T-shirt - Topshop Bralette - sample sale Jeans - H&M Trainers - Clarks Trigenics

Before starting my internship I was terrified, envisioning the ultimate fashion stereotype; Miranda Priestley types looking down on me, judging me, and yelling at me to get coffee. Family and friends referenced it constantly, jokingly preparing me for the worse before I stepped into a fashion internship, a move that is so often depicted as entering the gates of hell to a world of pressure and judgement. As someone that struggles a lot with body image, I was scared. In the months leading up to my move, I went round and round on thoughts like "what if I'm the ugliest one?", "what is the diet culture is too much to handle?", "my clothes are nice enough to work in fashion", "I'm not cool enough" blah blah blah.

The preconception remains that fashion is simply not nice, that its dog-eat-dog industry full of bitchiness and aggressive. But that's not been my experience.





Each day when we sit down to brainstorm ideas there's always one word lingering in the background; empowerment. It's a constant aim, partially due to the company ethos and guidelines obviously, but it vibrates around the entire office. It's rare to go a day without someone complimenting your outfit, passing out a compliment yourself, or even just hearing one be shared as you walk to get a coffee. On the social team, we spend our days encouraging and bigging up others as we share their styling pics, and maybe that's what reflects it back into the office. Putting out good brings good; the law of attraction.

Today one of the girls shared a story about being heckled for her outfit in a restaurant, as a group of strangers decided to judge her clothes loudly in front of her. We all straight away dived into a discussion about how bad that is, how out of order, how rude. But I couldn't help but feel sorry for these strangers. To be in a place where you decide to openly insult and judge someone, what must you be saying to yourself. We are always our worst critic and harshest judge, so if you're willing to loudly judge another, I dread to think of all the inner judgment that's happening, partly caused by perpetuating insecurity out into the world, and back into yourself.

Complimenting others makes you feel good. I've realised lately that one of the things that makes me happiest is making my loved ones happy, with just kind words or small gifts, or simply being there. Each time I compliment someone, whether it be a friend or a stranger, I feel a little warmer inside, a little more likely to compliment myself; building confidence, slowly. The law of attraction can seem wooly, and admittedly it's something I haven't looked into enough, but what we put out comes back. Since actively trying to be nicer, be more open to peoples self-expression and style, I've felt more confident in myself, more able to push my style and more likely to think 'you know what, I look good today'. If you outwardly manifest what you want, it'll come back to you. Give out what you want to receive.

I see fashion as a huge gateway to this. As toxic as the industry can seem, what is the purpose of fashion if it isn't empowerment and confidence? We have no need for style or fashion beyond making ourselves feel good, it is something that is solely for us as we find ourselves in the privileged position to be able to buy for pleasure, and use our autonomy to decide exactly what we buy and what we put on our body, in which combinations and styles. As functional as clothes are, we've gone beyond that. And as much as it's wrong to focus on outward appearance when you realise the potential fashion has to boost you and lift you up, outward manifestation becomes easy. They don't say dress for the job you want for no reason. You can create the person you want to be each morning when you open your wardrobe.

And that's what I did today, manifesting confidence and fun on the outside so it comes to me on the inside. I did that through embracing the underwear as outerwear trend, while I sat working on ideas on how to help make millions of 20 somethings feel confident too.