Growing up, I never really thought of landing a career in the fashion industry, but it’s just so funny how your passion for dressing up would lead you to a path that you would take over and over again! 

    Back when I was young, I valued the Fridays in my elementary school where we were given a chance not to wear our uniform and just wear casual clothes. I got to express myself through my outfits and eventually started posting my outfits online even when OOTDs were not a thing yet.

    Years past of me attending events and making lifestyle content online, but it’s so funny how I would get caught in a situation where I would be starting to post fashion content again just because of my passion for dressing up. I was doing solo travel contents back in 2018 when I flew to Korea. With only a week to stay there, I was bringing a lot of clothes as I value having many OOTD photos in places I would be visiting. But one day, I was just walking around and exploring the city and there was a man from an English broadcasting station giving me his calling card as he heard me speaking English over the phone. I honestly just wanted to take the card and leave quickly as it might be a scam. But I took the card, asked for advice from my friends in Korea, and took the chance in contacting this person and meeting up with him. I didn’t take their job offer for the radio company as I was already on my internship year in university in the Philippines, but I got acquainted with the person recruiting me and told me that I should come back to watch fashion shows in Korea as he has seen my outfits for the past days I had in my stay in their country . And so, I went back to Korea a month after to attend Seoul Fashion Week. 

    It felt like a dream to be able to attend fashion week in another country, but yes, I was really there sitting in front rows of fashion shows wearing outfits that I’m comfortable with. From posting on Lookbook and doing self-shoots for my OOTDs, I got to be around photographers waiting for me to strike a post outside the show venues. I may have looked very confident in my photos but I was very intimidated when I started being a fashion goer. I had moments were I felt like I didn’t belong in the industry as there are so much more people who dresses up better than me. However, I got to realize how fashion doesn’t discriminate, especially in Seoul where people are very experimental. As you would walk through the streets of Seoul during fashion week, people of different ages where not merely following the trends but expressing so much through their outfits. So with me being in another country, wearing pieces from Filipino designers, made me feel like I was putting pride on my country. After seasons of attending Seoul fashion week, I got to understand fashion differently and got to explore more of the industry, thus pushing me to find myself in a different career as I was in the health care industry back in the Philippines. 

    So as I entered Canada, I am taking the leap and studying business and hopefully getting into the fashion industry with my diploma. However, when I got here, I wanted to explore the fashion industry and start with social media as that was how I did it back in the Philippines. But Canada has a different landscape with regards to social media and fashion that eventhough I am already in my fourth month in the country, I still feel like it’s hard to navigate through the industries. I honestly thought that Canada would be more of a social media driven country as North America is one of the places where most social media channels originated from. But even statistics found by Digital Marketing Institute (2021), found that Asian countries are more social media driven than Canada. So lately instead of focusing on social media alone, I learned that networking with people would lead me to finding myself back in the fashion industry. It may not be as easy as just posting your outfits online but it is helping me grow as a person lately to put myself out there in reality. 

With the difference in social media industry, the fashion industry in Canada also seems to be different as I got to attend fashion shows in the Fashion Art Toronto Fashion Week back in May. I found the event small compared to how fashion weeks are in Asian countries and there were just a few photographers and influential people attending the event. I felt like Canada should give more attention to the fashion industry as the shows and outfits I saw have a potential to be seen by not only the Canadian industry. Thus the need for the Canadian government to invest more on fashion just as how they have been investing on their music industries the past years. (Slone, 2021) Even designers from here have been acknowledging the fact that there are many local designers but there are little government support to help local designers be known and strive in the market. (Whitwell, 2020) 

    Nonetheless, the fashion week may have been an eyeopener for me on how Canada still lacks some things in their fashion industry but the simple event gave me a sweet experience on the growing fashion community that Canada has. Canada’s fashion scene definitely reminded me that fashion really is an expression of oneself that eventhough there are different races in this country, everyone still finds a way to express theirselves through their clothes while taking in consideration the culture that they have. I’m just really hopeful that as much as I would learn the fashion industry in Canada, both I and the industry would grow more in the months or years to come!