My ultimate irony is that I hand embroider to give myself a break from sketching with a tablet. It is only thanks to a laptop that I could write my first full essays in my teens and I would rather manipulate a single vector shape for hours than freehand one line. Aside from the first two fingers on my left hand, the rest of my body needs that kind of tech to enjoy the same creative freedom as my brain. Even so, I’ve never found a replacement for the feeling of working with a needle by hand. The world of fashion seems torn in the same way. Torn between giving due respect to artisans of handcrafting and adequate attention to the technologies that make clothing more accessible. Between the scientific advancements that allow us to make a piece of art from waste and work with natural materials that would prevent such waste from being generated. As curator Andrew Bolton puts it, holding up the handmade as elitist or luxurious while dismissing mechanized processes as either dehumanizing or a sign of progress eliminates any nuance. The dichotomy overlooks the fact that fashion as a whole cannot rely entirely on either the handmade or the machine-made any more than I can in my personal efforts of creation. Because the theme strikes at the core of so much of this predicament, I am fond of the Manus x Machina gala of 2016. It accompanies a thought-provoking exhibit well and gives rise to a variety of interpretations on the interplay of human and machine work with clothing and costume. Having so much to work with, I was surprised and disappointed by the number of attendees who chose futuristic or robot-esque looks for the evening. Mirrored plastic or glass beads certainly aren’t the easiest to work with, but also aren’t the most imaginative way to interpret such a theme. Strictly speaking, they go against theme since the exhibit’s educational content specifies the event isn’t referencing robots or robot/human hybrids. Of this bunch, Gigi Hadid's look was one of the most underwhelming. Her chiffon A-line gown fit her well, but the reflective sequined bodice didn’t look particularly referential to the manus or machina element and the otherwise plain look was a boring contender in a pack of more extravagant pieces. Hadid’s and the other silver dresses would make serviceable, albeit literal additions to a space-themed gala, but otherwise miss the mark. On the nose can be fun as long as it's on theme. In fact, one of my favorite looks was rather literal and looked fantastic on Kate Hudson. Her gown featured a leather bodice with added cutouts, which at close inspection resemble pattern pieces used in the production of tailored garments. They added interest to an otherwise unembellished piece of couture while putting a somewhat whimsically surreal spin on the theme. The fitted silhouette made the craftsmanship all the more impressive, as any misstep in the construction would show in the alignment of the pieces and would be made all the more obvious by the detailing. There is no better way in my mind to call attention to the care required by handcrafting. As honorable mentions, I would cite Emma Watson and Anna Kendrick. Anna’s crochet look was magnificent on her and found an elegant way to feature an often unappreciated art. I admire Emma, especially for taking the philosophical or conceptual approach. Her dedication to crafting an ensemble out of recycled plastic is a creative, and even better, well-principled way of nodding to the exhibit’s theme with subtlety.

A footrace is a really weird metric for success. Cartwheels too, but I still prefer them, if only because they are more fun to watch. And watch them, I did. As one of only two children with a disability at my school, it was inconceivable to most that I could be happy without being able-bodied. It seemed no one else could be happy either, since my second-grade teacher told me my husband would be much prouder if I walked down the aisle like a normal bride. Given the obsession with “normalcy," it was perhaps a result of my own naivety that I expected my other symptoms to be treated and accommodated in school. Cerebral palsy is a “nervous disorder” beginning in the brain, and none of my body is spared from it. My hands are awful at holding small objects like sewing needles, bits of change, and, yes, pencils. But nobody makes slings for that, so the teachers who derided my limp never noticed why my essays were rushed, choppy, or never turned in. “Speaks like an adult, writes like a toddler” was the prevailing assessment for years. As a result, writing was shoved into the “passive” folder, my mental category reserved for subjects in which my ideas excelled, but my body prevented me from participating. English class was another hoop I had to jump through in order to get to a place where I didn’t have to fight my own lack of physicality. The problem with this was that my “passive” folder kept growing. Ballerina was tossed out pretty quickly of course, as was gymnast. I had known for years that I wanted to be in proximity to the apparel and accessories industry, but I couldn’t drape or sew. Writing was the only other way in I could think of, and I would never do that the normal way. What I never realized at the time was that I never had to. I was guaranteed a laptop for writing assignments by law, my former teachers just never cared to give me one. By the time I (with much coaxing) resumed attending my accommodation meetings in middle school, they were no longer the torturously futile sessions I remembered. It was now taken for granted that I deserved the tools I needed to complete assignments and my lack of ability to do so without them wasn’t a personal failing on my part. With that change, my hatred for the English language evaporated almost overnight. Where it had once been physically painful to write enough for a word count, it was now emotionally painful to cut my essays down enough. Like a man stranded on an island for too long, I found it impossible to stop the words from coming out. Everything I write still feels important because that feeling never went away. Speaking is louder in volume, but writing has an almost devious permanence. Where I once was content to appreciate pretty clothes, I now find I have to make it known if they are exclusive or unsustainable. And I am no longer afraid to do so because I know my words won’t disappear into the air even if I use abnormal tools to speak them.

For someone who has so many dreams, I have spent a strange amount of time fearing challenge and change. I have needed to be the best at everything almost as long as I have been petrified of exploring anything I cannot understand or control. Death is not an exception. As soon as it took root in my mind at age six, I resolved to forget it by avoiding the mention of it whenever possible. It took the death of one of my role models for me to realize just how much my perspective limited me. My grandmother’s viewpoint on death wildly contradicted mine. I began ruminating over death the year she turned 50, and the photos from that party speak of her thoughts with more eloquence than I ever could. Hip cocked, she gestured proudly toward her cake, a chocolate sheet with crumbled donuts for soil, green frosted grass, and a cardboard gravestone reading “RIP 50th.” She burst out laughing when the masterpiece was revealed, the glowing smile on her face long after the cameras stopped flashing. Death was inevitable, but it stayed in the back of her mind or elicited a laugh at most. She told me later that she would jump in front of a train without a second thought if it meant I could live a full life. Death was relatively painless and only happened once in a lifetime of wonderful moments. Why should she be afraid? That kind of thinking made her a woman full of stories. I avoided almost any hobby I did not immediately master to save my precious time; she got a motorcycle license just to prove she could. I gave up singing when I hit a particularly ugly note, and she became an expert at salvaging ruined dinners. I swore off drawing because I hated my stick figures and never stood up for myself. She walked on stilts and “smoked” candy cigarettes to demand more breaks at work. As a result of how regularly these stories already appeared in conversation, it took us a while to realize that they were becoming more frequent. Events that she might mention at the family reunion or the odd birthday popped up every week or multiple times a day while a phone call from yesterday slipped her mind. We were not too worried. Her stories were loved for a reason; the more, the merrier! Besides, she had suffered a stroke at 53 and was still healing. We figured she would be rattling off details like normal in no time. We were almost right, just not in the way we thought. “Lilly was always one of Warren’s favorites”, she said. “He always wanted her bassinet beside his favorite chair.” I nodded, making sure the inflection was right on my “uh huh”. She continued, “Only Lilly took his attention away from church; he always held her when it was time to kneel.” “She’s your daughter’s daughter?” I asked. “Oh yes!” she lit up. “They always looked alike. It was like watching my daughter grow up again.” The dementia never felt quite real until then. I had become used to answering questions two or three times in a row, but I never thought she would forget that I was Lilly. It took five more years for her body to give out. In those moments when death tormented me, I was always told that I would still have my memories, my identity. I thought I would still be me. But here I was, watching my grandmother lose herself. Over the years, my fear of failure had whittled my interests to nothing before I even realized it. I let it happen because remembering my failures, even on my deathbed, felt worse than the hollow life I was living. But if even my identity could fail me, what excuse did I have for not living in the present? What I have really been fighting for is a better sense of myself. Since her funeral, I have branched from writing to design. I have a folder with drawings I have kept even if I am not in love with them, and I am learning French again. Due to extenuating circumstances, this year marks my third year of college applications. I never wanted to be behind in my education, but am I too sad? No, because I now have the will to apply to schools that actually pose a challenge. I can confidently look for schools that push me down new alleys, and means I might fail. But I will also grow old while smiling at how I lived instead of mourning what I lost, and that is a fight worth the bumps and bruises along the way.

What's the difference between a fantasy and a lie? Some poor souls only perceptive to one shade of gray would tell you there is none—that lie and fantasy have as much of a distinction as burning or drowning, both of which they would endure more easily than a fiction novel or musical. How odd, then, that only a small minority of them walk through life naked. Fashion, like any form of art, has always been concerned with fantasy. The idea is to let someone be someone else, and somewhere else, for a moment. When I was younger and more mobile, I could find that feeling in the right T-shirt and skirt. I was already fighting with my dad to wear non-monochromatic color schemes when I was six. Three years later I got my hands on my first fashion magazine, and the jolt I felt reading that old issue of Seventeen has sustained me ever since. That same year I designed my own dress for my birthday, based on the ball gown from A Cinderella Story. Though I didn't get a grand entrance into a ballroom like Hillary Duff, I did get that feeling of joy again. It was when I saw the photos that something changed. I felt elegant. It never occurred to me that my shoulders were awkwardly hunched, or that my walker was blocking most of the details on my skirt. I felt fluid and graceful, not like the stiff and clumsy kid I saw when the video played back at me. It made a lot more sense then. Dress shoes made to fit my feet were impossible to find, and the elevator into most buildings was at the back, far away from that grand staircase. Because a dress is not just a dress. It's a beautiful woman walking through Central Park on a windy day, or a shipwrecked noble stitching together a party dress made from rags. It seems then that the difference between a fantasy and a lie is immersion into the story. A body like mine contributed what an author might call an underdeveloped character. If I can't walk down them, the train will not cascade down the stairs and the pearls won't fall just right, everything is a little off. That kind of image doesn't feel real on an imperfect body. It's a lie, not a fantasy. But what if feeling real isn't the point? Elsa Schiaperelli asked herself that and the result was something delightfully subversive. She didn't pad her dresses for a rounder derriere, she stuck out the ribs and the spine. Golden insects crawled across the chest and swinging acrobats held the closures in place. She created a fantasy yes, but with an imperfection and an ugliness to it. A little off, like the image I present to others. But intentionally so, and that creates an aesthetic someone like me can find a home in. I'm not going to try to assign some sort of agenda to her work. I have no reason to believe that she did it out of some sort of contemporary notion of inclusivity. But I do know that whether she did it with me in mind or not, she created something different. In a world of gray flannel suits and Letty Lynton dresses, she made something a little less perfect and there's a reassurance in that. If someone could make bugs, organs and bones into something beautiful, then maybe a girl in a wheelchair dancing the night away in a beautiful gown isn't such a far off thought after all.

"That's ridiculous, she hates those," my mother said. "She's like any other kid and wants to dress like her friends." I'll be forever grateful to her for saying this, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't surprise me. Trying to get my teachers to do the necessary work of maintaining my wheelchair was hard enough, so as soon as one of them brought up the idea of throwing out all my jeans in favor of sweatpants for the sake of easier bathroom trips, I thought I'd already lost. A wheelchair is a need, a pair of jeans is a want. As my grandmother always said, you're old enough that your wants won't hurt you. I won't say this is what ignited my love for fashion, that happened long ago. What it did was make me more bullheaded about it. My wants did matter, apart from the convenience of others, no excuses. It's great that I learned it young because I'd need it. The excuses my teachers used existed in a broader sense that I ran into every time I went shopping. "We can't make heels that fit you" "The larger zippers ruin it, learn to use the small ones" "It's accessible, of course, it's ugly. You can't have it both ways" As expressive as art wants to be, the industry has a habit of using its "not so serious" credentials to get away with lacking some of the efforts we expect from other industries. For the sake of beauty, it's so often resistant to change…or at least some of it. More often than not I've found that what we're asking for isn't new, the answer is already out there and you just need to find it. This is why I'm pursuing a career as a fashion journalist. I want to dig up all those forgotten answers. I have a small portfolio now, but the work I have focuses on what creatives have been told they can't function with: sustainability and inclusivity. If there's a brand, new technology, or unheard-of customer that might have solutions to the problems I have faced, I want to be the first to get the word out. One particular voice I've been able to identify with is Tala Raassi. I read her autobiography, Fashion Is Freedom, some years ago. While I haven't grown up under the Ayatollah regime, I can relate to the frustration of being told I can't wear something, as well as the frustration that my resistance to that is somehow frivolous. So what did I learn from her? The power of resilience and futility of excuses. I don't use the term inspirational very often, but if this woman can sell all of her possessions thrice to start the business of her dreams, Chanel can make a dress to fit someone with a colostomy bag. As trivial as the most fantastical creative works can feel, who artists depict as a part of these worlds acts as an endorsement, a ticket saying you and the values you hold are worthy of beautiful things and the effort it takes to create them. To be dressed as an equal is to be seen as one, and it's about time that applied to everyone. If I come close to creating a world like that, I'll have achieved what I wanted.

There's something wonderful about learning from someone who really understands you. Not just caring to learn your name, but your goals and dreams. Even attempting this was always a good sign in my eyes, so I was happy to fill out a lot of those "get to know you" questionnaires from my teachers. It was a nice touch, but I don't think anyone ever read them. Most teachers assumed that I would end up in whatever subject they taught. I was a writer to my English teacher, a statistician to my math teacher, and so on. The only exception was my art teacher, I imagine it would surprise her to know I'm studying fashion journalism. Really though, I suppose it's just another instance of pushing for what is unexpected and denied to me. A typical girly girl, I always had a love for a certain glamorous aesthetic, but it's difficult to push a wheelchair in a ballgown without ripping the hem. Even jeans were an issue, one of my assistant teachers wanted to throw away all my jeans in favor of elastic sweatpants. "That's ridiculous, she hates those," my mother said. "She's like any other kid and wants to dress like her friends." Mom was right, and I'll be forever grateful that she had my back that day. She had dealt with a lot of excuses in regards to my care and had developed quite the backbone against it. As I grew older, I started to notice that these same excuses existed on a wider scale, that the boxes my teachers put in applied elsewhere. "We can't make heels that fit you" "The larger zippers ruin it, learn to use the small ones" "It's accessible, of course, it's ugly. You can't have it both ways" As expressive as art wants to be, it's so often resistant to change…or at least some of it. More often than not I've found that what we're asking for isn't new, the answer is on the questionnaire and you just need to read it. What I hope to achieve as a fashion journalist then is to dig all those forgotten answers out. I have a small portfolio now, but the work I have focuses on what creatives have been told they can't function with: sustainability and inclusivity. If there's a brand, new technology, or unheard-of customer that might have solutions to the problems I have faced, I want to be the first to get the word out. We've made great progress in recent years when it comes to including all people and values in our spaces, but until we include creative industries, we're not done. After all, getting up the ramp is different from meeting the dress code to get past the door. I know what it's like to be that girl who can't get past the door, can't imagine going to a formal because I can't find dancing shoes, or because my favorite dress won't look good sitting. I know what it's like to be the person who gives up your values when shopping because your options are already so limited. As trivial as the most fantastical creative works can feel, who artists depict as a part of these worlds acts as an endorsement, a ticket saying you and the values you hold are worthy of beautiful things and the effort it takes to create them. To be dressed as an equal is to be seen as one, and it's about time that applied to everyone. If I come close to creating a world like that, I'll have achieved what I wanted.