Over The Moon, But I Haven’t Reached The Stars Yet

I’ve been always afraid of the phrase “those who can’t, teach.” It’s not the best compliment ever and it feels like a punch in the face, especially when these words are pronounced in the media and fashion industries. Last year ago, while I was wrapping up my first year of grad school, I attended a startup event with some of my friends. Majority of these people that night were at the cusp of the tech and media industries, with a splash of fashionistas and creatives. Among my group of friends there was a young woman who started chatting with me. It was not the very first time seeing each other, so we were catching up with our lives.

“Oh, you’re still in school?”

“Yes, this was my first year.”

“Oh yeah, uhm… You’re 25 and still in school…”

(awkward silence)

“… I’m thinking to expand my company and brand, we’ll see how that goes.”

“Oh yes, girl! Get those coins and yes, school is so over, there’s no reason to continue! I mean, by now you should be done with that!”

Note: this woman was an educator herself. I was… gagged!

Pause. Why would you even say something like that? Is a job in academia really that bad, while continuing my editorial work? What’s wrong with me in being in academia, while building a smart and honest lane in the media landscape? Unfortunately, so many young journalists and editors looked at me confused on why I was still in school and comfortable in that. I had to, and ended up being grateful for it. After my Master’s, I decided to take my academic experience to the next level and am excited to share my stories to a new wave of college students in the Bronx under the role of adjunct lecturer in the Africana and African American Studies.

School isn’t everything, but it helps and can give you so much more than you might think of, despite the excessive hate academia and scholarly spaces get from media and the fashion industries. The goal of this course I will teach is to guide these students into an academic path and the resources that such space can offer, through fashion media and literature. Learning from some of the great creatives (Edward Enningful), entrepreneurs (Aurora James), and journalists (Elaine Welteroth) can be a formative chance to believe in one’s potential and build self-confidence, while also learning how to love (bell hooks) as a proactive action in academia, through the liberal arts, as necessary means to the progress of our culture and society.

My college years were a bit unusual. I spent a lot of my time wondering around Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, with a lot of creatives, artists, actors, models, and literary talents. I would still get my As and Bs, but I hated suburbia and longed for an urban environment, so I explored elsewhere beyond Long Island, all the time. I am an innate explorer, I love learning, but I needed the right space. Because of that, I always had to create my own space out of necessity. This way of doing things started in school and then it followed in my career.

This past year I learned how to apply the eyeliner. MAstered it!

During 2020 and 2021, my life drastically changed and I couldn’t rely anymore on my own outings, hang outs, or experimental creative avenues - photography, modeling, casting producer, etc. All of these dreams and plans faded away and the only thing I could do was trying to find the best company who could sponsor me as an international student or pondering on the idea to leave the United States and the life I had created for myself, from scratch. Anxiety that year looked different: severe acne bursted out of nowhere, occasional panic attacks, and imposter syndrome. This battle of mine was fought quietly, while I was building Fashion On The Beat and figuring out how I could turn my intelligence worthy and noticed in this competitive landscape. I knew I was intelligent, but sad that I couldn’t be hired because of my bureacratic status and embarassed that I couldn’t live my journalist dream.

Then a blessing in disguise happened, which was grad school. My Master’s was what saved me, along with the love of my boyfriend and my fitness journey, which had a drastic positive impact on my mental and physical health. My parents and my boyfriend believed in my journey and supported the launch my editorial project: I wanted to create a diverse and inclusive positive newsroom and refreshing editorial collective. This was the beginning of Fashion On The Beat, which got registered as a business and was launched with a few thousands dollars left from the proceeds of my book published the year before. I created an opportunity for me and extended to other media professionals, and it’s interesting to note that the people who are not in fashion or media helped me the most in this early stage. Starting from late 2021, when I was already enrolled in my grad program, anytime I would be invited to a fashion or media party I would still feel extremely embarrassed, with a feeling of “why am I even here if none of these big people will actually want to work or collaborate with me?” Anytime I would tell someone that I was in school they would look down on me, almost with a disgusted look on my inability to secure a job in the industry. Little did they know about my bureaucratic status or if they did, they would say phrases like: “Oh my gosh, poor you. I feel you, but you’ll find someone!”

I found myself and she was the best person to be found and rely on.

Recipient of the Blackstone Launchpad Pitch Contest. This money will help launch a few exciting ideas we’ve been cooking up with the team at FOTB.

For the first time I was seen for my entrepreneurial mindset and my innovative ideas: I know I’m not alone in this journey and I can teach while doing and going through it.

I started pouring all the energy left in me into a vision that was in alignment with both the academic CUNY community that supported me since day one and the growing groups of journalists, writers, and media professionals from all over the world who saw in me bits of their career experiences. Since late 2021, my mind, body, and soul flourished again. I didn’t feel completely alone anymore. I felt my work as a CEO and founder seen at Lehman College, slowly attracting more media and fashion enthusiasts, while connecting with more and more readers and supporters who are making this all possible til this day.

I still do sometimes feel very behind compared to a lot of my peers in the industry. But the same way I was hoping publications and groups of journalists in New York City would welcome me and my ideas back in 2020 and 2021, academia gave me that right away. The enlighting discussions I had with so many PhD researchers, professors, assistants, students, media professionals in academia were amazing and spiritually fueling.

I will not say that being in academia is an immaculate experience, but having a foot there while writing for some small-medium sized publications has given me a taste of what my future could look like: surrounded by a mix of people, experiences, and sets of knowledge, instead of being engulfed in one sector or industry only. I also started to see the endurance and the nasty contracts that some of these media talent and writers have to go through and sell their soul for obtaining prestige. Is it worthy? Is it even possible to change the discourse in certain topics while enjoying the sparkles and glam of an exploitative industry? I feel like I can raise and get solid and even uncomfortable answers from students, academia, and certain type of journalists rather than from the same repetitive newsroom talks and media panels with boasting budgets and disrespectful paychecks. I’ve always been craving investigative and constructive content in fashion journalism, which I don’t think that a person can get by being dedicated to one exclusive publication, especially while dealing with fashion content. It’s easy to get lost in fair practices in these spaces, along with the aura of many and subtle Mean Girls (and Boys!) effect.

Guess who pulled up at the second FOTB clothing drive hosted at Somewhere Good? Dr. Giovana Xavier, academic researcher and UFRJ History professor

Photography by Ofentse Kwenaite

Sure, I still am sad to not be sitting next to people like Elaine Welteroth with a marvelous life (a dog, a house, etc.) and admirable career (even though literally everybody say that I look like her with my boyfriend and that I am doing a similar journey… but she is an American millennial who did not pass through immigration systems or other ordeals…). It’s time to just be me, the founder of a rising editorial collective and (for now!) a freelance fashion journalist, culture writer, an academic researcher, and adjunct lecturer. I won’t change because of an additional title in my resume.

Now that I was appointed adjunct lecturer, what are my feelings in regards to my ability to teach versus to my inability to engage with other editorial jobs? I feel honored and blessed, but mostly glad that a faculty invested their time and faith in my work and scholarship. It is because of this genuine love and curiosity for Africana Studies and Fashion Media that I was able to create a bubble of ideas, theories, and series of theses that still motivate me to keep my editorial work. I feel my mind and spirit free from the social constructs and lifestyles we’re being fed with. I feel in perfect balance with who I am and comfortable in who I may become soon, by knowing that nothing is temporary and that culture and education, just like journalism, flow and nurture the inevitable progress of our singular and communal earthly lives.

The best gift that education gave me was to feel empowered and comfortable in pondering the unknown, while fashion journalism gave me the ability to appreciate beauty and futuristic visions of our people, communities, and generations. I may not be the best stylist, the prettiest model, the most known fashion editor, nor the most sought fashion expert, but I can pass a sense of security out of a comfort zone under uncertain times to the next generation of academic people, fashion talents, and journalists. I can do that because I lived through that.

So yes, I can and will teach. It’s the most thrilling and terrifying compliment someone could make to me in this point of my life. I’ll take it.