How I Got into Fashion

Back in elementary school, the popular trend was big, bulky, and colorful G-shock watches. For my birthday, my parents got me one. It was a black G-shock that was bigger than my pre-teen wrist with red accents loaded with features I didn’t need like the moon phase and tide graph. I loved it.

I broke necks the first day I wore it at school. One of the popular kids asked if he can borrow it for a period. My status instantly elevated to that of one of the “cool” kids. As a status-conscious, insecure, teenage boy, this is when I started associating dress with status. I wore that watch daily for the rest of the school year. And this mindset continued throughout high school and early university.

My university had strong engineering and computer science programs so naturally I gravitated towards a career in technology. One unique characteristic of the tech industry was the lack of a formal dress code. Many of the most prominent figures in tech famously flexed their minimalist wardrobes. Steve Jobs with his signature Issey Miyake black turtleneck, medium wash Levi’s 501 jeans, and gray New Balance 992. Or Mark Zuckerberg with his daily uniform of a tee and jeans which he says reduces his cognitive load in the morning. Tech was seen as anti-elite. You couldn’t judge someone by how they dressed because they could be building the next big unicorn.

Embracing the tech uniform gave me permission to not care about what I was wearing. I thought it was refreshing. I thought this was how it should be. No one else around me cared either. I traded much of my wardrobe for plain basics - white sneakers, t-shirts, and pants.

I started to dress and look like everyone else.

My style remained largely unchanged in my late teens and early twenties.

Then in early 2020, I had a conversation with a friend that became the catalyst for my fashion journey. I was back in my hometown and I bumped into an old high school friend at the gym. We haven’t talked since senior year of high school and the first thing he says to me is, “James, you look exactly the same.”

The last time we talked, I was 16, I was still a kid. I was 22 now. Internally, I grew so much. Externally, I looked the same. My friend likely assumed that because I looked the same, I was the same.

My friend’s comment made me realize there was a disconnect between my self-perception and how I expressed myself through how I dressed. Ever since that day, I became hyperaware of this gap.

In the Summer of 2022, I was celebrating my one-year anniversary in NYC. I’ve been working full-time now for a year now so I had some disposable income. It was then that I decided that the timing was perfect.

During that Summer, I became a student of fashion. I donated 90% of my wardrobe and built it up from scratch. I bought textbooks, courses, and discussed this with my friends in the industry. Living in New York City, one of the world’s fashion hubs, I was constantly inspired by the outfits I observed on the subway, in coffee shops, and while walking throughout the city. I viewed every clothing store as a classroom and engaged the sales associates as if they were professors, asking them questions to expand my fashion knowledge. Every day I was learning something new.

Fashion is a cultural language that I was becoming fluent in. It’s an art that everyone participates in every day. What you wear reflects who you are and the best part is you can choose to be whoever or whatever you want. You can use your clothing as a canvas to express yourself — show different styles, tell a story, or represent your personality.

My style is my story. It’s a reflection of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. In the past, I was an engineering student, a musician, a breakdancer, a Torontonian. Currently, I’m a Technologist, a Writer, a Filipino-Canadian, a New Yorker. To craft a stylish wardrobe means to infuse my story into the different pieces, I want to honor my roots, and dress like the person I want to become.