Let’s start with talking about your style. You have a beautiful mix of flowy dresses, silky textures, oversized tops and activewear. We love how your outfits seem to be an expression of who you are! What are you telling the world with your style? I’ve always had a hard time articulating my style. Some days I’m really draw to what I’d describe as grandma chic and some days I dress with a more LA girl city chic vibe. But I was talking with one of my friends about “style aesthetics” and she summed it up my style as “soft golden hour”. I think this is accurate because I’m really drawn to warm pastel colors, golden tones, and fabrics that are really soft and comfy.
Your color combos are so bold and beautiful! Where do you draw your inspiration from and how do you match the colors up so perfectly! I draw a lot of my inspiration from other instagram accounts and friends that I follow. A couple of my favorites are @thatcurlytop, @chloegoslowly, @sushirollangel, and @courtneecrews, who all mix colors and patterns really effortlessly. I also paint a little and used to work at a flower shop which got me really comfortable creating different color palettes and learning which tones work well together.
We loved your IG post about “rewear” and how you go about challenging yourself to find new outfits with what is already in your closest. Talk to us about that process. How do you go about finding new outfits/ideas with what you currently have? To reduce the amount of clothing I buy, I try my best to mix and match the same pieces in order to get the best “cost per wear”. Currently, since I’m working from home during this pandemic, I honestly end up wearing the same outfit multiple times. I’m sometimes a creature of habit and once I really enjoy a single outfit, I’ll wear it a ton until I’m drawn to another outfit. However, if I do want to find new outfits I try layering the pieces differently or changing by up the “vibe” of the outfit.
On a different note, we see that you are a mental health educator. If you are okay with it, please share with our audience your road to becoming an educator. I graduated from college with a bachelors in psychology. During my senior year, I started volunteering for different non-profits to see what area of mental health or social work that I would be interested in. I became really passionate about social justice and how it intersects with the mental health field, but hadn’t found a job yet that was a good fit. A year after graduating, I met my current boss at a community group for Asian American women/non-binary folks. She mentioned the job position opening including destigmatizing mental health in communities of color and the LGBTQ+ community and I knew it was a perfect fit. A couple weeks later I landed the position and have been there since. We’ve had to adjust a lot due to Covid-19. With mental health issues being at an all time high, our team is doing a lot of zoom presentations and IG lives with other community members in this field. If you want to follow along with our work in San Diego, you can check out our instagram account bdb.sd.
Last question, who inspires you? Currently, a lot of the women in the intersectional environmental movement and in the decolonizing mental health movement really inspire me. Here are a few that you can follow. @greengirlleah, @aditimayer, @diandramarizet, @dominiquedrakeford, @decolonizingtherapy, @jointhecosmos, @the.wellness.therapist, @inclusivetherapists, and @lilnativeboy.
Follow Gabby at @gabrielasage