Style by Kling, that kind of thing. But again, the thought of me posing for every outfit I wore was unbearable. The whole candid-emo-chic thing was just not my style, plus I knew how much worse I would be in front of the camera than behind it.

And then suddenly, as if tripping over some tangle of fate, I stumbled upon the blog that would change my life forever.

[end of part 1. For part 2, click here.]