Why I started blogging...

Hello, everybody!

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Taylor. A little about myself -- I am 22 years old, born and raised in Calfornia, a ~somewhat~ thriving college student at UCSC, and a biochemistry major... yeah, biochemistry. You might be wondering what a biochemist is doing starting a 'fashion & lifestyle' blog, and in all honesty, I'm wondering the same thing... But hey, I'm still trying to figure out what my true passions are. That sounds legit, right?

For the first 22 years of my life, I thought that I lived, breathed, and died science. I can remember begging my dad to take me to find rocks in cool places so that I could put them through my rock polisher and to take me to the California Academy of Sciences in San Fransisco. HOWEVER, I also remember begging him to take me shopping at the Gap Kids and to take me to Build-A-Bear because I loved having the creative freedom (the exact words I used as a 5-year-old *sarcastic eye roll*) to be able to create something from scratch. I didn't just choose outfits, I built entire personalities. Let me tell you -- my white bear, Sulin, never had a non-neutral color touch her fur. And my dark brown bear, Avril, never met a black outfit she didn't rock the SHIT out of. I guess this is my really, REALLY long way of saying that I've had two loves for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, society and my family (unknowingly, I'm sure) really made me feel like academia was the only career route between my two loves that actually made sense. Fashion or anything remotely related was never an option for me.

My subconscious was full of shit like:
No one makes it in the fashion world! Do you know how many jobs are available in the STEM field? Do you know that it is literally impossible for writers to get jobs nowadays? How many fashion designers actually make it out of their garages? How many people in the world are creative and influential enough to grab the attention of an entire group of people?
Well, I knew all the answers to these questions -- still do :-) Wait, why am I considering leaving the field of biochemistry again?! Oh yeah, that's right, my fucking SANITY. Ok, back to my story.

It wasn't until a brief visit I had to NYC at the end of last year from December - January that I realized I could make something out of myself in the fashion industry... IF I REALLY WANTED IT AND WORKED REALLY HARD FOR IT. There was so much inspiration around me -- street style, major magazines, fashion houses, etc. I was going through a really rough patch when I left for my trip. My anxiety was incredibly high and I could feel the depression kicking in, all of which made me even more anxious because I thought I was going to lose my damn mind on the plane or be paranoid AF in a huge, new city. That wasn't the case though. I felt so liberated and free, something I hadn't felt in a long time. I slept every night so peacefully without waking up at all which never happens, my ass wakes up every few hours. I felt like I really belonged, and I'm saying that in the least cliche-way possible. There was this entire city literally dedicated to fashion, with boutiques that focused more on the store layout than they did on the actual product they were selling. I mean... have you seen some of the storefront display windows? Fucking nuts!

The craziest part though, I truly knew all of this already. Duh! We all know this. NYC is one of the world's fashion capitals, maybe the largest. My realization just came from seeing it all with my own eyes for the first time. Living in central California in a city on the central coast was great and beautiful, but I never had any exposure into the world of fashion on really any level, especially an industrial one. I didn't know how many different fields there were in the fashion industry. I didn't realize that just anyone could apply to fashion internships while they were in college. I didn't know that literally anyone could make a blog and fancify their Instagram profiles and become a fashion blogger.

Yeah, I've pretty much always had nice things, but that wasn't what mattered to me. What I loved was waking up in a good ass mood and deciding to put on bright red pants and go out into the world looking crazy as shit. It was ok that I looked fucking crazy because those bright ass pants honestly reflected how I was feeling -- bright, loud, unstoppable. I remember when I got my first job -- I was like 19, a sophomore in college. I felt grown as fuck! I started buying a ton of Ralph Lauren and wore exclusively Polo for like a fucking quarter of the year. Why? Because that was what I had associated with being mature and responsible and put together. And honestly, that persona that I had created really helped me express what I was feeling to the outside world. Everyone noticed it, too. I wasn't just making shit up in my head. My girlfriends would constantly tell me I was going to be the cute ass mom and my friends from high school would always tell me how much I'd matured. I was able to feel something, express it through my wardrobe, and have everyone around me pick up on what I was going through -- even people that didn't know me!

Nice stuff is cool and all (seriously, I'd literally do things I'm not proud of for vintage Chanel), but nothing is cooler than putting on an all-black outfit to show the world that I woke up feeling like THAT bitch. Or picking out an all-white outfit because I had a dream that I'm related to fucking Queen Elizabeth the night before and I think I'm royalty now. That's what fashion is to me though. Makeup, hair color, hairstyle, nail polish color, nail shape, jewelry -- that's what those all mean to me. Self-expression. I think you can learn a lot from what people wear and how they choose to express themselves. I think the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" is total bullshit. Yeah ok -- maybe don't judge people because of their appearance (or ever actually lol), but I think it's super important to look at someone for how they have consciously decided to express themselves.

Anyways, I talk too damn much. You'll probably learn that about me if you haven't already. I just felt that it was super important for me to be transparent and let you guys really get to know me as much as possible in one post without going fucking overboard. Hopefully I didn't scare anyone away. I think I'm cool as fuck, and if you give me a chance, I think you might also.

Thanks for taking a year out of your life to read this. Until next time! Xx