To the Girl with No Identity…

It was the fall of 2017, and I’d just unpacked the last suitcase in my college dorm. It was my first time away from home—my first time living in a country all by myself.

I didn’t know what to expect … or how to prepare for the unexpected. Attending a fashion college taught me a lot about myself, and the first thing I learned was that I was light years away from what I believed was my aesthetic.

I’m a girl into everything black and grunge (and perhaps even goth, but that was a far cry from my true essence). Entering into my first illustration class, I truly thought that my skills were on par with some of the other students I was seated with. But I soon learned that I was very wrong.

Compared to everyone else, my art skills were subpar, and not nearly as good as I thought it was, and that’s when I started thinking that I wasn’t good enough.

My earliest fashion renderings before being accepted into FIT.

The REAL Best Version of YOU

I thought high school was tough, but no one told me that going abroad could easily put a damper on your identity.

In fact, many people experience this thing called ‘culture shock’ where, for the first time in their lives, they feel out of place. A sense of belonging is something that’s engrained in each of us, so trying to find your part to fit into the puzzle can be a difficult task, especially when you’re living in a country with a cultural norm that’s completely different from what you’re used to.

I wish I could say that it’ll get better in time, but as time goes on, you’ll find yourself navigating a series of changes, trying to discover your true, authentic self while at the same time trying to fit in. Perhaps, like me, pretending to be the outcast seems like the best option.

But … being the outcast only made me feel more lonely.

At the very beginning of my college experience, I thought to myself, “Everyone is so expressive, and I’m not.”

A City Where Everything is Possible

I truly wished to be the girl in the eccentric makeup wearing the outfit that made me stand out, but in New York, where everyone is eccentric and stands out, everything just feels normal.

New York is the city where you could be anything, anyone, and no one would notice because in New York where anything is possible, it means everything is possible, and people are simply nose blind to uniqueness and differences.

However, I had one thing that no one else at my school had, and it took me years to figure out what I had that made me stand out.

Rendering Black

One of the classes I took that first semester was an art class that caused me to begin doubting my worth and my skills. However, as a Caribbean girl who decided that there wasn’t enough Black representation in fashion illustration, I wanted to make it my duty to learn to render darker skin tones.

If I’m being honest here, I wasn’t completely aware of how difficult such a process would be, and even more shocking was that I didn’t understand that who I was greatly impacted how I portrayed myself.

My first fashion illustration collection in FIT.

In that fall, I walked into my fashion illustration class with the hopes of rendering darker skin tones—or at least learning how to. But my illustration professor basically discouraged me from doing this. It wasn’t a direct statement, but it was a very subtle head-shake in the direction I wanted to go.

I still hadn’t discovered my illustrative style, still wasn’t sure (or even confident) in my own artwork, and certainly doubted every action I took. When she’d said to me to ‘lighten’ my complexion, she was, in a way, telling me that being me wasn’t good enough.

Certainly, she wouldn’t have known that she was saying that to me, but I was a Black woman in a strange new world with strange politics, and being frightened of a culture that made me believe that my skin was something to be afraid of, I wasn’t all too sure if I was good enough for the fashion school I was in.

The New Main Character

On presentation day, when we had to showcase our fashion portfolio, a Caucasian girl had chosen to present her fashion portfolio inspired by African culture, and I was highly upset.

I was a Black girl who grew up in an African Diaspora. The Caribbean is home to many blends of cultures, but what made my background so unique was how much of our past West African heritage was still maintained through our lifestyle.

I had a culture. I had a unique story to tell, and I certainly had an interesting perspective on what Black culture looked like, but I didn’t share my story.

And that’s when it all started.

Illustrations from my third year in college.

At that time, even though I grew up in a Christian home, I questioned a lot of the things I learned in the church, and though I believed in God, I didn’t think I believed ‘in the Christian God’. Yet this ‘Christian God’ had a unique way of weaving Himself into a storyline where He’d eventually become the main character.

It was the beginning of a journey that He’d take me on—a story He wanted me to tell. I just didn’t know it yet.

The New Identity

2 Corinthians 5:17 says:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

This question comes up often, especially when we find ourselves in situations where we have lost some part of our identity. As a young woman, attending school in New York made me doubt who I was and question everything I knew about myself.

However, something about experiencing God for the first time made me realize that my identity wasn’t found in my personal ambitions, desires to succeed, or even the girl I was trying to be.

My true identity was found in Christ.

In the very first book of the Bible, we learn that we were created in His image (Genesis 1:27), and in Genesis 2, we discover that God breathed His very breath into us so that we might become living.

During the fall, we lost that connection and this ‘image of God’ that we were created with became broken.

Galatians 2:20 tells states:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Galatians 2:20 NKJV

For those who received the Gospel of Christ, to those who accept Him, we have the RIGHT to become children of the King.

But to all who believed Him and accepted him, He gave the right to become children of God.

John 1:12 NLT

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

Ephesians 1:4 NLT

Regardless of our gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, or cultural background, once we are believers in the promise, we are one in Christ.

For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Ephesians 3:26-29 ESV

God’s Word For You

You are chosen by God to fulfill a greater purpose in His plan. His desire for you was predestined, and now He’s calling you so that His will can be fulfilled through you.

I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born, I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5 NLT

Signed,