I Wore Prada

This month I’m deviating from the subject of travel with a personal post about my time in the fashion world. I’ll be back to writing about travel next month.

So much news lately about fashion in the 90’s and the early aughts, what with Devil Wears Prada 2 in the theaters and Hulu’s series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette (she worked at Calvin Klein). So many satellite stories published about that time at Vogue, in media, in fashion, mine is just one more to add on to the pile.

As a person who mostly looks forward and rarely looks back, I’ve never written about that time of my life but all the buzz today about fashion in that particular era compels me to think about those years. I’m reminded of when I was a teenager, and believed becoming a fashion designer was my destiny, as I commuted weekends into Manhattan to take classes at Parson’s School of Design and spent one summer working as a high school intern at the MET’s Costume Institute.

When at college in Boston, I talked my way into an internship at the public relations department at Giorgio Armani, the only fashion house at the time that had a PR representative in Boston (very Carolyn Bessette-like, who also got her fashion start in Boston.) All the while I set my sights on returning to NYC to become part of what I saw as the ultimate world of fashion. By this time I had determined I did not have what it takes to be a fashion designer, with all the creativity and ingenuity required to design four to six collections a year. It seemed more realistic to explore other avenues in fashion instead.

Once I returned to New York, my very first job was at the menswear brand Hugo Boss. My impatience to work for the very best soon led me to Prada, in an assistant role to the VP of the public relations and advertising department. This was January of 1997. I stayed for exactly one year…