Thoughts

08/25/23

07/31/23

There are good people in this world. :)

07/06/23

As I'm struggling to understand who I am for first time in while, I'm being put face to face with past versions of myself against my will. I don't feel any familiarity towards them, but it's still painful to look back. People have come and gone and life has moved on. Quicker than I have at least. I have difficulty processing the flow of time every so often. Things don't feel real and I look down at my hands and think "whose are these?" Then I make something that's kinda cool and suddenly I'm okay.

Sometimes I grow weary of my current relationships and fear the day they may end. It causes me so much heartache and I lose myself and any and all accomplishments are suddenly meaningless if I feel that those I care about have moved on from me. My heart is breaking and that's usually when I do my best work.

07/02/23

I haven't written one of these in a while. Where'd the time go? It was right here a second ago.

10/20/20

I had a moment of clarity. I had hope for the first time in a while. I woke up feeling lucky and excited. It was like all the weight of living just vanished. I was productive, although I didn't accomplish all I had hoped. Nevertheless, I was satisfied. Writing this is hard for me. I often find it difficult to express myself when I feel good. I'm just not used to it. It's a bit of a shock for me. Considering current events, there's a bit of guilt too, but I digress. During a time in my life where I'm constantly questioning what it means to exist, tonight I felt my answer. It was such a small and mundane event, but it meant so much to me. It's always the little things that hold the most value and remind me that things will be okay. I was able to help and be useful to someone I care about. Then in realizing how much I care about that person, I found something to look forward to. Something long term.

09/24/20

Today I drove past the old Amoeba Records building in LA. I couldn't help, but let out an audible "wow". Something about it just shook me up. It had been setting up to close for a while, but there was something unsettling about the how all the album covers from March were still up. Like it's frozen in time. The whole ambience exuded from that one building is intensely ethereal. I know they'll eventually gut it out, but for now it's a remnant of the past. A little further down is the old Nickelodeon studio. They shut it down in 2017, but today was the first time I had seen the new buildings in its place. They're apartments. Shocker.

09/16/20

You know when I decided to catalog these thoughts I've been having, it was for the purpose of people perhaps understanding the thoughts that go through my head when I design. Designing isn't easy. Especially absurdist art. As time passes by I look back on my work and realize I dislike it. Common enough problem for creatives. Nothing special here. I choose to look at it positively as an "oh I guess I'm getting better" sort of thing, but it's honestly a problem. It sucks to dislike your work. It can send you spiraling into impostor syndrome. It makes you ask yourself the same questions over and over. What is my goal? What message do I want to send? Am I doing a good job at conveying it? Are my actions in my everyday life contradictory to it? Who am I really? What do I value? Hopefully one day I'll have my answers.

09/12/20

I always wonder what fashion is supposed to be. Is there really a reason for it? For the sake of my passion I would hope so at least. I love creating things for the sake of creation. I love experimenting. However, I often wonder if that alone will be enough to drive me in the coming years. Am i going to be happy in this industry? Avant Garde and couture is often scoffed at for being elitist and wasteful. Though an ignorant claim, I can't blame people. After all, fashion is the second industry to blame for how we treat the planet. Ethics seems to be lost in this world of beauty.

My art, even before I got into clothing has always been influenced by emotion. Abstraction is, in my opinion, the best way to express my thoughts. I can not explain in words how beautiful raw emotion is to me, particularly pain and love. Through these two, you get to really see just who someone is at their core. This is where I find my fulfillment. The more I delve into each one the more I learn about myself and the world around me. I realize who I want to become.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This collection didn’t even have a name when it debuted according to California Apparel News. Maybe it’s better that way because what ended up happening was so much different. An earlier version of Tempest was originally my senior collection in college. That was always the running name I had for it, but something never felt right so I never submitted it. The clothing that walked the runway that year was sort of a jumping off point and some of it has remained while other pieces went straight to the storage bin with the rest of my school projects.

The summer after I graduated was a turning point for me. I began to have a clearer idea of what I wanted to create. It began with the beige vest from my senior collection. I always felt it was missing something, so I transformed and elevated it. There was something a little sad about touching a piece from a special occasion like that, but looking back it was absolutely necessary. At that point I figured I would just focus on individual pieces as opposed to collections. Shortly after, by chance I stumbled upon a store in New York while visiting family. The owner was the first person to give me the chance to showcase my work to a brand-new audience. For that, they’ll always have my loyalty. That’s when stuff kind of started to feel real, and with it came an onslaught of new issues. After sending off my first batch of product, I was so sleep deprived trying to make the deadline that my mind shattered. I had a panic attack that lasted about 3 hours. I was filled with regret. I wished I had never handed that package off to the post office. I remember crying on the phone to a friend about my fears of failure with her reassuring me that everything would be okay and that she was so proud of me. (Thank you, Devyn. <3) She was right because the majority of my items ended up selling.

Fast forward to March as I was getting ready for bed on a Friday night when an old classmate reached out to me excited about how we were doing a fashion show together again. Having no information about this alleged show, I was taken aback. Basically, someone had recommended my work for a show featuring young designers that would take place during LA fashion week. I had less than 12 days to prepare while other participants knew months in advance. I dropped everything to make it work. I decided I would take older and newer pieces and put them together to form new looks. After sleepless nights, I made it to the model castings with an oat-milk matcha latte in one hand and a box of trefoils in the other. This was all I would eat for the next three days. Thankfully while I was running on fumes, I had two great friends to help me through the photoshoot day and show day respectively. (Thank you, Jenni & Christine <3) I truly don’t think I would’ve survived without them. The day of the show was incredibly surreal. I didn’t even have a chance to tell many people about it, but the calls and texts poured in for almost a week. Unfortunately, my body did give out on me, and I was either sick or in pain for the next couple weeks. I even went to the hospital at one point. Despite all this, I was happy with the end result.

Now as I’m getting closer to debuting my next collection in October, I feel myself reflecting on this whirlwind of events that ultimately shaped what Tempest became. I've made it to the eye of the storm and I think the name finally fits.