When I was a teenage girl, I flipped through the slick, impossibly perfect pages of stolen fashion magazines. Each page introduced a new and unfamiliar sensual experience. The images depicted beautiful alien models. Over their gaunt and ethereal bodies draped pleated, pintucked, smocked, and ruffled clothing. Their eyes were so deliberately vacant, and their postures painfully statuesque. Everything - the lighting, the colors, the glossy lipstick, was impeccably flawless. The new smell of the freshly printed pages would transport me. I would forget that I was wearing stolen thrift store clothing. I would forget...everything.

It was moments like this that inspired me to become a designer. I wanted to be a part of this alien world. Even if it was only in a very small way. So I did. Despite my father's warnings (he tore up my college acceptance letter to prove his point), I put myself through fashion school.

Years later, I had a job in New York as an accessories designer. Those painful years growing up had almost been forgotten. I had finally been accepted. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be taunted for being sub par. I had faked, fought, and toiled my way into what I thought was the real world. And I was on top of it. Sure, I was designing bags for mid-income women. It wasn't exactly high fashion. but it was something better, nonetheless.

Now I think back on this time and realize how foolish I really was. A series of life's somewhat standard events knocked me off my mid-tier horse (the horse wasn't really that high, you see). A recent interview at the famed BCBG Max Azria was the most recent of life's crash courses in humility.

A recruiter from the company had contacted me and scheduled an interview with me. Her utterance of the letters "B.C.B.G" inspired memories of those perfectly printed pages of modern goddesses, draped in the finest materials. This was high fashion, baby. And this was my chance. Or so I thought. If a company like this was interested in me, I must be worthy, right? With high confidence, I chose my outfit for the interview and reworked my portfolio.

When I walked through the doors and into the lobby of their corporate office in Los Angeles I knew in an instant that I didn't belong. Everything was stark white and cold, from the white leather sofa to the white walls. Colorful images of those gaunt, alien-esque models that I spoke of from my teen years were the only points of interest in the room, hanging on the wall. I timidly signed in and sat down. The female employees that clodded down the hallways in their high end leather ankle boots were not very different from the models that sparsely decorated the walls. Their posture, makeup, and clothing were perfect in an almost indefinable way. And like the decor in the lobby, they were barely there. Designer jeans were stretched over their tiny legs. Silk blouses draped over their waifish torsos. They cast wicked glances at me, scanning me from head to foot. I was suddenly aware of how ridiculous I must have looked to them.

Were they looking at me so strangely because my dress was a rayon printed nightmare? I had so carefully chosen my outfit, thinking that I had chosen something stylish, yet professional. However, I was apparently very mistaken. I kept thinking that my slouchy leather boots would certainly save my reputation. But they did nothing to help my first impression. Or were they looking at me like this because I was overweight? I felt ashamed and terrified...and poor. I felt like I was a teenager again. But the magazine pages were not transporting me to a fascinating world this time. They had come alive, and were judging me harshly.

My hands began to shake and sweat, leaving misty marks on my leather bound portfolio, which I was clutching tightly like a security blanket. When the two recruiters finally came to call me into the interview I felt like a shell of myself. I was sweating, and forcing what I thought was a confident smile. They gave eachother what they must have thought was a subtle glance that said "what is she doing here?" I knew at that moment that I didn't have a chance. My heart dropped like a rock.

During the interview I wasn't my usual assertive self. In the last ten years I haven't had an interview that hasn't resulted in me getting the job. I always study the night before, asking myself all of the questions that they may ask. I diligently work on my portfolio and carefully choose everything from my words to my outfit. This did nothing to help me. Bits of my confidence had left me with each perfect B.C.B.G. employee that cast a scornful look in my direction. I didn't have the confidence to sell myself or my skills. And the inexpensive rayon dress that I wore seemed to cry "look at me, look at me!" My shoulders slumped and my hands shook. The opportunity was over before it even began.

I came home that night, defeated. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. The experience made me wonder how many other girls had been made to feel inadequate, fat, poor, and generally inferior because of the influence of this beautiful, yet brutal industry. I still love fashion, don't misunderstand me. But high end fashion is a slap in the face to the average woman. It's only natural to, sometimes, want to slap back.

So this is what I have to say, from my mid tier, to Max Azria and all of the others like them: Fuck you and the high end horse that you road in on, I'm taking the bus.

It's easier for a man to destroy the light inside himself than to destroy the darkness around him.

I'm traveling on a downward spiral at a snail's pace
So at this rate I could still win this dragging, drawling race
Each labored step towards defeat
Keeps the mind primed
And each rugged race is comprised
of defeated, stubborn minds

The strangest apparition, so rare and so refined
Are your words, like winter's branches, with their pained and pointed lines

Have I a foolish heart, holding fragile dreams of glass?
For within your peculiar gaze hide tender ghosts of lovers past

Your quick and nimble fingers bleed with every careful strum
But the bones of hapless prey rattle softly in your drum

The heathen kings that rule the darkest corners of your mind
Have fondled all the muses and drank all the jester's wine

My able pen scratches the lines of your cherub face
Around your eyes I draw the lies and focus of the chase

The autumn branches rustle, I sit here waiting to receive
Your words that lie beneath their twisting, frail, and brittle leaves

-C