her favorite things

Getting on my first flight alone, on my first trip by alone, as a fresh eighteen year old, my main concern was not being away from home- it was being stuck in a room full of younger girls who didn’t apply to the Vogue Pre-College program because they wanted to pursue their passions, but because they saw it trending on TikTok and wanted the attention it would attract across all social media platforms.

As much as I hate to admit I didn’t go into the experience as open-mindedly as I would have liked, my presumptions of what the program entailed and the people alongside me completely changed; not even an hour after moving into my dorm on Broadway St. Being forced into a situation where you have to be close with the people around you to thrive in a place like Manhattan, I would not have had it any other way with the group of people I was introduced to. It may be cliche, but Vogue Summer School’s two-week pre-college program brought me the most intelligent group of girls I have ever met, who are almost as intelligent as they are kind-hearted and passionate about our craft. Through the daily rituals of waking up and picking out outfits together in our triple dorm at Pace University, to walking to Blank Street for a morning matcha, getting lunch together between classes, shopping down Canal Street and SOHO, walking freely around the city, and going out to nice dinners, we made an entire short-lived life for ourselves based on the company of complete strangers. How could I not feel like I found a new family for myself?

The most refreshing thing about this community of people was the combination of a shared passion, with the exposure they gave me to different backgrounds and insights they all individually had to the world around us. This was evident in the work days we had for our final project in the Fashion Business program- where we had the creative freedom to produce a product and develop a brand and business model for it over the course of the two week program. Our group’s final project, by the name of Prelude Atelier was a brainchild of me, who wanted a fresh boutique-style store concept, and my group members, who wanted to make a jewelry store, a coffee shop, and personal styling studio all into one place. Additionally, in listening in on the presentations of all the other group projects aside from our own, I was nothing but completely impressed by the thought, creativity, and determination that each individual person put into producing a project that was completely unique, even so to the point where I wanted to see these projects be taken out of just the bounds of the program and fully developed into real world fashion brands.

That being said, the insight to the fashion industry and the guidance we had to developing these brands may have been my most sacred takeaway of all, which I can credit my own professor, Jill Stein, and the Vogue editors/professionals who gave us comprehensive, daily lectures. The program specifically curated each academic day with a specific entity of the business side of fashion- manufacturing, branding, marketing, sustainability, and product development- and the lectures based on each element were detailed, informative, and incredibly inspiring to the point where I looked forward to sitting in a lecture hall for three hours, simply because of how valuable the information being shared was.

A moment for Jill Stein, my incredibly intelligent program instructor, who truly fostered my love for the industry and encouraged me to pursue my passions beyond the program alone. Jill treated our classroom like a home, building relationships with each student and earning the alter-ego name of “mom” for the two weeks we spent with her. A fair representation of all the programs’ instructors equally, Jill curated our curiosity and used her own experience in the industry (working in the architectural side of things), as a source of knowledge that she was able to implement into each lesson. Her goal was clear- not to intimidate us, but to force us out of our comfort zones and achieve a heightened level of knowledge consumption and performance as intellectuals in the classroom. For the group of freshly-graduated eighteen year olds that our classroom consisted of entirely, she treated us as adults and nothing less.

That being said, this treatment was one of my biggest surprises and takeaways from the program. While the first three days of after-class extracurriculars were mandatory and required minor babysitting due to the combination of young teenagers and young adults, the fourth day allowed us new adults to exercise our freedoms and explore New York City in any way we wanted. This was my goal overall- to get to know the city I have dreamed of living in since I can remember. In the nature of discretion I must uphold (as I am still a teenager, even if 18), the late nights of June that we spent out in the city as teenage girls are the most memorable nights of my life, leaving me with Manhattan’s permanence in my heart- no matter where I am or how far away I may be.

Seven thousand dollars. If I were to tell you I spent three years of savings from multiple part-time jobs and all the birthday money possible on fourteen days in New York City, you would call it irrational. But I didn’t pay for just a meal plan, a dorm to stay in, and six hours of classes. I paid for a once in a lifetime opportunity, life-long friendships (the matching tattoos should be proof enough), and a definite internal “YES!” that this is exactly what I want my career to look like.