Thrift Shopping

There is no better shopping than, thrift shopping because, I am freed from the control of the fashion industry and I have total control of how I want to clothe myself. I really don't care what they say is in style, I want to wear what I want to wear. A few years ago I started sewing just so I could control my look and not be a slave to their whims. I am free to create my look. This is why I have always loved the Harajuku kids(at least that is what I call them) in Japan because, they created and continue to create their own fashion and as a result, the fashion industry is jocking them and stealing their looks and claiming that they took the kids ideas, their fashion sense and made it better. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at fashion books and sometimes magazines but, I don't want to look like the people in the books, I want to look like Talibah. I have my own ideas and thrift shops allow me to construct my fashion style. I take a little bit of this and a one of those and I piece together something creative that may or may not reflect anything that is going on in fashion today. Oh yes, I do not share the locations of my favorite stores.

It's All Me

I am an alchemist when it comes to creating outfits to wear, I spin flyness from bones, crystals, candles and frankincense. I am so serious because I create my fits as I go and if you looked in my closet, you wouldn't see how I "do what I do." It is magical and I continually surprise myself and my family. This week alone, I have created some fabulous looks. People often ask me where I come from because they would like know that my flyness is attached to some other country because, this certainly can't be an american thing. I have had people get very disappointed when I said, "San Francisco," they said, "no, I mean before that, where are you originally from?" I tell them, that I was born in Texas but arrived in San Francisco when I was three and then, they get very disappointed, they exhale deeply and walk away. I am left feeling a little weird, as if they thought I was some kind of fake because I was not actually from some exotic country. I really didn't know what to tell them but one day it came to me. "It's all me," is my simple answer. This is my personal alchemy, my magic, it is not attributed to any tribe, group, country, it is all me.