1.

Fashion is all about flux. From when I was a child, when I pored over library books on the history of costume, it was the changing quality that drew me in. The instability of it all, the way it reflected changing attitudes and the rise and fall of fortunes.

In my darkest moments, when my bank account is empty and I’m alone with my computer in my rented room full of beautiful clothes and nothing much else except my thoughts, I resent the way I’ve been drawn into fashion. I could have had a normal life, further from the edges and extremes, less fabulous, less futile. But I don’t think that anyone chooses to pursue the dragon in a dress.

When I think back to fashion school, the competitive atmosphere quickly divided the ones who would fall into fashion and those who would remain with their feet firmly on the ground. We were all, save one, girls. Even he ended up dressing like a girl. I can’t remember any of the ones who didn’t follow the white rabbit. The ones who could never let the dream go, are incredibly vivid in my mind, even now.

Three of them in particular are in my thoughts, in my small room, on the page. All the love and the hurt is always with me. They are so different than me, beyond me, in every way that is fascinating and confounding. We all had that one thing in common, the thing that bound us together and broke us apart.