I may eyeroll about fashion magazines, but that’s not because I don’t appreciate fashion — I do, I am just selective about who I allow to advise me on it.
At the top of my list, however, is my good friend Amira Marion. I’ve known her since my senior year of high school when I moved from Florida to Michigan, and she has taught me 90% of what I know about fashion. Her kind of style can rarely be found in a mall (except for when the stuff she designs ends up there), but rather in thrift shops. Name brands matter, but not as much as fabric, and nothing matters as much as a perfect fit. She taught me that all fashion rules are myths (eg: you should never wear black and brown together), to embrace my natural waistline, and that everything essentially comes down to confidence.
Today she came over and helped me pack up my closet. In only two hours, we went through every item and decided whether it should be donated, sold to Beacon’s Closet (a thrift store in Williamsburg that selectively buys quality/unique clothes), sold in her personal online vintage store, put into storage, or taken with me. It’s great to have a friend who studied under Tim Gunn in times like this. Now I’m all set with a minimal travel wardrobe suited for business meetings and lying on a beach in Thailand.
Packing up my things from piles into bags, I folded all my storage items with care, remembering the times I’ve worn them in NYC. I thought about how exciting it’s going to be to take them out in a year or so and rediscover forgotten items. But I couldn’t help but feel the sad sense of not knowing when the next time I would see these things again will be.
And these are just clothes. I am doing everything I can to not think about the fact that I’m going to have to go through this with actual people. This is why I’m on the fence about having any kind of goodbye party. It’s not even goodbye, it’s just “see ya later,” but if I had a goodbye party I’d just get drunk and cry the whole time, and who wants to go to that. Not me, no thank you.
Anyways, I’m leaving soon, very soon. If you want to see me, come to Bushwick to cowork/eat/drink and meet my new parakeet, Twitter. In some kind of freakishly weird twist of fate, he flew into my apartment on Saturday and he’s pretty happy hanging out with me. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him yet, but it will involve a loving home, so if anyone has any ideas let me know. Twitter, we’ll make it work <3
