Previously, I asked you about your comfort zone. I’ll begin with mine and how I stepped out of my comfort zone in 2017, when I began a gap year in India. How did I get into this? The plot line is easy to miss! I just got out of university, when I found myself working in a department store in London. As a dyslexic reading a degree in Development Economics, it felt like I was running into a brick wall each day and didn’t have the courage to apply for any other job than something I was way overqualified for. I could not take any more defeat at that stage.
While I greatly enjoyed advising customers and learning the ins and out of British customer service, a friend kindly reminded me of my ambition to spend my gap year in India. An idea I had pushed to back of my mind then because it threw up way too many questions and uncalculatable risks. Yet, I quit my job almost on the spot and booked a return flight to India, stretching over three months that I would spend in South Asia.
It was my second time in India. During my first trip I travelled along the golden triangle and played bodyguard for a friend who I actually had anticipated to be my bodyguard. Well, sometimes things turn out differently to one’s expectations, which is also what happened, when I unknowingly watched a movie screening at Uni in 2015.
‘The True Cost’ is a documentary about the life of garment workers. And it is what ultimately made me decide to get into the fashion industry to create the change I want to see in the world. Through the movie I found out that this highly adaptable industry is always happy to adapt and change and has simultaneously a huge potential for doing things in a more sustainable and a fairer way. It is owned mainly be men, like most industries are, yet it employs a large proportion of females.
