What I learned from Influence by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen

On the small list of celebrities I admired, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are somewhere in the middle. Before you left a particularly nasty comment and left my site, thinking I'm about to cook up some sort of typical bullshit story about how they changed my style forever blah blah blah and how they became my style icon, I think I should explain.

Note: I've notice there's a certain stereotype going on in the fashion blogosphere and we had to like the style of MKA, Kate Moss, Alexa Chung and other celebrities. Since stereotypes are created to be broken, I'm determined not to post all the celebrity styles on here.

A week ago, I received a tweet from Net-a-Porter mentioning that I won the giveaway of Mary-Kate and Ashley's book Influence. I was fairly excited because I was running out of coffee table books for inspiration, and was always meaning to check the book out but never got the chance too. But my relationships with any books associated with celebrities/magazines always ending up having the same fate: I hate them all. Usually, X celebrity/magazine paid Y writer to "finish" Z book. Just like a algebraic equation. And my impressions that all celebrities are arrogant, money-sucking prats doesn't help either. But flipping through Influence is quite a different experience(don't laugh, I KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO) I was expecting endless pictures and short interviews, but instead pages upon pages full of columns and columns of small text jump out at me, inviting me to explore the broad world of artists and designers. I'm currently intrigued by Bob Colacello, George Condo and Richard Prince. Their work would put many mainstream artists today to shame.

5 things I've learned reading Influence

1. Instead of reading endless references of your favourite photographer, just grab a camera and start taking pictures. Learn the technics and skills along the way, your point of view and niche will develop slowly. You are never to young or too old to do what you love, just get start. Time's a bitch and before you know it, you're 33, living in your mum's basement and still obsessed with that picture of Kate Moss with lights between her legs. (here.) 
2. "In compromising your vision, you give up on your integrity and individuality." I tweeted that earlier today while thinking about bloggers with campaigns and promotions for fashion brands. Funny enough, now I quoted Terry Richardson ",You try not to compromise, but I think the key is if you do something and you feel good about it, no matter what it it, that's the greatest satisfaction - to do something and be proud of it." and later on "You'd like to think that everything will be how you want it to be, and you wouldn't compromise, but the minute you say yes to something, that's a compromise. The minute you start to work with other people, you're compromising, because when there are other people involved in your vision, it becomes different." Rephrasing my tweet, it turned into "Don't lose your vision while compromising, otherwise your individuality is lost."
3. You don't do something to impress other people, you do them to please yourself. The ability to impress can only go so far if no passion is involved. If you put energy and time into something, people take notice and give you the attention you deserve.
4. Be revolutionary, but still study the trends and influences in the past and present. How can you rebel against something you don't understand? Study them and add your own take to it, don't be a rebel without a cause(that is pointless in a way) Besides, if everyone has a similar vision and approach, that can be quite boring, wouldn't it?
5. You really need to love what you are doing. I started blogging because I want to work in fashion later on in my life, and blogging had introduce me to a world I never thought existed. I saw a lot of bloggers who are only doing it for the fame, and it shows through with several posts a day, lack of good content and quality and no individuality at all. You need to go to sleep and can't wait to wake up  because your job is what you love doing, whether it is photography, blogging, designing, illustrating or writing. "You have to take time off if you have a boring job. But my job is perfect. what I like about the job is the job." said Karl Lagerfeld. You really need to love it, and believe in it. 

What coffee table books do you find inspiring, and what are your favourites? Now that I finished with Influence(in 2 days I like to add)......

Shoutout to mint maison(my writing style is turning quite like a typical Tumblrer) and thank you for your new post! I'm glad you appreciate my blog and your comments are quite interesting.