Fashion Emergency
Caroline, long and lean with a fresh-scrubbed face, looks like she stepped out of an ad for Cali. She mentioned to me today that she is a student (finishing up her degree in Japanese/East Asian studies)/business owner/yoga teacher. I asked what sort of business she ran, and she responded, "Wellll, it's a long story:" She put her studies on hold a few years back due to Severe Anxiety Disorder. She couldn't leave the house by herself, but wanted to work, so she tried to come up with something that would allow her to stay home and blend her interests. Shopping online was still relatively new, her sister was a web designer, and right after she told us how much she loved thrifting and vintage clothing, I said, "You're Caroline's Closets!" (And she is! Did anyone see her on the Style Network? I think I've seen that bit about 100 times now.)
Balancing work and yoga was on everyone's mind. Lovely Panilla, whose practice astounds all of us, began her life in London as an illustrator before working as a makeup artist. She currently teaches at the very chic Triyoga, a North London studio I've read about in all the Brit mags. Panilla's teacher was a fashion photographer, working for clients like Gucci, who told her that finding the balance between her work and her yoga was something that would come naturally.
We're not all there yet. The conflict between fashion and its inherent superficiality with how one lives her yoga is one I am still negotiating. Over the past year, being out of New York for chunks at a time, cut off from city stresses, and my former life of always striving to be in that first wave of people who know has been hard, to say the least. I miss going to store openings and drinking champagne from the open bar and sneaking cigarettes outside and looking at off-duty models and granting air kisses to people I barely know. I do.
My dad maintains that one's job can be just that: a job. A place you can go, and work, and leave. Spending time pondering sradharma (the duty to do the right thing at the right time) doesn't align so well with that. But I'm searching--and I guess we all are--for how to balance that fluffiness with how I want to live and who I want to be. Being here forces me to think about how I can create the life that I want to lead.
(I know this post veers into emo territory...sorry, this is just on my mind 24-7).
Balancing work and yoga was on everyone's mind. Lovely Panilla, whose practice astounds all of us, began her life in London as an illustrator before working as a makeup artist. She currently teaches at the very chic Triyoga, a North London studio I've read about in all the Brit mags. Panilla's teacher was a fashion photographer, working for clients like Gucci, who told her that finding the balance between her work and her yoga was something that would come naturally.
We're not all there yet. The conflict between fashion and its inherent superficiality with how one lives her yoga is one I am still negotiating. Over the past year, being out of New York for chunks at a time, cut off from city stresses, and my former life of always striving to be in that first wave of people who know has been hard, to say the least. I miss going to store openings and drinking champagne from the open bar and sneaking cigarettes outside and looking at off-duty models and granting air kisses to people I barely know. I do.
My dad maintains that one's job can be just that: a job. A place you can go, and work, and leave. Spending time pondering sradharma (the duty to do the right thing at the right time) doesn't align so well with that. But I'm searching--and I guess we all are--for how to balance that fluffiness with how I want to live and who I want to be. Being here forces me to think about how I can create the life that I want to lead.
(I know this post veers into emo territory...sorry, this is just on my mind 24-7).
posted by Rebecca at 3:04 AM
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