Inspiring Friend #2: Julia

After graduate school, I took a job at a financial consulting company in New York.  Coincidentally, my friend Julia landed an internship with a fashion magazine in the same building.  While I was pricing power plants and analyzing interest rate curves, Julia was attending photo shoots and hanging out in the sample closet.  For three years, I pretty much lived vicariously through her.  During our daily Starbucks runs, she would regale me with her exciting adventures in the fashion industry.  This was before The Devil Wears Prada hit theatres, so it was all very mysterious to me.

I was jealous of course, but her job was not without its drawbacks.  Starting at the bottom can be a humbling experience.  As a lowly intern, her duties included appearing in the magazine’s Figure Fixers spread as “the girl with the big butt.”

And it was months before she was allowed to write anything.  When she finally did write her first article – which was read by her father and her grandmother and everyone else she knew – the assigned topic was sex toys.

Eventually, Julia was writing articles on all sorts of topics, and she blossomed into a full-fledged fashionista.  One day, I even spotted her face on the MSN homepage.  I myself am style-impaired, but I was probably more fashionable just being in her presence.  She would always fill me in on the upcoming apparel and accessories trends.  I was the first to know that skinny jeans were making a comeback (I was horrified).

After a few years, we both moved on to other jobs, but whenever I step inside a Starbucks, I’m reminded of her inspiring rise from big-butt intern to glamorous fashion writer.  Perhaps there’s still hope for me.  I just need a foot in the door and a few years of hard work and persistence.