Can You be Poor in the Fashion World?

I’ve wanted to post something like this for quite a while, but I like the fact that my blog/newsletter/recalcitrant messenger isn’t very rooted in my day-to-day life—it’s more a detached aesthetic barometer that may vaguely reflect my moods, my obsessions, my purchases, my failures, but at the end of the day, it’s impossible for me to have a fashion blog that reveals or tracks my quotidian experiences with clothes. That’s because I’m what I would classify as poor.

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I don’t feel particularly ashamed of this fact—the main reason I haven’t wanted to state it so plainly is that, as it is for many people, poverty is complicated for me, and I don’t feel comfortable revealing a ton of quantitative data or family history to justify this self-description. What I’ll say is I did not grow up poor and I have experienced many, many privileges in my life, and still do in that I have a very loving dad who has helped me out of many financial precipices and would NEVER let me go without a baseline level of creature comforts, which I’m well aware is a trillion times more than the large majority of people in this world. I am deeply lucky, and this ultimate safety net is the reason I’ve been able to even CONSIDER trying to make a career in fashion work for me.

The reason I would call myself “poor” is that for the past few years, I’ve made significantly less money than what is identified as the poverty line wherever I’ve been living. This is shockingly common among 20-something people in their first few years pursuing creative endeavors, I am certainly not in a unique position—what might be less common is that I’ve thoroughly deluded myself into holding onto hope that, without a clutch trust fund or a convenient lawsuit settlement, I’ll be able to make any kind of life for myself in an industry where your “start-up capital” is your closet.

I write about, at minimum, dozens of brands and products a week for my various jobs, and through sharp and considered editing from people more experienced than me have learned the importance of sensual language and pragmatic considerations in fashion writing—descriptive, incisive language that reifies garments and suggests their potential as transportative styling tools draws people in, keeps them coming back for more, and most importantly, makes sales.

When I was a kid, we’d get catalogs from random, kitschy Halloween stores, chocolate shops, and most notably, Zingerman’s, a random Michigan “boutique deli” that would send out a full-color, totally-illustrated catalog a few times a year, each colorful loaf and alluring wedge of cheese rendered next to lush, evocative descriptions of their tastes and textures. I would read and reread all of these catalogs like bibles, savoring the food I, by virtue of living in California, couldn’t taste save for a peppering of special occasions when my dad would order me a gift box for graduating high school or during my first holiday season alone in NYC.

There’s definitely a lot of consumer fetishization going on here that I don’t really have the wherewithal (or desire) to unpack publicly, but it’s definitely one of the reasons I have so enjoyed my work writing engaging, sometimes thought-provoking descriptions of labels and their wares—I’m experiencing the products in some way, even though their online photos are fascimiles thet can’t convey the texture, heft, and idiosyncracies of each garment.

When I receive assignments, I spend time rolling each piece around in my mind, trying to find a way into its essence, a fitting lede—maybe, as I wrote in an issue of Magasin I recently covered news and sales for, Khaite’s new collection is more “athbusy” than “athleisure”-oriented (I hope and pray readers accept my sense of humor for what it is, lol), a Studio Nicholson drop is full of “weighted blankets” masquerading as garments, Carven mules are as “abrupt as freshly-clipped nails”—you get the idea.

I’ve gotten pretty good at eyeballing a piece and coming up with a few angles of attack on sight like this, yet I still find myself lapsing, too often, into abstractions and allegories, unable to stomach the reality of the clothing market. I have many ethical qualms with the production and disposal of garments, of course, but there’s also their dispersal—I’ve been to one brand dinner as an understudy and had the time of my life, trying on clothes and not even trying to contain my glee when they were neatly wrapped for me to take home—no real catch, and they were the only new clothes I’d acquired in months, so it was a pretty sure bet I’d provide the free advertising the label was undoubtedly looking for.

The rest of the people at the event were welcoming, kind, and savvy, but largely unimpressed—I felt like a rube, freaking out over a few non-sale-price blouses while others were comparing notes on the brand dinners they’d been to the night prior. I didn’t think any of us didn’t “deserve” or shouldn’t have those garments, but I couldn’t help but think about how many people might have literally never worn a brand-new garment in their lives and how unsettling it is that companies build influencer marketing into their budgets but hardly any funnel money into a program to help get clothes to people whose lives might be functionally changed by a single $100 dress.

One of the reasons I haven’t wanted to write these thoughts out is that I have been scared of directing people’s eyes to my financial decisions—I have had a really hard time balancing my financial realities with the fact that I’m someone who has tons of hobbies that cost money (cosplay, reading, pin collecting, etc.) and I’m still trying, in earnest, to make a living as a stylist and fashion writer, often necessitating, as any stylist who’s earned heir stripes will tell you, some level of investment in their wardrobe—it’s always those “stylist’s own” pieces that seem to clinch perfection in a look I notice while paging through Vogue. With this blog/whatever, I’ve had so many ideas and plans and dreams for posts I could make, experiements I could try, looks I could create, and have either had to go into debt to realize or have had to file away for some uncertain future date.

I can’t really make posts about my day-to-day style, because the reality is, I wear the same thing most days—gifted jeans or a thrifted skort, a Uniqlo t-shirt, shoes I regret going into debt to buy years ago. I don’t dress as well as I envision myself dressing, I don’t dress like I write, because I don’t have the financial or social capital to make that a reality as of now. I’ve learned the ropes of styling and gotten a little more bold with soliciting brands to lend me or gift me pieces I have my eye on, but without some virality or a stroke of luck, I simply don’t have the numbers people look for when they choose to ply a writer/stylist (and I do identify as a writer/stylist, not creator) with freebies.

Why am I writing this? I’m going to send it out at the worst time possible, on a Saturday evening, so hopefully only people who seek it out will see it. I think the truth is I’ve never seen someone who openly struggles financially in the fashion scene, admitting how hard and sometimes painful it is to make things work, but also explaining how they get true joy and creative fulfillment out of clothes they’ll never be able to afford. In theory, fashion isn’t just for rich people, nor should it be, so in theory I’ll reside for now. It’s where the most exciting fits are pulled, anyway—in the minds of the over-inspired and underpaid.

<3 ESK