Thoughts

Christmas in July: HOT Christmas

Around this time every year I’ve got the daunting task of wearing my stylist hat. You would think that I’d just be surgically attached to a Santa hat. Any entrepreneur can relate to having to wear tons of different hats to keep your ventures going. Most every entrepreneur I speak to often complains of having to do more than one job at any given time.

For me, around this time I gradually put my pencils down on the music – I start to put on the stylist hat. Truthfully I have no idea what I’m doing when I wear this hat. Similarly in how I write and produce music – I just find stuff I like and pray it doesn’t make me look too crazy and that photoshop can magically make me look like Beyonce. I spend a significant amount of time researching new looks and dresses to wear for my album cover. In a way it feels like prom around this time every year.

Prom is tomorrow… it’s album photoshoot time!

I’m not different than any indie artist. I’ve got limited resources, time and budget – so it truly hurts to buy dresses that I present to the world and can’t wear ever again and feel like I would be more satisfied if I just burned money and flushed it down the toilet. (Anyone in the market for a gorgeous silver gown or a gaggle of red dresses? Call me.)

It truly does feel lame to open up a closet full of clothing I can’t wear again. I am understanding why Mariah’s closet is so large, it’s essentially just a museum of photoshoots past!

I’m hardly Mariah and I most def don’t have all that space in Tribeca.

This year I’ve figured out some new ways to remedy this and will be borrowing dresses from gorgeous designers. Living in New York City makes this a bit easier to do and also makes it more fun to know I won’t look in my closet and see the ghosts of album covers past. In a way, my album and music videos are straight from the runway! 😉 I get to editorialize what my favorite holiday dresses are every year. Dress up is very fun. Shopping is not. Believe it or not, I’m not much of a clothing shopper. I digress, back to being a stylist.

I do have ground rules as a self stylist. Color, color, color. No prints. Glitter is nice, sequins are good and shimmer is better. My previous style motto used to be “everything black.” I’ve discovered that I look kind of cool in green and of course I wear a lot of red. Partially because its the color of my season but also because its a really lucky color as I’m half Chinese. Also, anything you can put on a tree — you can put on me. I’m also not beyond wearing Christmas tree skirts … as well… actual skirts… (You’ll see.)