Rachel Zoe

For those who do not know Rachel Zoe, she is an American fashion stylist – For what I know of, she has her own fashion brand and a number of other related beauty businesses, a long list of A-list clients and she is a working mum.

Anyway, lovers are gonna love and haters are gonna hate her so what does Rachel has got to do with me while she doesn’t even know me?

Rachel is a *MAJ inspirer to me. So I’m saying right now as I am still on my full-time job – if I quit my job tomorrow and someone needs somebody else to blame you can blame Rachel for having inspired me to do something else (And obviously she will never know unless my post will be 1000 times or more reposted).

Right, so what’s about Rachel?

(*MAJ is short for major by the Zoe’s speak)

Once upon a time, when I was almost in the middle of nowhere – It appeared to me that I had absolutely no idea about what I wanted to do for my future then I ‘met’ Rachel on StarWorld Asia on her reality TV series: The Zoe Project. I think it was just funny for me to capture the picture of a pregnant blonde woman who never stopped complaining about the fact she was at her month #8 of her pregnancy and at the same time still working as a crazy person as a fashion stylist.

So nothing much really but I don’t know why I keep watching that show from one to another season and to see how she has been through with her family and businesses. And obviously everybody in the fashion world would know how great Rachel is,  together with her husband and the team, she’s done a massive job over almost 2 decades.

What I like about Rachel is not only the fact that she is one of the most influential people in the fashion industry – I was impressive to learn that she has not done any formal fashion training into order to get into the position that she is today. Rachel just has a natural talent for fashion and I’m sure there are numerous factors that got her to the top level. I heard Rachel said ‘If you let passion guide you, you can’t fail’ but I don’t think this is the case; passion alone might not make you successful. There are a lot more, especially in this modern era… What can I say here? Your degrees? Appearance? Finance? Networking?  Surprisingly, I’ve found that many people in the world also have almost the exact same things for everything, even if it comes to the look (thanks to some certain beauty standards and plastic surgery) and same whatever that can be bought. Therefore, you gotta be D I F E R R E N T if you want to be I R R E P LA C E A B LE so I think it is important to have some certain levels of knowledge, attitude & experience. To cut it short, you need to create your own style – and what is style by the way – it is defined by RZ that: “Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak”.

Or I like very much what Yves Saint Laurent said: “Fashion will fade but style is eternal”.

Both I totally agree – and perhaps you need to be a little crazy as well. I think RZ is psycho in a way… I think I am psycho too as I even remember too much of the Zoe’s speak already (It happens when people like something so I hope that’s not just me). Not that I believe in everything about what people put on magazine or reality shows but RZ should anyway be the one to decide what she wanted to put on her TV shows. And in one of the episoles when she tried to dress her ‘poor’ little kid Skyler and her former style assistant Joey – She literally admitted: “My purpose in life is to dress everybody” and that she can’t stand it to see somebody who appears to be undressed. But come on Rachel, I hope life is not all about dressing, shoes, maxi or mini dresses, bags, make-up and how to impress people. Or maybe it’s her job to say so in order to sell or whatsoever that really is…

Afterwards, I still like Rachel and her style but I slowly started my own ‘Beyoutiful’ project as well so I really did not have time for her reality shows anymore. I’ve got to get real at some points. So I’ve watched and learned about Vietnamese women as much as I could with people coming from different demographics and to see different factors that effect their lives and behaviours. And there is one thing I realised that apart from the beautiful nature appearance that many Vietnamese women have been so fortunate to be given by mother nature, I figured out many issues that we are facing with in this modern society that actually make us less beautiful, I think I know what they are… And whatever they really are, they will never be accepted…