I made a risky decision a few years ago, at 40, to quit my job and switch career paths from editing to fashion design. Working in publishing as an editor for over 15 years had come with its various rewards and humiliations, like any office job. I was pretty good at it, but not great, always a little clumsy with typos myself. I might have been better, but my heart wasn't in it. Plus I loathed the rigidity of corporate life. So, I gave up stability, a cushy work-from-home position blissfully free from office politics, and over 5 weeks of paid vacation per year to embark on the uncertainty of undergraduate life -- for the second time.
As the result of a semi-logical analysis of what I most liked to do: dream, draw, build, construct, analyze, and create -- ideally something beautiful -- I had settled on fashion design as my new path. The process of design is intriguing to me, because it encompasses all these aspects. The dreaming and drawing up of new ideas, the technical analysis of pattern making, the creative adventure of construction, and finally the realization of the original idea in 3D. The high that comes with the satisfaction of having created something successful out of many hours of labor and dedication is the best!
Back in school at FIT in New York, I was surrounded by a bunch of surprisingly bright, fashion-savvy, and ambitious students who were literally half my age. I expected to find them as bumbling and uncertain as I had felt at nineteen or twenty; but found instead that they were poised, confident, focused, and articulate. My own confidence began to waver. What business did I have here, at my age, starting over and trying to compete with these kids who had a twenty-year head start and so much drive?
Replaying my undergraduate years turned out to be much more challenging and humbling than I expected. The demands of full-time study, I remembered, were no joke. Full-time working-life in the "real world" didn't seem so taxing anymore. My leisurely evenings and weekends disappeared under mounds of homework (fabric scraps) and my authority as a "senior editor" morphed into the fledgling status of misfit student. The fine lines that had begun to settle near the corners of my eyes were no longer a sign of been-there, done-that. More like: What are you doing here?
Rediscovering my humility wasn't without its rewards. Many small stumbles and one particularly hurtful fall, when the term garment on which I had banked nearly all my energy for the final semester was not selected to be part of the student exhibition, prompted me to reevaluate my approach to the creative process, and discover that what was thwarting me was a drowning out of my own voice in an unreasonable attempt to please others: Ah ha! That's what these kids are so good at, I discovered: listening to their own voices. Perhaps too many years in a performance-review-driven corporate environment had hampered my ability to please myself first: something any creative person knows is essential for success.
A few years later I am embarking on a new journey of running my own business. The puzzle for me now is trying to merge my chosen profession with my values and mold a responsible business that shows respect for the environment and eventually gives something back to both the local and global communities. My made-to-order business model isn’t exactly optimized for profit, but I am finding great satisfaction in the process of creating beautiful things while I search for a path that sustains me and is also sustainable.