Defne YucesoyThere is a part of me that I haven’t met yet. She walks into the rooms with fancy high ceilings like she belongs in them, she is powerful, tall, bold, poised… She wears clothes that I sketch now as we speak. The clothes that I sketch crossed-legged on my bedroom floor, eating cheap ice cream with a broken pencil in my hand. The music humming in the background, creating a blank page for my imagination to fill it in.
Right now she is a dream, but she is mine. She is me.
Every time I draw a neckline, play with colors, exaggerate the volume of a skirt or draw a wonky silhouette I do it for her- the girl I know I want to be. Not for fancy parties or Instagram likes, but to feel that I earned to see myself in the mirror wearing these designs. See myself in these designs that I built from scratch.
She doesn’t exist yet, this future me who’s photographed on red carpets, not for who she’s wearing, but for what she’s created. She’s not the muse. She’s the name on the label.
Sometimes I feel far from her—when I mess up a sketch, when I doubt my ideas, or when I feel like the room I want to walk into is still too far away. But then I keep designing. Because she’s not waiting at the finish line; she’s unfolding with every line I draw, every risk I take, every time I choose to believe in the version of me I’m still becoming.
I’m not there yet. But I’m getting closer.
And when I arrive, I’ll already have a closet full of dresses made just for her.
