Growing up Asian with Fashion

Growing up, I have always been interested in fashion, from wanting to model to wanting to be a designer, to now wanting to market and merchandise. There have been several steps on my journey to where I am now.

Growing up, there were many pressures to follow the American Dream. Follow the path to a successful career through good grades, discipline, and a well-paying career (medical, law, engineering, computer science). However, there was rarely room for business or art because, in Asian American culture, there was no guarantee of success in those careers.

I won Best Dressed in my Senior Year of High School!

In the beginning, truly, I had lied to my parents, to my family, that I wanted to purely study marketing. I had already felt guilty that I no longer wanted to pursue a career in the medical field, and I had even achieved a certification in Biomedical Sciences in high school. My family wanted at least one person to pursue the medical path, and they wanted that person to be me. I worked. I kept myself working towards that goal, but then the pandemic happened. As part of a clique, I went on a journey of self-discovery and realized that medicine was not for me.

Borrowing my mother’s Kate Spade dress for homecoming

I began searching around, first I found marketing and business, then I found fashion merchandising. As a sophomore in high school, I had decided to make a pivot. Even though I was enrolled in the Biomedical program at my high school, I could still choose different electives. First, I went with the principals of Business & Marketing. My Junior year, I had a lot of fun. I thought about other career choices, accounting, finance, and economics; however, fashion merchandising still lingered in my mind. I was evolving my own style and figuring out what I truly wanted.