Photo by: Rachel Hopkins @rachel_hopkinshair

“I always wanted to project my woman as a little fragile, someone who is not that confident and might be struggling.”

— Rok Kwang Creative Director Rokh

In the most recent bibliography I posted a link to a feature about a young designer who is also a finalist for the LMVH prize, Rok Kwang. I was taken by his clothes as well as the gentleness and humility he conveyed in his interview.  I was also very much drawn to the garments: a modern and subversive take on traditional pieces, the combination of fragility and strength, suburb tailoring, beautiful draping and the option of hiding ones vulnerabilities if one chooses to do so.  The quote from his interview that I have highlighted above really captured how I have been feeling lately.  The photo, taken by a hairstylist on a magazine shoot last week, shows and evokes my little bit fragile yet yearning young self.  Well, the woman inside, as we have been discussing.  I want to kiss and hug this young designer and the hairstylist for “seeing” me and expressing what I was having trouble finding the words for. Fashion always comes through for me.

Just like creativity, confidence sometimes has ebbs and flows and one struggles to find their way.  Those of you who know me know about my bit of shyness and feelings of vulnerability which through the use of sunglasses and a photographer who is my life partner I manage to overcome enough to fling myself out into the digital world. At times I feel really right about it all, at others not so much. Like this designer I have been thinking about how to do something disruptive yet keep the essential, traditional  core of the  project I started almost four years ago.  I must confess I have been “struggling” or “fretting”, to continue the dialog.

On the set of the photoshoot the other day there was delicious conversation, inspiration and experimentation. Some of you may know that recently Iris Apfel published a book entitled Accidental Icon. Many of my followers took umbrage at this. For some reason I was not so annoyed because I do not own the copyright or trademark to the name. I was only annoyed when someone left a comment on Facebook saying I was a fraud who was trying to make money by using Iris Apfel’s name, Accidental Icon. Despite having no legal recourse I was urged by many to fight this and “do” something. Now here is why i love young people. When the topic came up at the photoshoot the team decided that the best approach would be to change my name and they thought”Accidentally Iconic.”  was more active and a better fit.  The rest of the day became about creating her.  I brought one of the wigs I told you about to the photoshoot and the hairstylist cut it up, making bangs and giving it a choppy cut. I love it! They even came up with a sub-heading given my more recent writing and the projects I have been taking on: Accidentally Iconic: Chronicles of Real Beauty. Like the piece below from Rokh’s AW2018 collection, it keeps the tradition yet somehow disrupts enough to keep things interesting.

 Rokh AW2018 as featured in Dazed Rokh AW2018 as featured in Dazed

I kind of like the new name, what do you think?