Letter to a Young Fashion Writer

Sincerely, Jess

Hello there, friend.

I’m sorry it’s taken me a while to respond to your email. The truth is, I didn’t know what to say. You’re so optimistic about the future—it’s clear you love fashion and have something valuable to say. So, I have weighed whether or not I am doing you a disservice by telling you the truth about this industry because I don’t want to scare you away.

As far as being a writer of any kind goes, I would first say that I hope you are pursuing this track because you know there is no alternative — meaning that you write because of necessity above all. You write because if you don’t, the words will pile up in your head until they poison you to death. You do this because you don’t know any other path. It is how you have always been. If you’re pursuing this life from a place of anything less than fundamental compulsion, you may find it isn’t worth it.

That said, I hope that you love it. Your art will break your heart, but it will also give you purpose, joy, and meaning. Work on it. Refine it. Take pride in it; you must believe in yourself when nobody else seems to.