Chapter One
I was trapped. Panicking. Trying not to, because how embarrassing. My arms were pinned to my sides by stretched-to-their-limit straps the color of my grandmother’s signature nail polish (a chalky pink, painted on too thick, pointer finger permanently chipped). My waist was being suffocated by the hidden “figure-flattering” boning that the swimsuit’s hangtag had bragged about.
My thighs were losing circulation, exiled from the world by two tight leg holes that were cut in as far below the hipline and butt cheeks as one could get without being legally required to call this a wrestling singlet.
It was ten thousand degrees in January. Seal was playing from the same dressing room ceiling that bore down unholy lighting. This was miserable. My worst nightmare. Exactly what I knew would happen.
You are such an idiot, Sunny, I told myself, before the stinging prickle of tears began. Why did you think you could fit into anything at Bergdorf Goodman other than a pair of sunglasses?
I’ll never forget the time Kelly Feeney suggested we weigh ourselves in her mom’s bathroom during her birthday sleepover. The lightest person “won.” (Kelly, obviously.) The “loser” was dubbed the monster, whom Kelly instructed everyone to run away from. Guess who lost?
You know what else I won’t forget? Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. I was twelve years old—which was already embarrassing, way too old for that—and my mom introduced me to her new boss, Bob Something or Other. He made a comment about recruiting me for his son’s high school basketball team, then shook my hand. You try looking into a grown man’s eyes at twelve, realizing he’s just noticed that your hand dwarfs his own.
By the latter half of elementary school, I was forced to shop in the women’s department if I wanted to find clothes that fit. Looking for a cute Picture Day outfit? Try some business-casual blouses! Middle school dance on the horizon? How about a smart pair of capri pants with a blazer? Dressing rooms became hellscapes. “It’s too short in the crotch!” my mother would yell out in Abercrombie, as I jammed my big, adult-sized-body into jean shorts better designed for teddy bears than teenagers.
Wiping the inevitable tears from my face in those awful fitting rooms, I always felt so alone. I loved fashion. (If you considered Wet Seal and Abercrombie fashion, which I did, thank you very much. I was, after all, a preteen in the Midwest in the early 2000s.) I loved fashion magazines. I loved clothes and wild outfits and fantasizing about what my personal style would look like on Cher Horowitz’s budget. Why wouldn’t it love me back?
I soon learned to avoid dressing rooms altogether. My mom started bringing me clothes she’d picked up on her way home from work to spare us both the in-store arguments. When my friends wanted to stop at the mall for that weekend’s birthday party, and, three years later, in the first onslaught of sweet sixteens, I knew to stick to the accessories section rather than tear a zipper in front of everyone while squeezing into Express’s stretchiest party dress.
I only tried on clothes at home, where my bedroom walls were a love letter to the rail-thin models in Chanel, the iconic faces of Ralph Lauren, and the impossibly sexy figures in Tom Ford’s Gucci. Deep down, I still believed that could be me one day. I was obsessed with the fashion industry. Obsessed with the people who made the clothes, the people who wore them, and the people who deemed them “in” or “out.” But looking around Wisconsin, I knew the odds weren’t likely that I’d rub elbows with Gisele at my local Culver’s. I didn’t want to be a Midwestern young professional. I wanted to be a fashion editor in NEW YORK CITY! Cue the bright lights. Cue the hustle. Cue the late nights before each monthly issue went to print, the staff surviving on coffee and the drama of it all.
Later, as a young adult entering her internship era, when I began trying to elbow my way into my dream life, I learned that becoming a fashion editor took more than just the classic “hard work and determination.” Just because you showed up first and were the last one to leave (my dad’s favorite piece of internship advice) didn’t mean you were promoted. It meant you schlepped a few more garment bags around the city than the other interns who got to work on time. The jobs I coveted most seemed to be reserved for people whose parents had grown up with the magazine executives or for those who’d gone to boarding school with the editors’ kids. Or for my fellow fashion-closet interns who looked like models and as such were favored, then plucked, by the fashion assistants chosen to hire their
eventual successors.
After a few years toiling in seemingly dead-end entry-level fashion jobs, fate intervened and I found my true calling: public relations. At twenty-three, I got a job at a small fashion PR agency, where luck of the draw made me assistant to an incredible, overworked manager named Michelle. She was grateful for my first-one-in, last-one-out hustle. A year later, her favorite account switched to an internationally renowned fashion agency, who then poached her, and Michelle took me and her coordinator along with her. It was there that I received a seven-year-long crash course on the other side of glamour. Here were the people who solved problems and made things happen, who guided designers’ careers and got their designs onto the pages of all the major magazines, who soothed anxious egos when editors passed on pitches. The powerhouses who negotiated major deals and luxury partnerships, who helped edit down overwhelming piles of ideas into cohesive, marketable product lines. The tastemakers who threw the events that caused industry buzz and got editors to pay attention. The kingmakers who determined which editors were invited to fashion shows, where they sat, who was invited to the after-parties. This is where I shone.
After learning from the best, I left the PR agency with Michelle’s grudging blessing to start my own boutique PR firm, Le Ballon Rouge. I wanted to focus on small, mission-driven, women-owned businesses within the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle space, like the jewelry-designing sister duo who made their own lab-grown jewels and the eco-friendly handbag line centered around sustainable practices—an early industry pioneer, before the concept of sustainability had gained momentum among mainstream retailers. One of my clients made carbon-neutral, BPA-free vibrators that were so beautifully designed, they were frequently photographed on the top shelves of notable celebrities’ bathroom tours.
An unexpected side effect of helping my clients thrive was watching my own star rise. Over the years, as LBR grew, the same magazines and blogs that covered my clients started getting quotes from me for career-related articles and asking me to speak on panels. They did mini-profiles on Le Ballon Rouge: our office decor, our team’s style. The Fashion Institute of Technology hired me as a guest lecturer. Just last year, I was honored with an Entrepreneur magazine 35 under 35 award, a level of recognition that even my parents understood. When it came to my career, I felt unstoppable. I was capable beyond my wildest dreams. Fearless, even! Still, I avoided dressing rooms wherever I could.
Until today.
Because sometimes, when your personal life is falling apart, you forget to fear the otherwise avoidable things that normally terrify you.
