I think there is nothing more classic than blunt bangs cut just below a perfectly filled brow.
My favourite makeup trick is a swipe of cotton candy pink or juicy coral blush on cheekbones.
My favourite feature is my freckles, which a tattoo artist once told me, made the blue bird on my shoulder appear to be "sparkling".
I am 5'7" without heels. I'm a size 6 on a good day, more often than not a size 8, and if I'm in a rough patch, a size 10. But that's perfectly fine- there's nothing wrong with being a size 10, it's a perfect 10/10. I have never been a 00, and that's also okay. It took many years to learn that people come in all shapes and sizes, that one size does not fit all, and it's up to you to decide what size you feel best in.
I think it's a blessing to be a girl, but so many girls out there need help finding their confidence, and discovering what they like, beauty standards be dashed.
While highlighting the things you must know about me before we move on, both strolling and laughing through light-hearted fashion discussions and possibly trudging through some murky, thick dirty laundry, you need to know this:
I love fashion. Fashion is very important and personal to me.
While interviewing for a position at my dream job, Kate Spade, I must have said this three times over: Fashion is very important to me.
I don't have a great memory, but one of the earliest things I remember is my mom's sewing machine set up in the corner of my pink bedroom, in a little navy housing apartment in Hawaii. There was a mango tree in the front yard, which my father fell out of trying to string with Christmas lights once, and a navy blue mustang with a white racing stripe under a covered parking spot.
My mom would tick away on her sewing machine there, turning out Halloween costumes, frilled dresses to match my Barbie dolls, and so many other little projects. I even remember late at night, the lights would be out in my bedroom, but my mom would be there in the dark, finishing up a project by the little light of the sewing machine.
She passed her skills to me when I was about ten, teaching me the fundamentals. I received a little toy Singer machine and made about fifty sleeping bags for my dolls- clothes were a little more difficult.
Mom would always purchase the fat seasonal issues of magazines, when the new collections were released from designers. We'd sit or lay on the floor, turning through each one carefully, dog-earing what we liked. Though I thought it was terribly boring to look at "old lady clothes" at the time, it taught me a lot about trends, coordinating outfits, and brands.
There was a point where I was very gothic. Ironically, I was led to that scene by My Little Pony, when the singer Pink wore a jacket and hat printed with My Little Pony Characters to the Kids Choice Awards on Nickelodeon.
When I was in my teens, I became obsessed with Japanese fashion. Though I had known a little bit about it, Gwen Stefani and her band of both beloved and despised "Harajuku Girls" put the limelight on that part of the world.
Shortly after, I became engrossed by the "Lolita" subculture from the streets of Japan. My passion for sewing reignited as I tried to replicate the fashions I saw in magazines. Lolita is still a huge part of my life, and while I'm not "casual" in Kate Spade, I still don the petticoats and frilled dresses to hit the meet-ups and events with friends. But that's what Darkly Darling is about.
My love for Japanese culture and fashion led me to a love of everything Japanese, including music, art, animation, food, and language. I tirelessly studied Japanese through college, and finally, in my junior year, got to spend a year abroad in Nagoya. My understanding and love for Japanese fashions became even more intimate, as I made local friends, stalked the brand stores, and hunted down rare retired pieces at second-hand shops in shopping arcades.
Afterwards, I returned to my home state of Hawaii to finish college. On the tail end of a bad heart-break, I had chopped off my red hair into a bob, and ravenously searched for anything to revalidate myself. I wanted to use my love of Japanese fashion to design my own fashion collection, but needed a means to produce a fashion show. My desire to prove myself and forge a new place to belong led me to Miss Vamp Hawaii, a Vampire Beauty pageant. It appealed to my gothic past and darker tastes, my love for all things creative, and I thought I would debut my fashions for the talent part of the competition.
Rather than becoming a gothic beauty queen (I didn't place at all), or debuting a fashion line (I ran out of time) I ended up meeting the love of my life. He was in the audience on the night of the pageant, and one thing led to another, and now we're set to be married this October. It taught me that things really do happen for a reason. Even if you have to stick it out through bad stuff, it molds you into the person you need to be, when the time comes.
Basically, everywhere I have pushed myself to wander, every door I've pushed opened for myself, has been inspired by fashion in one way or another. I come from a house where I was raised by my mom, while my Dad was out to sea, and she loved fashion too.
I think that fashion is how we tell a story, how we frame ourselves for the rest of the world, how we celebrate, how we speak, and how we evolve. On special occasions we change our clothes, after milestones, paradigm-shifting inspirations, pitfalls, we reinvent ourselves, and fashion is our paint brush. It's not the physical, of money and enterprise that I fell in love with, but the idea- because that's what fashion really is, not a navy blue shirt, an electric yellow pencil skirt, but the idea, that you are pretty, witty and bright, and you are going to frame yourself that way.
Welcome to my new blog, where I will write about my adventure through my new dream job at Kate Spade New York, and fashion in general.
Where did I put my coral lipstick?
Bises,
Erica, "Cherie".
