After My Family Made Fun Of My Clothes—They Weren't Laughing At My Fashion Brand Fortune скачать в хорошем качестве

After My Family Made Fun Of My Clothes—They Weren't Laughing At My Fashion Brand Fortune

"Your outfit looks like you raided a thrift store dumpster," my sister Victoria laughed, her voice carrying across the entire family reunion barbecue. Everyone turned to stare at me, and in that moment, I knew exactly what I had to do. By the end of the night, they would discover that the woman they'd been mocking for years had built a fashion empire worth fifty-two million dollars, and their laughter would turn to stunned silence. Before we jump back in, tell us where you're tuning in from, and if this story touches you, make sure you're subscribed—because tomorrow, I've saved something extra special for you! Standing there in my grandmother's backyard, clutching a paper plate of potato salad while my entire extended family snickered at my appearance, I felt like I was twelve years old again. The same age when Victoria first told me I had no sense of style, when my cousin Marcus started calling me "Goodwill Grace," when my own mother would sigh deeply and suggest maybe I should let someone else pick out my clothes for important occasions. My name is Grace Chen, and at thirty-four years old, I had somehow allowed my family to reduce me back to that insecure little girl who never felt like she belonged. I smoothed down my vintage band t-shirt, the one I'd carefully distressed and paired with high-waisted jeans I'd modified myself. To most people, it looked casual but put-together. To my family, it looked like evidence of my continued failure to understand what appropriate meant. Victoria stood near the poolside bar, resplendent in her designer sundress that probably cost more than most people's monthly rent. Her blonde hair was perfectly styled in beach waves that had definitely required a professional blowout, and her jewelry caught the late afternoon sun with the kind of sparkle that announced serious money. She was holding court with our cousins, all of them dressed in various shades of pastels and florals that screamed country club membership. "I keep telling Grace she should shop at Nordstrom instead of wherever it is she finds these tragic outfits," Victoria continued, gesturing toward me with her wine glass. "I mean, we're not teenagers anymore. There's a certain standard expected at family events. " Marcus, Victoria's husband and my least favorite person in the extended family, chimed in with his usual subtle cruelty. "Maybe Grace is going for that bohemian artist look. You know, the whole struggling creative thing. " The way he said struggling made it sound like a personal failing, a choice to remain unsuccessful when success was simply a matter of trying harder. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to grab my keys and drive home to my small apartment, where I could surround myself with my sketches and fabric samples and remember who I actually was when I wasn't being measured against my family's narrow definition of achievement. But instead, I stood there, taking their criticism with the same resigned patience I'd been practicing for over two decades. The truth was, I had stopped trying to impress my family years ago. Every attempt I'd made to gain their approval had ended in subtle humiliation. When I was sixteen and saved up for months to buy what I thought was a sophisticated dress for Victoria's graduation party, my aunt Patricia had loudly wondered if I'd gotten it from the clearance rack. When I was twenty-two and wore my favorite vintage blazer to my cousin's wedding, my mother had spent the entire reception apologizing to relatives for my appearance. So I'd given up. I'd decided that if they were determined to see me as the family disappointment, the creative one who would never quite get her life together, then I might as well dress the part. Let them think I shopped at thrift stores and couldn't afford better clothes. Let them believe I was still the struggling art student who needed their concerned advice about getting a real job. What they didn't know, what none of them had bothered to discover, was that their assumptions about my life were not just wrong but spectacularly wrong. The vintage t-shirt I was wearing wasn't from a thrift store. It was from my own fashion line, carefully designed to look effortless while incorporating subtle details that only fashion insiders would recognize. The jeans had been modified using techniques I'd developed during my years studying fashion design in New York. Even my supposedly cheap accessories were prototypes from my upcoming collection. But the biggest secret, the one that made their condescending comments almost amusing, was that Grace Chen the struggling artist hadn't existed for over six years. Instead, I had built something they couldn't even imagine. Something that would have shocked them into silence if they'd known. Victoria was still talking, her voice carrying that particular tone of superiority that came so naturally to her.