My love for Audrey Hepburn began years ago as a young girl when I was caught by her sheer beauty. My love for fashion began to bloom in high school and I soon decided to double major in Marketing and Fashion Merchandising in college. Not sure I've ever shared this before here but honestly, my heart was much more rooted in the Textile/Fashion/Design department than in the Business department. But at that point in time it seemed the common sense thing to do was to get that Business Degree because after all, it was a lot more practical I suppose. I spent hours and hours as a college student in what was called at that time the Home Economics Department. I loved it there. I loved walking into the building and being confronted with the rich mixture of fabric and food smells (the Culinary Arts majors fell under the same degree umbrella). Weird maybe, but it was my comfort zone. I loved the professors there (most of them were women). I felt at home there. And now as I look back on my life, it makes perfect sense that I did.
(Why do I have tears in my eyes right now? I have no idea. Maybe I'm just nostalgic about my college days and all the opportunities that were open to me back then. Maybe it's because I'm remembering my precious daddy staying up with me every night while I studied. I would come home on weekends to study because we all know that it's pretty difficult to stay on campus and get anything done. My daddy never went to bed before I did if I were up studying or working on a project. Or maybe I'm crying because I'm hormonal. Or maybe I'm all three.)
Anyway, while working on my Fashion Merchandising degree, I began to research and follow Audrey and her classic style. To this classic/timeless/traditional-fashion type girl, Audrey was perfection. The first time I studied her fashion choices in the Tiffany's movie, I was awestruck. I loved it. I wanted to copy it. I wanted to look like her. But apparently I was born in the wrong era because this was the late 70s and we all know what the fashion looked like in the 70s. And it just didn't align with Audrey's classic 60's style at that time. But I didn't care and everything I created I would run through the filter of "is this something Audrey would wear?" And if the answer was yes, I would submit those designs. Apparently, it wasn't a bad idea. I had pretty good success with it.
After I graduated and even though I didn't work in the fashion industry, I still continued to follow Audrey. But now what appealed to me even beyond her beauty and style, was how she used her influence and resources to help others. She traveled all over the world helping children in the poorest of nations. A lot of her work was through UNICEF who appointed her their Goodwill Ambassador. Particularly close to her heart were the issues of immunizations for children and the purification of drinking water in countries such as Ethiopia, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Somalia. Something you may not know is that in 1992 President George H.W. Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work with UNICEF. She passed away the following year at the age of 63.
So this woman was an inspiration to me on several levels. I want to share one of my absolute favorite quotes and so appropriately for me, it came from Audrey.
I believe in pink.
I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.
I believe in kissing; kissing a lot.
I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong.
I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls.
I believe that tomorrow is another day and
I believe in miracles.
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