The Outsider Advantage

1

Harness the Power of
What's in Your Closet

Affirmation
I have untapped power

In 2012, when I moved to Los Angeles with nothing but the clothes on my back, I realized the American dream was bullshit.

The idea that there was a level playing field of opportunity and because of that I could accomplish what anyone else could felt impossible to wrap my mind around as I sat on my roommate's couch, stomach churning. My head throbbed. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten. Coffee could hold a person for only so long. I eyed the ten-dollar bill in my purse. I skimmed the top shelf where my roommate kept her food. My shelf, below it, was bare. It was late summer and I-the first college graduate in my family-was bumming it rent-free on the couch in a friend of a friend's one-bedroom apartment. Several weeks earlier I'd bought a one-way ticket from Houston. My plan was simple: get an entry-level job in public relations. But, several weeks later, I still had nothing to show for myself.

I'd just turned on the faucet when a key slipped in the door. Stacy, my roommate, strode in.

"Hey," I said.

"So?"

My brow cinched in confusion.

"Look, Ciera, you're my girl but I need you to start helping me pay the rent."

My heart knocked against my ribs. I swallowed, on edge at the exasperated bite in her tone. "I'm trying to find something."

"I know, but . . ." She scrubbed a palm down her face. "I need half by the end of the month or I gotta find someone else to take your place." She walked past me into her room while I stood there, shocked. Before she closed her bedroom door, she tucked her lips in a sympathetic smile. "Girl, I can't afford this place on my own. I need you to find a way." The door closed.

The world tipped sideways. It was the fourth of August. Half of the rent was one thousand dollars. I had ten dollars. Her words replayed in my head over and over. I gulped down a dry breath, trying to slow my racing pulse. How was I going to get that much money? That fast? This was Stacy's place. She'd moved to Los Angeles from Houston years before I had. This wasn't personal. She couldn't carry me. Nor did I expect her to. When Stacy offered me her couch, I agreed to cover part of the rent. Now I actually had to do it . . . in less than a month.

I fell back onto "my" couch and checked my phone to see if there were any side job postings I'd missed. Since my PR job applications had gotten zero bites, I started taking styling gigs to make a little cash. But swiping through that day, there was nothing new posted and no job application responses in my email.

Twenty-six days.

One thousand dollars.

Or I would be homeless again.

This time in a city where I knew no one.


Uprooting myself to move to Los Angeles was an impossible decision, but when Houston began to feel like being on a hamster wheel, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore-staying there was a dead end. I remember one interview in the late afternoon at a hotel in southwest Houston. I dressed in a mismatched skirt suit with a low-cut, ‘70s-style blazer. The skirt was dark blue and a bit worn at the hem. The blazer was gray with black stitching. It wasn’t designer or even department store, but it’s what I had. Beneath the blazer was a basic black top. I’d found the whole ensemble at a thrift store for a few bucks. I got all my clothes, for as long as I could remember, from thrift stores because they were cheaper than Walmart and Kmart. But as soon as I sat down, the hiring manager’s gaze darted from my face to my outfit. The mood at the table shifted. She smiled, tucking a strand of blond hair behind her ear. I was applying for an entry-level corporate position, but she looked at me as if my attire suggested I was applying for a part-time job at Hot Topic. (No shade to Hot Topic. I look back on my goth phase with glee.) After introductions, she dove straight in.

"You don't have any experience working in hotels?"

"I don't." I've never even stayed in one, I thought.

"Well." She cleared her throat. "Tell me a bit about what you could bring to a marketing position here." She narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. I could feel the conclusion she'd already drawn in her head about me. I wasn't getting this job. Just like I hadn't gotten the dozen others I'd interviewed for weeks before. It appeared I had two choices: refuse to waste my time and walk straight out of that hotel and not look back, or go through the motions, clinging to hope that this time I would be wrong. I sat up in my seat, looked her right in the eye and said, "I know how to convince people to spend money better than anyone."

She met my eyes. I had her attention now.

"It's all about messaging. A brand makes a promise to a potential customer. Anyone who sees this place or visits your website should get the impression that staying here is an experience they crave."

"Anyone?" Her brow raised. "Our target mark-"

"Your market is bigger than you think. Whether someone has the money to stay here isn't relevant. If people want something bad enough, they'll find the money. You're missing an entire segment of income if you're only marketing to those who can afford you."

Her stare roved my resume again. "And how do you know all this?"

I eyed my watch. That question was presumptuous and disrespectful. Why did the how matter? I cleared my throat, warring with how honest to be. How much of me to let her see. Perhaps I hadn't shown enough of myself in other interviews? I sat straighter and met her eyes, rubbing my clammy hands on my skirt. Here goes nothing.

"I'm . . . innovative and clever."

Her lips pursed.

"For example." I leaned in. "After this interview, I'm taking a gentleman, to a strip club where I have an agreement in place with a group of strippers to ensure he spends an exorbitant amount of money on them. Afterward, the girls and I split the proceeds fifty-fifty."

She guffawed; her cheeks flushed. The rest of the interview was lackluster. I didn't get the job, big surprise. The rejection email was something about how I lacked traditional marketing experience. They encouraged me to reapply after I'd done a few internships. I don't know if she believed my strip club hustle or not, but I wasn't lying. I'd done it a handful of times when I was desperate for cash. After college, I made money however I could because I was stubborn, resourceful, creative, hardworking-and broke. (Not the kind of broke where I can't splurge on my favorite wine once a month. I'm talking about the kind of broke where hot water is how you lull your empty stomach to sleep.)

My inability to find a job in Houston wasn't for lack of trying or laziness. There was a lack of opportunity for someone like me, with a degree but no experience in the industry I wanted to go into. I'd expanded my search from top PR firms to companies with any sort of marketing department. If they had a job listing, I was applying. After a while, if the job posting for a business position even mentioned the words "entry level," I clicked apply. But like the hotel interview, they all wanted internship experience. In 2012, most internships were unpaid. Those that did offer pay usually offered a small stipend, but they required long hours, making it difficult to have a job as well.

I didn't have the privilege of working for free.

Because I needed to work to eat.

While in college in Houston, I worked different jobs, styling people with their own wardrobes, delivering items, helping out at a retail store for a few hours each week, and hosting at a nightclub. I took whatever work I could find while carrying a full academic course load and maintaining straight As. But I never accumulated enough cash to do anything besides pay rent and utilities, keep my cell phone on, and help my mom with whatever she might need. I juggled ten thousand balls as a full-time student, assuming that once I walked across that graduation stage, things would be different. I dreamed of finding a job that suited my natural talents. I was good at marketing. Instinctually. But here I was, months after graduating, degree in hand, and being turned down at yet another job interview. Forced to rely on stretching cash from my side hustles. This wasn't the life I wanted. The idea of college had been shoved down my throat by every guidance counselor, community group leader, and teacher for as long as I could remember. I followed the steps, graduated with a perfect grade point average, and it amounted to nothing more for me than dead-end jobs and no time (or energy) left to build anything sustaining. I did all the firstborn things and yet this American dream I'd been promised was ever elusive.

So I set my sights on LA, hoping to find a PR job that better aligned with my skills and actual experience, which was in the fashion industry: working retail, styling wardrobes, buying for stores, and vintage thrifting. Los Angeles was the fashion mecca, so I thought I might have a better shot at landing something there. I knew I could pick up small jobs to sustain myself if needed, as I had in Houston. I had nothing to lose in moving. I packed a small bag, told my mom goodbye, and stuffed all the money I had into my pocket-two hundred dollars. When the plane took off, I could hear the whir of the wheels folding up. The plane bobbed in the air and for a moment I felt weightless, as if I didn't have a care in the world. I imagined myself, arms stretched wide, flying with my own wings to a new future in a new place where I could marry my knack for fashion and my dream of working in PR. For a moment, I was full of hope. Until I wasn't.


Soon after I arrived in Los Angeles, I realized my college degree wasn’t a magical key that opened a bunch of doors in this city either. None of the jobs I applied for were calling me back. The meager money I did manage to make was from meeting up with aspiring photographers and helping put together their models’ outfits. But styling gigs didn’t pay much. Less than a hundred dollars here and there, maybe. To be clear, I wasn’t a high-maintenance, disillusioned, bratty twenty-two-year-old looking for the job of my dreams to snatch me up with nothing to offer in return. I had skills to offer, I wanted to make money, and I was going to take whatever job I could find to get me there, no matter how hard I’d have to grind. I was no stranger to hard work, overwork, impossible work, uncomfortable work. I was-and still am-the hardest-working person I know.

But as I sat on Stacy's couch, two months in, all I could think about was the collection of nos I'd gotten there. I'd been turned down for job after job in Los Angeles as well. And here I had no strip club connection, no retail store or club front to work in. My styling cash wasn't enough. Just like being the first in my family to graduate from college wasn't enough. Being a model student and child, despite home and food insecurity, wasn't enough. The work experience I did have wasn't enough. Doing all the things I was supposed to do on paper wasn't enough to create a good start or any sort of real sense of success in my life. It was beginning to feel like I wasn't enough. The walls felt like they were closing in. What did I have to show for any of the things I'd accomplished? A borrowed couch, good marketing instincts, a brain brimming with ideas, and a closet full of cute clothes that I'd thrifted?

I'd tried everything, I thought.

But I was wrong.

Just then, my Instagram pinged. I had a comment on a photo I'd posted of me in a cute thrifted outfit. Suddenly a memory of working part-time for my mother at a thrift store she started while I was in college tugged at me like an anchor.

Once a customer came into the store looking for something to wear to a concert. She wanted something unique that no one else would be seen in. Mom was on a phone call, so I helped her. The customer was tall with narrow hips and a flat chest. She wanted something to accentuate the little curves she had. I pulled out a man's button-down dress shirt and laid it to the side.

"You don't want to look like you're in a costume," I told her. She watched with her eyes wide as I draped her in a fur vest before tossing it and trying a black sequin top. Then swapping that for a sequin dress instead. This dress had a little more stretch in the fabric. It was bright blue and, depending on the light, the sequins would shine green. But because of how tightly it was stitched, it wasn't as gaudy as the bright pink. I held it up to her. Sometimes I had to just see it to know it would look right.

"Put this dress on over that shirt," I said, gesturing to the button-down I had pulled out earlier.

"Over? As in, on top?" She blinked.

"Yep."

She sized me up, eyed my own clothes, and took a deep breath, deciding to trust me. When she put the dress on, I adjusted the way it hung on her, flaring the bottom and widening the collar so it showed a bit of her skin. Not only did she buy that outfit, but she bought boots to go with it. The shirt had a vintage flair that could be played up or down. But the dress gave it a more modern appeal.

Ultimately, though, she bought it because she saw unique pieces reworked to create something fresh, different, new. Something no one else would be wearing. That's what I'd created for her. That's what she wanted. That's what Mom's store was selling-an experience of stepping out somewhere and knowing no one will look like you.