Hi everyone! Errr everyone?
My name is Yuhan. For an international crowd, I'd prefer to be known by Lin, it's easier for both, so why not? I'm keeping this introduction short to not bore all of us who are visual creatures, otherwise why are you here anyways? GO AWAY.
So this is my first blog post and I just want to share with you guys how I stumbled upon VM and never looked back. Okays, this might be a little too early to say, but I'll like to imagine, if I had a mirror behind that someone I'm conversing with every time I talk about VM, I'll see myself LIGHT up. Maybe somewhat like this?! YEAH...
So like most typical Singaporean kids, I studied hard (tried to at least for most of the time... guilty guilty) and followed what seemed to be the typical degrees for better paying jobs or just do what I already was doing before. I hated my college life a lot and was struggling... until my final year in research where I met my really nice mentor and boss.
That got me going for a while and into my first job, but then slowly I just saw myself slipping away into passing time just to get that pay. I knew I wanted to do something fashion related during the boring 4-6 years in my college life, but due to financial, family and the sheer excuse of not knowing exactly what to do and no guts, I just told myself, " I'd just keep earning loads of spare cash first until I know exactly what I want."
In 2013,
two major things happened to me:
1. I've managed to accumulate a decent amount of money to do whatever I really wanted.
2. I got ENGAGED. (Look how happy I am!) I don't know what impact it has on other women or men, so to speak. But it got me worried; it's moving onto another phase where the debts and responsibilities become sooooo much heavier.
And so I told myself: NO MORE PROCRASTINATION!!!
So... it has been rather productive ever since. I went for hot yoga and exercised regularly for a while, lost some weight. Then went on to take contemporary dance after falling in love with it from watching SYTYCD.
I started thinking what is it I really want to do besides being a fashion designer; When I was younger I actually loved drawing female figures with different clothing and sold them to my classmates, and I was also constantly dressing up my Barbie doll until I was 12. After that, it was engaging the NATIONAL PAST TIME: SHOPPING! Besides that, I also found myself reading magazines/blogs to keep myself updated, and I loved to spend time looking through my wardrobe once in a while to try to find "new outfits" by experimental mix-and-match unexpected combinations!
The year before I took up a introductory course on fashion design. But as I continued to research on the full-time diplomas/degrees, I realized it would take too much money and time to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking the easy way out; I just don't feel sure that without any art, fashion pursuits all these years in my education, and considering my personality traits... do I really did have to talent and also determination to see it through and make it work in our tiny city that values professional jobs more than the arts & creative? (it's changing slowly but still not enough really.)
Instead, I found interest in window displays, and later found out you can make a living out of it. It's called VISUAL MERCHANDISING!!! So I eagerly went to read up about it, took some really short courses in Singapore to prepare myself. Still, I didn't feel ready without doing a window myself. Luckily, during the course, I met a lady who was kind enough to offer me a job as a sales assistant. For that month or so, I find myself not only always looking forward to weekend where I went to work, but also interacting with customers and arrangement of garments, shoes, bags and other accessories. The best part is I actually get to see the VM guide of that particular season, which was very useful in understand exactly how the in-store display should be executed with which guidelines included.
Then I tell myself, 'This isn't enough. I need to see and learn more.' Under my friend's advice, I managed to get myself into summer school at Istituto Marangoni in London, which itself was a wonderful experience; the teachers were all very experienced and friendly, and the stuff thought was very applicable and would lead us to continue experimenting with different ways to create window displays and in-store layout. Also the whole experience of seeing the various large scale window displays in a variety of shops was awesome! Singapore has space constrain issues; most of the shops are located in malls and often, no space is dedicated for a proper window or there is no emphasis or understanding of the importance of a successful window display.
So I'm back now. I hope through this blog, I'll really be able to bring you guys through my personal journey of transition into my dream job, and also sharing some really wonderful displays out there in our tiny island! Especially because I'd love to show my appreciation and respect to all those VM-ers out there!
xoxo,
Lin
(P.S: Keep a lookout for my following posts as I upload some of the interesting London displays I've seen and what are my inspirations for a window display. :)
