From Shyness to Fashion Collective #MEPSBloggers
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| Kindergarten - Jeddah Saudi Arabia (1989) |
Fashion is a big part of every girl's life, no matter what her style and personality are. I don't think fashion was always my ally growing up, considering that I was a big girl, the tallest among my classmates from kindergarten onward, the chubbiest, and even the shiest person in the room. It wasn't just a lack of confidence, but rather a fear of expressing myself and looking like a fool. Smart on paper, I would rarely answer out loud in class, even if I knew the right answers. Raising my hand was an overwhelming endeavor to take on: it would always feel like the spotlight is on me, everyone is watching me and waiting for me to fail so they can laugh at me. Big girls have always been portrayed as either the shy girl in the corner, or the funny girl who makes jokes about herself and almost everything else, in the sole purpose to stand out and hide the insecurities she feels deep down inside. It was just an illusion created to keep the focus on the jokes and the banal, rather than the depth and the layers of our true essence.
So, as you can see, from the get-go, what people thought about me was a big deal for me and it did take a big chunk out of my daily. When you are a teen, it is not easy figuring out this new you that you are trying to adapt, absorb, get to know and eventually embrace. I am not sure why I let the eyes of people affect me so much, influence my decisions so frequently and why I gave permission to ultimately just strangers to, in a way, indirectly control my actions. There is a romance behind being shy but I never saw it that way. It was more of a burden and I used to hate being awkward or getting all red in the cheeks whenever I was in a vulnerable or uncomfortable situation.
My name “Hanane”- which means “compassion” in Arabic – was associated to being that sweet shy girl, who is everyone’s friend, the secret keeper, the confidant, but I lacked initiative and drive to go out there and stand up for myself, for a change. Funnily, I was comfortable and uncomfortable in that bubble I had created for myself. You start to get used to this image you are known for. Small changes won’t make a difference as the people around you will take it as a sign of rebellion against your shy nature, and they will even find it comical; when, in reality, I am trying to explore my capacities, to expand my personality and to challenge my insecurities. It took a lot of time and reflection and meeting the right people, like my husband, to finally crack open that shell I had been protecting myself with.
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| Forever Young - First Meetup with my hubby Hass (April 2005) |
There is always that tiny voice that keeps knocking on your doors, telling you to just go for it, step out of your comfort zone and take a chance at facing the world to show them what and who you really are. I wouldn’t say it is the “what if” of regret, but rather the “I wish I was stronger” of self-confidence. If I had acquired that strength, I would have taken on high-school and life from a different perspective.
Many like to divide people into two categories: the leaders and the followers. I think I was stuck somewhere in between. I never considered myself a leader but, at the same time, I wasn’t following the norms, as my shy personality would clash with the outgoing – and sometimes shamelessly crazy – classmates that were in my grade. That said, I got along with everyone. That was never the problem. It was me, how I thought about myself in front of others. It wasn’t a popularity contest or anything but rather a quest to unlocking my timidities. I won’t lie, I still have these traits. Luckily, I have acquired more confidence across the years, which is quite empowering, especially after I started blogging, getting into the plus size and body positive movement, e-meeting international influencers, models and bloggers, watching youtubers unveil the taboo behind being plus size, big or curvy, and finding my own tribe.
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| Senior Graphic Design Project Installation - Honey Biscuits |
Another thing I wished I had taken more time to know is myself. I am a freelance graphic designer and I remember, in my senior year in university, I was so confused about what topic to tackle for my graduation project. If I knew then what I know now, I would have an infinite number of possibilities and project ideas. I am satisfied about the way things ended in university. I am not thrilled, but I made it at the end, after so many obstacles and creative blocks. Actually, I had to move to another campus that supposedly last year, as my first attempt to the senior course was a big fail. The instructor had favorites in the class and she would push them, encourage them, almost lead them to the finish line. At that stage, I was still struggling on finding that concept for my finale project. She wasn’t much help. I was still recovering from the cultural shock that lingered from the moment I moved from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon. Yes, I forgot to mention that I grew up in Saudi and, although I am Lebanese, I had never lived in Lebanon long enough for me to relate to it. My family and I only started visiting Beirut during the late 1990s and it was only for vacations. We moved in 2001 and that’s when I started university and my sister was in high-school. Even though I had already been in the Graphic Design program for 4 years, university wasn’t the best experience of my life. Struggle, cultural shock, and feeling alienated. Back to that design professor, I submitted several ideas but I knew that they were very far-fetched and irrelevant to my identity. What did I really want to convey to the world, through my creativity and graphic design techniques? The most existential question at the time! What did I want to talk about? Who am I? What do I like? Why was it so hard? That year, I decided to drop the class. There was no reason to force this into a dead-end brick wall.
So, I took a Creative Writing class: I felt in my element and I was enjoying the writing assignments. After that class, I knew that I wanted to venture into a book design project for my final. And that’s what happened. I mentioned above that I switched campuses and I was right to do so. The professor teaching the senior course for Graphic Design was American, open-minded, and genuinely there to guide you rather than set a trap for you or even worse, fail you! I wrote, illustrated, printed, published and sold a children’s book that I called “Honey Biscuits”.
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| Arabnews Article (after Honey Biscuits book signing) |
Patience, it seems I never run out of it, even when life challenges you and puts you in front of the most annoying tests. I still have a dream to create my own magazine and maybe I will dedicate being in my thirties to this new community and hopefully it will grow larger, to the extent that I could dedicate my forties to a potential plus size fashion and bopo publication for the Middle East and GCC region.
Who knows? Things can happen.
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1 comments
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