I am a designer, and no not a fashion designer as might be most people's first guess, but a set designer. I design sets for stage and theatre, which is where my real passion has been ever since I was a little girl. I won't lie, there is absolutely nothing glamorous about it, I build things, spend most of my life in a pair of paint covered old jeans, and some days can't even unlock my phone from the amount of superglue that has encrusted my fingertips, but I love it. It is something that you can get so lost in and there is honestly nothing like seeing one of your designs standing on a stage after spending months working on it, building it, painting it and watching it all come together.
But here is my issue. With it being so polar opposite to, what I tend to call my 'hobby'- fashion and blogging - I am finding myself almost being embarrassed of the other and trying to justify them both depending on who I am with. Why though? Why can't I do both of these things and be both of these people without conforming to the stereotype of the role? I find myself constantly trying to play down this feminine side of me to be taken more seriously as a designer, to the point where before I have a meeting with a new director or producer I put on my "designer's uniform" of my timberland boots, a flannel shirt and my trusty painting jeans. I didn't even realise I was doing it until recently I rediscovered the famous speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it all clicked:
"I wanted to be taken seriously. I knew that because I was female, I would automatically have to prove my worth. And I was worried that if I looked too feminine, I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit. The sad truth of the matter is that when it comes to appearance, we start off with men as the standard, as the norm. Many of us think that the less feminine a woman appears, the more likely she is to be taken seriously. A man going to a business meeting doesn't wonder about being taken seriously based on what he is wearing- but a woman does."
Now I know that obviously in my industry I am not saying that it would be practical at all to wear any clothes I wanted, and I probably will continue to wear my paint covered jeans until they fall apart because AINT NOBODY got time for a wardrobe full of ruined clothes, but it just got me thinking about my outlook on things; getting embarrassed when anyone at uni brings up my blogging or Instagram and putting all my profiles on private at the start of a new project incase anyone has a little search. It all came to a head really that I casually mentioned to my mum that I was thinking of dying my hair back to brown after I graduated so that I would be taken more seriously, and I kid you not she looked at me as if I had just told her I was dropping out of uni entirely. Her clever mummy words of wisdom were, "if someone is going to hire you, they are going to hire you based on your talent and your work not on what your bloody hair looks like, don't be ridiculous". And she was right, as long as I keep a maintain a level of professionalism to both my work and blogging, why should my hair colour or my hobby have any impact on whether I get jobs or not?
So for now both the blonde hair and the blog are here to stay, but if any of you want to keep up with my set design work, I will pop my other Instagram down below.
If just one person has made it to the end of this post I want to say a massive thank you for taking the time to read my mind ramblings, it really means a lot.
T x
@tarausherdesign
AND
@tarajadeusher
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