fashion

As this week comes to a close I thought I’d share a small moment that stuck with me yesterday and left me feeling happy/inspired/generally more motivated in life. And it just happened to be brought to me by the ladies of RODARTE.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Rodarte brand it is a fashion label started that was started in 2005 by two wickedly ambitious, innovative sisters with zero training in design. Well this week the ladies happened to be in Toronto & I was lucky enough to attend an interview they gave with Canadian fashion journalist Jeannie Becker. The event was very intimate, just a few die hard fans and fashionistas happy to be there, basking in the quiet wisdom of the soft spoken duo. And we were not disappointed.


The Mulleavy sisters spoke on a number of topics – their time as struggling artists in the lower east side, their collaborative creative process & the ways they stay grounded.
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While all of this was fascinating to me (in a nerdy fangirl kind of way) I was particularly struck by one comment Kate made early on in the interview. She said:

The only thing we really have to offer is our unique voice.

I have struggled a lot over the past few years, during my own clichéd yet completely personal “quarter-life crisis,” to rediscover my unique voice as a professional, adult woman. Throughout my life as a student (and in graduate school in particular) my accomplishments and mentors did all that work for me. They reminded me on a daily basis that my point of view was valuable and that my voice was a voice worth listening to.

However, since entering the “real world” during a time of such great economic strain and instability I have found myself inundated with messages saying just the opposite. I have heard how entitled my generation is, how resistant we are to an honest day’s work. I have heard about the uselessness of the degrees I dedicated years of my life to. I have felt the sting of being rejected professionally but also, and perhaps worse, being ignored.

Receiving so much positive affirmation from my parents and professors as a young person bolstered the pillars of my self-confidence, but never taught me how to mend the cracks that come inevitably with time and age.

So in my current search to teach myself how to affirm myself, I find words like Kate’s incredibly uplifting. Firstly because she acknowledges that we are all essentially the same and sure, maybe even a little bit useless. And yet…
In spite of it all we do have something to offer in this world. Something special and rare. Something worth tapping into and pursuing with reckless abandon.
Our own unique offering.
Our voice, which is valuable, when and if we let others hear it.

Just some reflections for you to do with what you like. Would love to hear your thoughts on fashion, motivation or the infamous quarter life crisis…Or better yet…any fun plans for the weekend?