written by Matney Oliveira

There’s a dance between two well-dressed girls in a crowded room. Eyes go directly to each other, standing out like tufted, tulle sore thumbs. There’s a choice to either stand-off with competition or synchronize with confidence. They’re doomed from the start if they choose competition; not confident enough within themselves, having the courage to try new trends but no bravery for originality. Whereas, confidence creates community, respect, admiration, and innovation. Confidence makes you walk up to a stranger and compliment their natural style from head to toe. Confidence is sharing the outfit details without skipping a beat. Confidence is the wealth of how two baroque girls created friendship and a world of their own... 

Tabitha and I met at the end of a sweltering summer, introduced as new co-workers styling in retail and excited to make our mark. We were both in new chapters of our lives, myself in the middle of my undergraduate career and Tabitha coming out of hers, both unknowingly looking for something to feed the creative hole in our hearts. There was much commonality already between us, but not needed to be spoken for, we wore it on our lapels. It was just a matter of time before we spoke up and formed a friendship. In the past, I found that my shortest friendships were the ones I rushed into and was love-bombed in the beginning, only to disguise the worst in them in the end. So, it’s kismet that I let this friendship lay in place at its own speed, especially since Tabitha is someone you don’t just instantly know, she opens up gradually, letting time and familiarity guide the pace. As we became closer, we understood our ideas of identity and artful expression; and that creativity wasn’t manufactured just to be said and disposed of. Outfits, plans, and ideas were to be written and produced for the interest of creative relief and exposé. But how to showcase these things intrinsically? To stand out against the sea of social media influencers with high fashion but not high style? To maximalize our riches that others find to be rags because our follower count is inconsequential to that of the world. These are travails we pondered about in coffee shops, yapped while toasting espresso martinis, and outlined in notebooks where croissant crumbs collected in the spine. Till the joke arrived at work in the fitting room: I guess if we want to showcase our fabulous world, we’ll just have to create our own magazine. We laughed till it wasn't funny.  All it took was a moment of silence and a “what if?”