Backstory
- Jan 24, 2017
- 2 min read
Every life is a movie, with different stars and stories. Here is mine.
You know that story arc in a TV show / book series where a character’s backstory was revealed, so that we, as the audience, can understand what makes them who they are? Well, here is my backstory.
First off, I was born and raised in a small Indonesian city named Malang – which is mostly known as a holiday stopover rather than a metropolitan hub. My Jakarta friends were appalled on how we are able to function without any Zara or Starbucks in town. Well, I was too busy designing a fantasy theme park, watching foreign television shows, and falling in love with an entity called fashion.
I am not sure when did the interest start. It might have way back when I was playing dress up with Barbie dolls, or maybe through the lifestyle magazines, or even when I saw my grandma’s walk-in closet Fashion is a thrilling medium - a mode of self-expression for me whose ideas were always too ‘peculiar’ among the conservatives of my city. The more I got deeper into it, the bigger my fascination grew. It was always my personal sweet escape.
It was the first week of December, also known as high school finals week. I was in my second year, facing a dreaded Biology exam. Mind you that the major I wanted to take by then was Medicine. However, after the exam (ironically about the human brain and its ‘wires’), I felt like my head was about to split. Unknowingly, I took up my pencil and drew up a dress, and gone were the pain. That’s when I knew that I needed to divert my educational direction.
6 months later, I departed to Sydney to study Visual Arts, before entering a Fashion Marketing course. I made lots of good friends and memories there, but life had other plans. One thing led to another, and I ended up here in Singapore, still on my way for the fashion dream.
If Sydney was my sanctuary, then Singapore was my storm. Not that it’s a bad one! I would say that my life’s Singapore arc was the ‘storm’ of the Haruki Murakami quote “When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm is all about.” (P.S. That’s only the concluding words of the long-but-oddly-relatable quote).
Last year forced me to embrace change, try out new things, and had (hopefully) made me a better person. Then what about now? I do have some goals and resolutions for 2017. . I don’t know exactly where I am going, but I do have some ideas. I want to get myself to fashion media and communications. Being a fashion editor is one of my career goals, but I also have interest in fashion merchandising and buying.
For now, I have my eyes on writing, art direction, photography, styling, or miscellaneous creative expressions. I hope that this blog can serve as an appropriate record, documentary, and portfolio of my growth.
xx
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